Epa: Environmental justice pioneer plans overhaul of division

eenews.net – When Kenneth Olden discusses environmental justice, he knows what he is talking about.

Olden led the way in establishing the area as a legitimate scientific field during more than a decade at the National Institutes of Health, funding groundbreaking research on topics such as how bus exhaust disproportionately affects minority children in low-income homes in New York City.

And though many of his colleagues don’t know it, Olden’s dedication to the issue is tied to his own experiences. The son of sharecroppers from an impoverished area of rural Tennessee, he is one of the few people from that community to graduate from college — let alone ascend the echelons of the scientific community.

Kenneth Olden, a leader in environmental justice, has ambitious plans for U.S. EPA’s National Center for Environmental Assessment. Photo courtesy of EPA.

Now in the twilight of a career that has transcended racial boundaries, Olden has taken over U.S. EPA’s National Center for Environmental Assessment, or NCEA, the agency’s division for determining how chemicals and environmental factors affect human health — including what causes cancer. NCEA’s assessments form the foundation of major regulations, such as drinking water and air standards.

The division has a long history of problems and is frequently criticized by public health advocates for its laggard pace, and by industry for allegedly shoddy science. But Olden brings star power to it at a time when the agency claims to be doubling down on its efforts to revamp the program.

Green groups believe he is the right person for the job. They argue that Olden, who has served on the board of the Environmental Defense Fund, understood very early the role environmental factors play in disease.

“Even in this day and age, that’s a connection that a lot of people in the environmental community are pretty slow to make,” said Richard Denison of EDF. “He got it 20 years ago.”

And Olden, who focused during the greater part of his career on understanding cancer, isn’t planning on being a figurehead. He is setting an ambitious agenda and calling for the government and scientists to fundamentally rethink how they approach disease.

“As Americans, we do not appreciate the important role that environment plays in human health,” he said in an interview. “I think there is no agency in the federal government more crucial to the health of the American people than the Environmental Protection Agency. … At NIH, we looked at one aspect of human health, but I think the agency that really translates the science into policy and practice is EPA.”