"Breakthrough Environmental Health Issues at the National Level."

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) has been a vigorous supporter of research that defines how environmental exposures, such as those from farming, affect human health. The NIEHS research portfolio investigates not only how environmental exposures act, but also how individuals differ in their susceptibilities to these exposures and how these susceptibilities change with age. The NIEHS has National Environmental Health Research Centers at the University of California at Davis and at the University of Iowa that are actively engaged in examining health effects of pesticides and other agricultural exposures in their communities. The NIEHS has also partnered with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to create Childrens' Environmental Health and Disease Prevention and Research Centers to explore the special vulnerabilities of children to environmental exposures; three of these focus specifically on pesticide and agricultural exposures in children. NIEHS is collaborating with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) on a large Agricultural Health Study. Although originally intended to assess cancer risks in farmers, the NIEHS was able to expand this study to include the spouses and children of the farmers, to include a multitude of non-cancer health endpoints, and to enlarge the enrollment of minorities. Through this study the NIEHS hopes to assess the effects of exposures to pesticides, nitrates and other water contaminants, animals, and endotoxins. Endpoints of interest to the NIEHS include juvenile diabetes, birth defects, pregnancy complications, birthweight, eye diseases, respiratory illness, neurological diseases, and autoimmune disorders. This work will be relevant not only to farmers, but to the surrounding community who experience many of these exposures, although at lower levels.