Getting a more complete picture of how toxins in the environment affect human health

UC Science Today

Every year, more than 25 thousand pounds of chemicals are imported or manufactured in the United States, but scientists have very little data on many of those chemicals’ heath effects. Tracy Woodruff, an environmental health scientist at the University of California, San Francisco, explains. "We do know a lot about some environmental chemicals, so air pollution, cigarette smoke, some carcinogens and chemicals that cause effects other than cancer. There is still a lot of scientific knowledge to be gained about any of the industrial chemicals that we are using currently in the market place and we are exposed to.” Woodruff says the effect of chemicals on humans is often underestimated, because most studies involve lab animals. “But that doesn’t really reflect somebody who lives in a neighborhood that has a lot of crime or they are low income and so they have a lot of other stressers in their lives.” Woodruff says measuring the combined health effects of people’s social and environmental hardships could give researchers a more complete picture.