Biomarkers in Human Health Hazard Evaluation
By Jason Fritz
The annual conference of the Society of Toxicology (SOT 2012), attended by many of my colleagues from EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System program, is an excellent venue for scientists of all kinds to come together and discuss the latest and greatest advances in human health effects research.
For me, it was an opportunity to take a mental breath and place my focused efforts into the broader context of lifetime health management and disease prevention.
I’ve always been mechanically inclined, so I try to consider how any particular cog fits into the overall machine: specifically, how could a cog “broken” by toxic exposure in one organ foreshadow adverse responses in a distant location, or in the distant future? Or both?
I particularly enjoyed listening to Leroy Hood, from the Institute for Systems Biology, present a paradigm shift in healthcare, away from today’s diagnose-treat-release medicine and toward personalized health management and disease prevention. He proposed developing biomarkers in blood that could be used as “fingerprints” throughout the life of an individual to not only foretell impending disease, but define the cause so that intervention could be designed prophylactically for that person.
The implications of these biomarkers for the future of human health and hazard characterization are tremendous.
Like the addition of iodine in table salt to reverse the U.S. goiter epidemic of the 20th century, this could mean more dietary modification and less pharmaceutical administration, but on an individual, not population, basis. This would truly be personalized medicine, but with a more predictive application that could simultaneously generate positive repercussions for entire populations.
The IRIS program is charged with developing toxicity values that can be used by risk managers to protect people against a lifetime of exposure to the individual components in an increasingly complex environment. With biomarkers like these, we could predict the effects of toxin exposure in specific people, instead of an “average” person, and at early stages that are much more likely to be reversible.
With big picture ideas like this to put our health protective efforts into context, SOT 2012 was an inspiring success.
About the Author: Toxicologist Jason Fritz joined the EPA in 2011. He has traveled some, and wishes to travel more: if, in his travels, he meets a man meditating under a Bodhi tree, he will ask for a spaceship and a pony
Editor's Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations are those of the author. They do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog.
Biomarkers : Straight Counterattack.-
Toxin likes travelling, difference – among places – when we meet. It sustained attack everything what they want, what they should need. Natural selection is a judge that whoever the winner future………..!
Assuming an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, people’s lifetime exposure to toxins could be minimized through a price markup of products and services externalizing toxic byproducts into the environment. The price markup, captured by government, is then to be distributed to individuals as a health dividend, being that the environment is part of our god-given commons. Through this toxic tax recovery and distribution, the health of both environment and persons should be enhanced.
An interesting idea. To some extent this is already being done- a “sin tax” is applied to alcohol and tobacco products in some states, with the revenues generated from this side tax being applied to state resources such as public education and highway maintenance. While the idea behind the tax may not have been to limit toxic exposure to citizens, the effect is similar to what you describe. Also, a separate tax is applied by states to gasoline, with some portion of that budget earmarked for public projects. Of course, excessive or unfair taxation could quickly impinge on personal freedoms, so these decisions should be carefully considered in this context of public health vs. personal freedom.