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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.

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Thirty-four percent of Alma students participate in intercollegiate athletics. Alma College competes at the NCAA Division III level as a member of the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association, the oldest existing athletic conference in the nation.

 

Student Profile

Drew Emge

Drew Emge
Graduation: 2009
Major: POE: International Health
From: Bay City
Interests: Health Professions, Community Service

A Truman Scholarship finalist and Center for Responsible Leadership Fellow, Drew has traveled to South Africa and China studying the HIV/AIDS crisis. The Bay City native intends to use his French minor and POE in International Health to improve AIDS care in Africa, hopefully as a physician with a global public health organization.