Conference Examines Impact of DDT
An international organization with members from more than 50
countries has added its co-sponsorship to the Eugene Kenaga
International DDT Conference on Environment and Health, which will take
place March 14 at Alma College.
The International Society for Environmental Epidemiology joins the Alma
College Center for Responsible Leadership, the Pine River Superfund
Task Force, and the Ohio Valley Chapter of the Society for
Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry as co-sponsors for the
conference that will examine the impact of DDT on human health and the
environment.
More than 50 national scholars, students and other participants have
registered for the conference. The registration deadline is March 1,
2008. Check the DDT Website for registration information.
"This conference has grown from three related developments: the
on-going massive remediation of contamination arising from DDT
production in St. Louis, Mich., recent efforts to undermine
international restrictions on DDT use, and Alma College's long-time
emphasis and focus on environmental health," said Edward Lorenz, Public
Affairs director and faculty member at Alma College.
Alma College students and faculty began planning the conference after
becoming aware of a campaign by special interest groups that questions
the national and international restrictions on the use of DDT, said
Lorenz.
Participants include international experts in the areas of public
health and the environment, including South African scholars Riana
Bornman, Tiaan de Jager and Henk Bouwman; Aimin Chen of Creighton
University; Barbara Cohn and Brenda Eskenazi of the University of
California at Berkeley; Amy Dailey of the University of Florida;
Suzanne Snedeker of Cornell University; Darwin Stapleton of the
Rockefeller Archive Center; and John Giesy of the University of
Saskatchewan.
Dailey, a 1997 Alma College graduate, will present a luncheon speech on
community involvement in public health. Giesy, Canada Research Chair
and a world-renowned expert in industrial pollutants and their effects
on the environment, is a 1970 graduate of Alma College.
DDT, or Dichloro-Dephenyl-Trichloroethane, is a synthetic pesticide
that was used as an agricultural insecticide in the 1950s and '60s.
Concerns regarding its effect on human health eventually rose in the
1960s, and most uses of DDT were banned in the United States in the
1970s.
The conference is named after Kenaga, a former national DDT scholar and
research scientist with the Dow Chemical Company who died in 2007. In
1968 he served on an advisory panel for Michigan Gov. George Romney
that recommended the restricted use of DDT in the state. He was one of
the founders of the International Society of Environmental Toxicology
and Chemistry (SETAC) and served on a variety of EPA advisory panels.
Posted: Thu, February 14th, 2008 at 12:37AM
