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20.104

Chemicals in the Environment: Toxicology and Public Health (BE.104J)

Undergraduate · Historical course

Spring 2005

This course addresses the challenges of defining a relationship between exposure to environmental chemicals and human disease. Course topics include epidemiological approaches to understanding disease causation; biostatistical methods; evaluation of human exposure to chemicals, and their internal distribution, metabolism, reactions with cellular components, and biological effects; and qualitative and quantitative health risk assessment methods used in the U.S. as bases for regulatory decision-making. Throughout the term, students consider case studies of local and national interest.

Readings

  • Gordis, L. Epidemiology . 3rd ed. Philadelphia, PA: W.B. Saunders, 2004. ISBN: 9780721603261.
    Listed reading
  • Schork, M. A., and R. D. Remington. Statistics with Applications to the Biological and Health Sciences . 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2000. ISBN: 9780130223272.
    Listed reading
  • LEC #: 4 · TOPICS: Epidemiology: Persons, Places, and Time · INSTRUCTORS: Prof. James Sherley · READINGS: Gordis. Chapters 1 and 2.
    Reading assignment
  • LEC #: 5 · TOPICS: Epidemiology: Test Development and Relative Risk · INSTRUCTORS: Prof. James Sherley · READINGS: Gordis. Chapters 3-5, 11, and 12.
    Reading assignment
  • LEC #: 6 · TOPICS: Biostatistics: Concepts in Variance · INSTRUCTORS: Prof. James Sherley · READINGS: Schork and Remington. Chapters 1 and 2, sections 4-1, 4-2, 4-4 to 4-7.
    Reading assignment
  • LEC #: 8 · TOPICS: Biostatistics: Detecting Differences and Correlations · INSTRUCTORS: Prof. James Sherley · READINGS: Schork and Remington. Sections 6-3, 7-2, 7-3, 7-4, 10-1 to 10-4, and 10-6.
    Reading assignment
  • LEC #: 9 · TOPICS: Biostatistics: Poisson Analyses and Power · INSTRUCTORS: Prof. James Sherley · READINGS: Schork and Remington. Sections 3-0, 3-1, 5-2, 5-5, 6-7, 7-0, 7-1, 9-1, 9-1-1, 9-1-2-3, and 14-3.
    Reading assignment
  • LEC #: 10 · TOPICS: Environetics: Cause and Effect · INSTRUCTORS: Prof. James Sherley · READINGS: Gordis. Chapters 14-16.
    Reading assignment
  • LEC #: 11 · TOPICS: Environetics: Study Design - Retrospective versus Prospective · INSTRUCTORS: Prof. James Sherley · READINGS: Gordis. Chapters 7-10, and 13.
    Reading assignment
  • Hecht, S. S., et al. “Metabolites of a Tobacco-specific Lung Carcinogen in the Urine of Elementary School-aged Children.” Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention 10 (November 2001): 1109–1116.
    Listed reading
  • Hunt, P. A., et al. “Bisphenol A Exposure Causes Meiotic Aneuploidy in the Female Mouse.” Current Biology 13 (April 1, 2003): 546–553.
    Listed reading
  • Proctor, R. N. “Tobacco and the global lung cancer epidemic.” Nature Reviews Cancer 1 (October 2001): 82-86.
    Listed reading
  • LEC #: 12 · TOPICS: Environetics: Putting it all together - Evaluating Studies · INSTRUCTORS: Prof. James Sherley · READINGS: Selected readings of original literature.
    Reading assignment
  • LEC #: 17 · TOPICS: Toxicology 1 · INSTRUCTORS: Prof. Steven Tannenbaum · READINGS: Wogan, G. N., et al. “Environmental and chemical carcinogenesis.” Seminars in Cancer Biology 14 (2004): 473–486.
    Reading assignment
  • Salsburg, D. The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century . New York, NY: W. H. Freeman and Company, 2001. ISBN: 9780716741060.
    Required
  • Gordis, L. Epidemiology . 3rd ed. Philadelphia, PA: W.B. Saunders, 2004. ISBN: 9780721603261.
    Required
  • Schork, M. A., and R. D. Remington. Statistics with Applications to the Biological and Health Sciences . 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2000. ISBN: 9780130223272.
    Required
  • During the first half of the term, students are required to read The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century , by David Salsburg. This book provides a historical introduction to statistical and environetics principles that will be the focus of the first half of the course. Students are expected to read the entire book. The purpose of this reading is to introduce students to the field of statistics and to prepare them for the concepts and language of uncertainty, which permeates statistical thought.
    Listed reading
Sources