The Chemical Heritage Foundation will host the 2007 Gordon Cain Conference, "New Chemical Bodies: Biomonitoring, Body Burden, and the Uncertain Threat of Endocrine Disrupters," on 22–23 March 2007.

The conference is designed to foster cross-disciplinary discussion and collaboration between those working in the chemical, ecological, environmental/public health, and social sciences to address the problems and challenges associated with the use and proliferation of human body burden studies, especially as they relate to research into endocrine disrupting chemicals.

The conference will bring together individuals from diverse research areas and institutional backgrounds in order to represent and address the breadth and scope of the issues while initiating collaboration toward the construction of new modes of dealing with our new chemical bodies.


Background and Prospectus
In July of 2005, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released its Third National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals. Through the process of biomonitoring—measuring the amount of a chemical in a blood or urine sample—the CDC aims to track the accumulation of synthetic chemicals into the human population through direct measurement of the populace. As the report states: "Biomonitoring measurements are the most health-relevant assessments of exposure because they measure the amount of the chemical that actually gets into people from all environmental sources (e.g., air, soil, water, dust, or food) combined." But just what happens once these chemicals enter our bodies, and what exactly we are to do with this information remains unclear. This conference aims to address the uncertainty that surrounds the now well-established fact that organisms of all types, kinds, and geographies—including but certainly not limited to humans—find themselves carrying/composed of a cadre of chemicals heretofore unknown to the planet.

Additionally, the class of chemicals generally referred to as environmental endocrine disrupters presents challenges to our current systems of monitoring and regulating synthetic chemicals in the environment. These chemicals have potential activity at orders of magnitude lower than current dose limits for other toxins. Perhaps more troubling, these chemicals leave no "smoking gun" with effects manifested years, if not decades, later, and often times in a body only indirectly exposed (such as developing fetuses). Thus, new modes of thinking about these problems seem necessary and timely. Understanding the new chemical bodies of the 21st century requires new analytical tools—both instrumental and conceptual. A primary goal for this conference, then, is to begin thinking about what this new set of tools might look like.

The Gordon Cain Conference is open to invited participants only, but the conference's opening plenary, on 22 March 2007, is free and open to the public.

More details on opening plenary

Full conference schedule

For further information concerning conference content, please contact:

Jody Roberts
Gordon Cain Fellow
Chemical Heritage Foundation
Fax: 215-925-6195
jroberts@chemheritage.org

For logistical information on attending the conference, please contact:

Jennifer McCafferty
Events Coordinator
Chemical Heritage Foundation
Phone: 215-873-8202
Fax: 215-629-5202
jmccafferty@chemheritage.org