Search

This article examines the politics of environmental health and science production pertaining to a class of emerging contaminants. Drawing on six months of participant observation at two offices within Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and over 78 confidential interviews, this article investigates how stakeholders engage in strategic scientific knowledge production. Using the case of global per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination, we identify how the scientific field is mobilized through strategic science production. Strategic science production refers to decisions regarding research topics, questions, methodology, and data types that contribute to the growth of scientific knowledge or ignorance. Decisions about data availability in the case of industrial chemicals fundamentally informs what type of scientific research can be pursued. Producing technically accurate but selective scientific research enables actors to curate what is known and unknown about a particular phenomenon. Using novel methods of strategic science production entails using innovative methods or forms of data to supplement or replace existing practices. Strategic science production can be mobilized by well-resourced actors and organizations to exert influence over a scientific field, and thus shape the landscape of scientific knowns and unknowns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As breast cancer rates continue to increase in the United States, there is growing scientific consensus that genetics alone only accounts for a small percentage of cases. Within the breast cancer and environmental breast cancer movements, there has been a longstanding call for research and public policy aimed toward the prevention of breast cancer. At least three significant reports published since 2010 focus attention on environmental contributors to cancer and breast cancer. This paper seeks to assess the impact of these reports on research funding, public policy and advocacy. Initial research conducted focuses on direct and indirect outcomes of the February 2013 report Breast Cancer and the Environment: Prioritizing Prevention, a report mandated by the 2008 Breast Cancer and Environment Research Act. While this paper focuses on the impact of this report, I also consider the place of this report in the larger trajectory of the environmental breast cancer movement in the United States. Findings indicate a number of direct impacts, perhaps most importantly new grant funding for transdisciplinary research on environmental contributors to breast cancer. Additionally, this paper addresses significant barriers to the implementation of the report's recommendations. Barriers identified include: limited audience, lack of specificity regarding pertinent parties and scope of implementation, and lack of a structured system of accountability. Ongoing research on this project currently incorporates assessments of the 2010 President's Cancer Panel report and 2012 Institute of Medicine report on funding, policy and advocacy, attempting to ascertain both unique and collective outcomes of these reports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We employ geographic information systems approaches and software to analyze actual spatial relationships between populations and hazardous waste in order to replicate and extend foundational studies of environmental inequality (UCC 1987; Been and Gupta 1997; Mohai and Saha 2007). Our research expands environmental justice analyses theoretically and methodologically by shifting the spatial focus from urban to rural areas by using census designated "places" as the unit of analysis. Our findings reinforce and extend the conclusions stemming from these foundational works. That is, we find a pattern of environmental inequality (involving race, ethnicity and class) for all toxic waste facilities, further corroborating the mounting evidence that environmental inequality is pervasive, impactful and intertwined with other dimensions of social inequality. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disproportionate exposure to environmental burden is at the heart environmental justice research and social action. Focusing on rural areas, we explore disproportionate exposure experienced by Native American and Hispanic communities - and impoverished communities regardless of race. The "treadmill of production" has long framed sociological research into environmental degradation and (in)justice. Hooks and Smith have identified the "treadmill of destruction" and provide evidence that the U.S. military placed Native American people in proximity to unexploded ordnance and other toxins. Because Native American reservations have experienced relatively little economic development, we do not expect to find a concentration of commercial wastes near to them. However, when examining Hispanic communities, we expect to find high levels of exposure to commercial (i.e., agricultural) wastes. On the methodological front, we are building a national geodatabase using "places" as the unit of analysis (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2005c). We employ GIS techniques to measure proximity to unexploded ordnance at closed military bases and non-military hazardous wastes in the United States. By simultaneously examining the treadmills of production and destruction, incorporating GIS techniques, and focusing on several minority and impoverished communities this research will advance our understanding of environmental justice on several fronts. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]