This is the first call in a series of calls on endocrine disrupting chemicals. Dr. Rodney Dietert discussed how the immune system is a target for endocrine disrupting chemicals, particularly during development. Numerous relatively ‘hidden’ effects can ensue from a single risk factor and emerge over a lifetime. He also discussed how current safety testing fails to appropriately assess misregulated inflammation as the greatest immune based health risk.
Featured Speaker
Rodney Dietert, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Cornell University. He received the Bachelor of Science degree in zoology from Duke University in 1974 and his doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin in 1977. Dr. Dietert has been director of graduate studies for the graduate field of immunology, senior fellow in the Center for the Environment, director of the Institute for Comparative and Environmental Toxicology, director of the Program on Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors and president of the Immunotoxicology Specialty Section of the Society of Toxicology. His research on immunotoxicology has been supported by the NSF, the USDA, the NIH and industry.
His research and public health interests concern the protection of children from immune dysfunction-based chronic diseases. This includes 1) the study of developmental immunotoxicity of environmental chemicals and drugs and the adverse outcomes that result, 2) identification of patterns of interlinked chronic diseases, 3) improved approaches for immunotoxicity testing to protect against chronic diseases, 4) application of fractal biology to the assessment of immune status, and 5) intervention strategies that can reduce the risk of chronic disease comorbidities during aging.
The call was moderated by Sharyle Patton, director of the Biomonitoring Resource Center at Commonweal in Bolinas, CA.
This half-hour teleconference call is one in a monthly series sponsored by the Collaborative on Health and the Environment’s EDC Strategies Group, chaired by Carol Kwiatkowski (TEDX), Sharyle Patton (Commonweal), and Genon Jensen (HEAL). To see a full list of past calls in the series and listen to the MP3 recordings please visit the CHE Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals webpage.