Toxins, Health, and Behavior: The Implications of ‘Toxicogenomics’ for Public Policy.

The field at the intersection of cognitive neuroscience, behavioral genetics, and toxicology -- recently conceptualized as "Toxicogenomics" - has extremely important implications for understanding human behavior and improving public policies. After indicating the conceptual changes in social science that this approach requires, I summarize two research projects that illustrate the relevance of toxicogenomics to policy issues: first, the chemical compounds (silicofluorides) used for over 90% of water fluoridation in the United States; second, the assessment of superfund sites needs to consider multiple toxins (both determining their presence and measuring their uptake) as well as behavioral and health effects (understood from the perspective of toxicogenomics). Both examples reveal enormous potential benefits of this approach (including lower rates of learning disabilities, substance abuse and violent crime) and indicate sources of disproportionate harm for minorities that conventional social scientists do not identify. Check author’s web site for an updated version of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]