"Toxicology Is a Political Science"

In September 2007, an array of prominent environmental health scientists and activists was called to testify before Congress. Seated before the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House of Representative's Committee on Oversight and Government Reform were Samuel Wilson, then acting Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), George Lucier, former Director of the National Toxicology Program (NTP), Lynn Goldman, a professor of environmental health science at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, Peggy Shepard, the Executive Director of the EJ group West Harlem Environmental Action (WEACT), and Stefani Hines, a member of the National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences Council (NAEHSC). The question before them was no less than whether the NIEHS was fulfilling its public health mission. Specifically under scrutiny was "a new set of research priorities" at the NIEHS, which had been implemented by its recently departed Director, David Schwartz. The chairman of the subcommittee opened the hearing with two questions: "At what cost has come Dr. Schwartz's new direction for the NIEHS?" and "Should the new NIEHS research directions and priorities ... continue?" (US GPO 2007: 2).

Particularly at stake in the hearing was the boundary between biomedicine, with its focus on curing disease in individuals, and public health, with its focus on population-based disease prevention. In fact, the focal concern of the subcommittee was whether the NIEHS was becoming too biomedical in its orientation and thereby failing to meet its public health mandate. In his opening comments, the subcommittee chair expressed concern about the shifting of "significant resources toward research that was clinical in nature and which focused on discoveries that would contribute to treating or curing disease once a patient was already afflicted" (US GPO 2007: 1). In advance of this hearing, the staff of the subcommittee had "performed its own analysis of the NIEHS' new research direction and priorities" and reached the conclusion that the public health focus of the NIEHS was being replaced with "programs of a clinical nature" (US GPO 2007: 2).

During the hearing, the speakers used a series of contrasts to distinguish the NIEHS and the NTP in particular, as well as the environmental health sciences more broadly, from the clinical focus of most biomedical research. To begin, in contrast to research that focuses on clinical treatments, the environmental health sciences focus on disease prevention: "NIEHS is the only institute with a primary mission of public health, rather than clinical medicine ..." (US GPO 2007: 69). In contrast to research that is oriented to the development of new drugs or medical treatments, the environmental health sciences inform public policy, "mak[ing] major impacts on human health through research translation to public policy, not to the bedside" (US GPO 2007: 69). In contrast to research that is individually oriented, the environmental health sciences contribute to protecting the health of the population, serving as "the source of key information regarding the health impacts of pollution ... used daily in setting protective federal, state, and local policies, in arguing for the protection of children, the elderly, and our communities" (US GPO 2007: 77). In contrast to research that is defined by a specific disease or organ, the environmental health sciences investigate environmental exposures which affect multiple bodily systems and are associated with myriad diseases: "Every disease has an environmental component, thus NIEHS's responsibilities encompass all human diseases, rather than following the more common model of focus on a specific disease or organ system" (US GPO 2007: 26). In contrast to research that can be accomplished in laboratory and clinical settings alone, the environmental health sciences engage with affected communities and must consider their concerns: "We must be productively linked to our constituents ... to fulfill the promise of our mission" (US GPO 2007: 29). Again, the boundary between biomedicine and public health was a focal concern, as speakers emphasized that "prevention and environmental intervention represent the most effective and efficient ways to improve human health, and this core principle should not be lost in favor of technical, individually oriented medical solutions" (US GPO 2007: 72).

Given the preventive and public health focus of the scientists testifying before the panel, their comments regarding molecular genetics and genomics were quite striking. Genetics has most often been associated with exactly the technical, clinical, individually oriented biomedical approaches that scientists described as what the environmental health sciences are not. However, in their testimonies before Congress, these speakers highlighted molecular genetic approaches as a promising solution to the ongoing and seemingly intractable problems confronted by scientists who seek to explicate relationships between environments, human bodies, and health and illness. Repeatedly, in their description of the agenda of the NIEHS, they asserted powerfully the importance of "new opportunities in science" (US GPO 2007: 23), particularly in molecular genetics and genomics, for environmental health research. Goldman described the NIEHS as "positioned to harness the next generation of scientific advances, such as in molecular biology and genetics, in the service of advancing environmental health sciences" (US GPO 2007: 70). Wilson explicitly connected molecular genetics research to the public health mission of the NIEHS, stating, "Our understanding of how the environment operates at the molecular level can also provide insights on interventions and early markers for disease ..." and emphasizing the importance of evaluating how "emerging technologies can be used to enhance public health prevention strategies" (US GPO 2007: 21, 28, emphasis added). Lucier highlighted the importance of "technological innovations and molecular biology" for the NTP. Likewise, Hines emphasized the importance of approaches that would "bring environmental health research out of the sidelines where it consists only of testing chemicals for toxicity into a more mainstream role where research would investigate how environmental agents contribute to specific diseases that impact public health on a large scale" (US GPO 2007: 79–80).

What can we learn from this hearing? First, the major institutions of environmental health research must answer to Congress for their actions. They are accountable, particularly, for their contributions to public health policy. Their funding depends on meeting their missions and mandates, as understood by politicians in Congress. Second, and related, the environmental...