September 28, 2022
I’m Dr. Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Health Research. We scrutinize the safety and effectiveness of medical and consumer products, and we don’t accept funding from companies that make those products. Our largest program is focused on cancer prevention and treatment. My expertise is based on post-doc training in epidemiology and public health, and my previous positions at HHS and as a faculty member and researcher at Harvard and Yale.
Thank you all for the important work you’ve been doing and will be doing on this Advisory Council. As a public health person, I’ve always been surprised at the lack of other public health advocates who are active on environmental issues and environmental justice issues, and I want to offer to be helpful in any way that would be useful to all of you. We all know that lives are at stake.
I want to comment very briefly on the PFAS recommendations, since that’s an issue we’ve worked on for years. Let me add that we are very concerned about all endocrine disrupting chemicals not just PFAS.
Everything I heard about PFAS this afternoon was inspiring and important. I would just suggest that it’s a huge task, and I encourage you to start a little smaller in order to succeed in educating the public and especially environmental justice communities and at the same time focus on actions that are doable, that will inspire others, and that will make change happen.