4122.0: Tuesday, October 23, 2001: 12:30 PM-2:00 PM | ||||
Oral Session | ||||
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| This session examines conflicts over contested environmental illness – diseases and conditions that engender major scientific disputes and extensive public debates over environmental causes. This includes specific diseases/conditions such as asthma, breast cancer, other cancers, and Gulf War-related illnesses, as well as the hazards of practices such as massive pesticide spraying for West Nile Virus. Good science alone is insufficient, as we have learned from the long history of tobacco and lung cancer. A broadly acceptable social definition, a new consensus by experts, and often a social movement, is necessary to achieve a belief in the existence of the disease and its social/environmental causation. This often occurs as exposed and/or ill people make their issue into a public problem by identifying the disease and its social origin, organizing collective action to seek redress, and mobilizing political allies. In the process, laypeople and scientists often engage in “citizen-science alliances” that may help frame and conduct research that challenges the “dominant epidemiological paradigm.” These alliances address social justice issues, while posing alternatives to many traditional canons of scientific approaches. The goal of this session is to foster a new awareness of the political, economic, social scientific, and conceptual/theoretical factors that lead to disease recognition and to research in environmental causation. | ||||
| See individual abstracts for presenting author's disclosure statement. | ||||
| Learning Objectives: Refer to the individual abstracts for learning objectives | ||||
| Phil Brown, PhD | ||||
| The Shotgun wedding of science, law and public policy: Environmental Health Devra Davis, MPH, PhD | ||||
| Citizens, scientists, and government working to improve the knowledge base for environmental health Richard J. Jackson, MD, PhD | ||||
| Popular Epidemiology In Contaminated Communities Richard Clapp, MPH, DSc, Richard Clapp, MPH, DSc | ||||
| The Precautionary Principle in practice: Action on West Nile Virus and other issues Joel Tickner, ScD | ||||
| Gulf War illnesses - toxics, stress, and other approaches to mysterious ailments Phil Brown, PhD, Steve Zavestoski, PhD, Sabrina McCormick, MA, Joshua Mandelbaum, Theo Luebke, Meadow Linder, Brian Mayer | ||||
| Sponsor: | Environment | |||
| Cosponsors: | Epidemiology; Occupational Health and Safety; Public Health Nursing; Socialist Caucus | |||
| CE Credits: | CME, Environmental Health, Health Education (CHES), Nursing, Pharmacy, Social Work | |||