Source: RISK newsletter,
Second Quarter 1996, published by the Society for Risk Analysis
Chicago Regional Chapter has a World Wide Web site that provides information about the chapter, including its scheduled events, mission statement, committees, and membership list; the chapter’s newsletter issues; and a list of suggested Internet sites. The site’s uniform resource locator (URL) is http://www.ead.anl.gov/~web/sra/index.html.
East Tennessee Chapter has elected new officers for 1996. The new president, F. Owen Hoffman of SENES Oak Ridge Inc., spoke on “The Role of Uncertainty Analysis in Dose Reconstruction and Risk Assessment” at the chapter’s meeting in April.
Lone Star Chapter held a meeting in February in Houston with 19 attendees, who discussed goals for the revived chapter and plans to expand membership involvement statewide. In addition, Stephanie Norman, the director of library services for the University of Texas School of Public Health, made a presentation on “Using Internet Resources to Access Risk Assessment Information.” The chapter also met in April at Texas A&M University in College Station. Stephen Safe of the university’s Department of Veterinary Physiology and Pharmacology spoke on “Environmental Estrogens.”
Metropolitan Chapter cosponsored a three-hour evening seminar in April on “Emerging Microbial Threats: Public Policy Implications” with Rockefeller University, the New York Academy of Medicine, the Pan American Health Organization, and the U.S. Pharmaceuticals Group of Pfizer Inc. The chapter’s past president, Miriam de Salegui, organized the event, which featured the following speakers and their topics: Joshua Lederburg of Rockefeller University, “Newly Emerging Viruses”; Alexander Tomasz of Rockefeller University, “Emerging Microbial Drug Resistance”; and Laurie Garrett, health and science writer for Newsday and New York Newsday, “Waiting for the Next Outbreak: Will We Have a Stitch in Time?” In addition, Stephen S. Morse of Rockefeller University, James M. Hughes, M.D., of the National Center for Infectious Diseases, and Marcelle C. Layton, M.D., of the New York City Department of Health’s Bureau of Communicable Diseases presented international, national, and local perspectives, respectively, on “Timely Management of the Risks: What We Need and What It Will Cost.”
New England Chapter departed from its monthly meeting format, which usually features two speakers, to hold a poster session in April for members to display their work. More than 25 members of the chapter and the local organization which regularly meets with them, the Boston Risk Assessment Group, presented posters and interacted with over 100 who attended the session. Camp Dresser & McKee Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, hosted the event.
Northern California Chapter held its 1996 elections. The newly elected officers include the president-elect, Stephen L. Brown of Risks of Radiation and Chemical Compounds (R2C2) in Oakland, California. The chapter president is William S. Pease of the University of California’s School of Public Health, Berkeley.
Ohio Chapter held a half-day seminar in February at Wright State University. Hosting the event were Robert Koerker of the university and its Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, which also cosponsored the seminar with the university’s Institute for Environmental Quality and the Foster Wheeler Environmental Corporation. More than 110 persons attended the three seminar presentations. Captain Wade Weisman of the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Toxicological Division, who chairs the Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons Criteria Working Group, discussed the progress in establishing health risk-based methodologies for defining acceptable cleanup strategies for soil contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons. Jeffrey Fisher of the same division, who is the principal investigator of the trichloroethylene (TCE) cancer assessment project, reviewed the progress to date on the reevaluation of the metabolism and mechanisms of action of TCE in the body. Rita Schoney of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Center for Environmental Assessment, Cincinnati, reviewed EPA’s efforts to revise the Guidelines for Cancer Risk Assessment and the likely impact on the weight-of-evidence classification scheme, dose-response data evaluation, and the form of the agency’s communication of toxicological information.
Philadelphia Chapter met in April at the University of Pennsylvania Faculty Club to hear Peter Montague, co-founder and director of the Environmental Research Foundation in Annapolis, Maryland. He spoke on “Uses and Misuses of Risk Assessment in Decision Making.”
Research Triangle Chapter met in February. Jonathan B. Wiener, an associate professor of law at Duke University, spoke on “Risk – Risk Tradeoffs” and also addressed the status of regulatory reform legislation in the U.S. Congress. He and SRA President John D. Graham edited the recently published book Risk vs. Risk: Tradeoffs in Protecting Health and Environmental Protection (Harvard University Press). In March, the chapter meeting featured Chris L. Waller of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, who discussed “The Role of Computational Chemistry in the Hazard Identification Process.” At an April meeting, Hugh A. Barton of ICF Kaiser International spoke on “Noncancer Risk Assessment for Trichloroethylene: Making Choices in Developing Dose-Response Values.” The chapter’s president-elect for 1996 is Bruce Allen of ICF Kaiser International.
Southern California Chapter held its ninth annual
workshop and meeting in May at the University of Southern
California. The workshop’s two sessions focused on
“Current Issues in Risk Management and Human Health.”
In the first session, the speakers presented techniques useful in
risk assessment, as follows: Robin Keller of the University of
California, Irvine, “Applications of Multi-Attribute Utility
for Decision Analysis”; Michael V. Frank of Safety Factor
Associates, “The Analytic Hierarchy Process for Risk
Management”; David Johnson of PLG Inc., “How To
Calculate Uncertainty and Communicate It for Decision
Making”; and Mary F. McDaniel of Unocal Corporation,
“How To Develop a Five-Part Answer to Tough Questions.”
In the second session, a regulatory forum, Sandra Connor of the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, San Francisco, addressed
the new EPA Risk Management Plan Regulations, and Melanie Marty
of the California Air Resources Board spoke on the new Air Toxics
Risk Assessment Guidelines. Remaining copies of the workshop
proceedings will be distributed at the SRA Annual Meeting in New
Orleans. For more information about the chapter, visit its Web
site at http://users.aol.com/scsra.