Olden's contributions.I read with mixed feelings of approval and sadness your editorial about the end of tenure for Kenneth Olden old·en adj. Of, relating to, or belonging to time long past; old or ancient: olden days. [Middle English : old, old; see old + -en, adj. as director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) is one of 27 Institutes and Centers of the National Institutes of Health (NIH),which is a component of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The Director of the NIEHS is Dr. David A. Schwartz. (NIEHS NIEHS National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIH, DHHS) ) (Brown et al. 2004). I have been greatly impressed with Olden's significant contributions to broadening the scope of public health sciences, as reflected in the evolution of EHP EHP abbr. 1. effective horsepower 2. electric horsepower into an exemplary, innovative, and internationally highly respected journal on environmental health sciences. Specifically, the following sentence in the editorial was grist for my mill: From early on he showed awareness and understanding of a fact that had often been ignored by others in research administration--that local communities have the collective ability to identify environmental health problems but often lack the time, means, and research expertise to effectively resolve these problems. We have just published a report describing a unique community-physician-scientist cooperative research effort without support from any public agency that has been--at least for a small number of survivors of this group of Hanford, Washington Hanford was a small agricultural community in Benton County, Washington. It was evacuated in 1943 along with the town of White Bluffs in order to make room for the nuclear production facility known as the Hanford Site. , "downwinders Downwinder is a term used to describe people across the United States who were exposed to radioactive fallout from both atmospheric and underground nuclear weapons testing. It has also been used to describe those exposed to radiation through experimentation and uranium mining. "--of great significance for their experiencing a sense of empowerment and, at least to some degree, of "justice" through the process of scientific validation (Nussbaum et al. 2004). It seems that the efforts of our alliance might well have fallen within the boundaries of projects that Olden's initiatives could have supported: to provide and link communities with appropriate research resources. I fear that Olden's departure will be a great loss for the NIEHS and that it will be very difficult to find a replacement for him with an equally bold vision and willingness to take risks in innovative leadership. The author declares he has no competing financial interests. REFERENCES Brown D, Thigpen Tart KG, Goehl TJ. 2004. Olden times: looking back on a career at the NIEHS. Environ Health Perspect 112:A598-A599. Nussbaum RH, Hoover PP, Grossman CM, Nussbaum FD. 2004. Community-based participatory health survey of Hanford, WA, downwinders: a model for citizen empowerment. Soc Nat Resour 17:547-559. Rudi H. Nussbaum Professor Emeritus e·mer·i·tus adj. Retired but retaining an honorary title corresponding to that held immediately before retirement: a professor emeritus. n. pl. Physics and Environmental Sciences Portland State University Portland, Oregon E-mail: D4RN@odin.pdx.edu |
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