Mark Yannone - Issues - Healthcare - Healthcare Budget - National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)

Issues - Healthcare - Healthcare Budget - National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)

"We have to ask ourselves whether medicine is to remain a humanitarian and respected profession or a new but depersonalized science in the service of prolonging life rather than diminishing human suffering."

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (b. 1926), Swiss-born U.S. psychiatrist.
On Death and Dying, ch. 2 (1969).

MISSION: Reduce the burden of environmentally associated disease and dysfunction by defining (1) how environmental exposures affect our health, (2) how individuals differ in their susceptibility to these exposures, and (3) how these susceptibilities change over time.

THE JOB OF NIEHS: PREVENTIVE MEDICINE

Preventing disease is one of the most important services a government agency can provide to citizens. Protecting people from avoidable illness and death saves money, spares suffering and improves the quality of life for society.

The most effective way to prevent disease and disability is to understand the cause of an illness and change the conditions that permit it to occur. A key strategy for preventing many diseases or minimizing disease progression is to minimize or eliminate adverse effects of chemicals in the environment and food supply. This preventive strategy underlies the concept of "environmental health." The premier research facility for this discipline in the U.S. is the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The NIEHS pursues its goals by studying the impact on human health of a wide variety of chemical and biological agents found in the air, ground, food and water. Among the types of agents NIEHS studies are the following:

- industrial chemicals
- food and nutrients
- agricultural compounds
- infectious agents
- pharmaceuticals and medicinal herbs
- socioeconomic and lifestyle factors
- by-products of combustion and industrial processes
- physical agents such as heat and radiation

This information is acquired by laboratory and field testing done either by NIEHS or by research laboratories at academic centers that receive support from the institute; and it forms the backbone of many of the important regulations established by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration and other government oversight and regulatory agencies. This information is also the scientific basis for many laws passed by the U.S. Congress to protect the health of U.S. citizens.

The NIEHS is unique in the size and breadth of its mission. The Institute is headquartered in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, where it conducts research through the Division of Intramural Research (DIR). The majority of NIEHS-supported research and training, however, is done through grants and contracts that are competitively awarded to university and independent laboratories throughout the country. The Division of Extramural Research and Training (DERT) oversees this larger part of the NIEHS enterprise. The Office of the Director (OD) and the Office of Management (OM) oversee and manage the efforts of the two divisions.

Find out more about NIEHS by clicking HERE

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