EH Seminar-'Public Health Science and Government Policy:The Conflict over Gulf War Illness'.

  • Starts: 12:00 pm on Friday, April 18, 2014
  • Ends: 1:00 pm on Friday, April 18, 2014
SPEAKERS: ROBERTA WHITE, PHD, Professor and Chair, Environmental Health, BUSPH, Professor, Neurology, BUSM, AND KIMBERLY SULLIVAN, PHD, Research Assistant Professor, BUSPH SEMINAR: Public health researchers often find that the scientific work they conduct produces results that have important policy implications for the populations that they study. And often these populations are comprised of people who are relatively powerless to influence government and other institutions to implement policies and programs that protect them from health threats of various kinds or to treat the adverse consequences of a public health crisis or problem. In this talk, we will relate the saga of the scientific work that has been conducted since the 1991 Gulf War on veterans who developed Gulf War illness as a result of exposures in theater during deployment. We will summarize the science related to the illness; governmental resistance to research findings on the expression of illness, its causation, need for treatment, and compensation to ill veterans; and involvement of scientists as advisors to veterans and government.
Location:
L-210
Contact Name
Jean van Seventer
Contact Email
jvsevent@bu.edu