K-12 Risk Communication
Larry Johnson
Partnership for Environmental Education
and Rural Health (PEER)
Texas A & M University
K-12 Risk Communication
Inform of danger (potential, likely, or real risk).
Inform of sources and routes of exposure and that
exposure is necessary for toxicity to exist.
Inform of ways to prevent or reduce exposure.
Inform of ways to assess the situation and the risk.
Inform that toxicologists and government agencies
work to evaluate and reduce risk to the public.
Tendency to err on the side of caution.
World Adventure Travel
and Health Problem
1. Ancient Egypt: Sickness from contaminated water
2. East Asia (China): Air quality and respiratory
problems
3. Ukraine: Industrial or nuclear pollutants (cancer,
leukemia)
4. South America (Peru): Chagas Disease
5. Subsaharan Africa (Congo): Ebola or AIDS
6. South Asia (India): Infectious Hepatitis
Investigator Challenge
• Learn details of the
mysterious illness by carefully
reading "Tut's Revenge."
• Test your comprehension
skills by completing the
Investigator's Challenge Quiz.
• You are now the expert. Have
fun solving the mystery!
Can You Solve the Case?
• Brainstorm several hypotheses
(guesses) for the cause of the
illness. (See the following
slides for help.)
• Remember the three ways in
which a body comes in
contact with the environment.
These are inhaled air, ingested
air or water, and skin contact.
• Support each hypothesis with
data.
• Formulate a conclusion.
Who Is Sick?
• Who got sick and who did not?
• What are the signs (symptoms) of sickness?
• Do all affected people show the same signs?
• What were these people exposed to that
might have caused sickness?
Investigate A Mystery
• How many different instances of sickness are there
in the story?
• What clues are provided?
• What about the environment could be related to
the sicknesses?
• Is there one (or more) likely causes?
How Infections Are Spread
• Microbes live in body
fluids.
• Contacting a body fluid of
an infected person may
spread an infection.
• Typical microbe-spreading
fluids: blood, saliva, urine,
feces (esp. in diarrhea),
semen, lung mucus.
Knowledge is Power
• Several patients in Congo Cry are ill and may
be infected with Human Immunodeficiency
Virus (HIV), which causes Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
• Understanding how HIV is transmitted from
one person to the next is very important if the
goal is to prevent spread of the disease.
• If more people understand how HIV is
transmitted, fewer may become infected.
Decline in Life Expectancy in Three African
Nations from 1990 and 2000
Average Age at Time of Death
70
60
65
62
56
50
40
40
30
37
39
20
10
0
Botswana
1
Zambia
2
Zimbabwe
3
1990
2000
The Sighting: What’s Up With the Frogs?
•
What are possible NATURAL causes of frogs with three
hind legs?
•
How would a 3rd leg affect a frog’s normal movements?
•
What are possible manmade pollutants that could cause a
three-hind-legged frog?
Manmade Pollutants
Many, many, many of the chemicals made today could cause
mutations or birth defects in animals.
Look at the following list. Which of these were mentioned in some
way in the story?
1. Pesticide runoff from nearby farms
2. Drugs thrown into the pond
3. Heavy metal (lead, gold, etc) poisoning from mining sites
upriver
4. Radiation from the Chernobyl disaster
5. Air pollution from industries in nearby town of
Dnipropetrovs’k
Closer to Home:
Putting It All Together
• Prepare a one page essay that proposes a
solution to your town’s environmental
challenge. Include persuasive arguments to
convince the reader that your solution will
work.
• Review principles of persuasive writing to
help build your essay.
Introduction to Toxicology
Larry Johnson
Partnership for Environmental Education
and Rural health (PEER)
Texas A & M University
Toxicology
What is toxicology? The study of the effects of poisons.
Poisonous substances are produced by plants, animals, or
bacteria.
Phytotoxins
Zootoxins
Bacteriotoxins
Toxicant - the specific poisonous chemical.
Xenobiotic - man-made substance and/or produced by but
not normally found in the body.
Fundamental Rules of
Toxicology
Exposure must first occur for the chemical to present
a risk.
The magnitude of risk is proportional to both the
potency of the chemical and the extent of
exposure.
“The dose makes the poison” (amount of chemical at
the target site determines toxicity).
Routes of Environmental
Exposure
Ingestion (water and food)
Absorption (through skin)
Injection (bite, puncture, or cut)
Inhalation (air)
Exposure Concepts
Exposure to chemicals may come from many sources:
–
–
–
–
–
–
Environmental
Occupational
Therapeutic
Dietary
Accidental
Deliberate
You Know ?
92% of all poisonings happen at home.
The household products implicated in
most poisonings are: cleaning
solutions, fuels, medicines, and other
materials such as glue and cosmetics.
Certain animals secrete a xenobiotic
poison called venom, usually injected
with a bite or a sting, and others harbor
infectious bacteria.
Some household plants are poisonous to
humans and animals.
What Do Toxicologists Do?
Most toxicologists work to develop a
mechanistic understanding of how
chemicals affect living systems:
– Develop safer chemical products
– Develop safer drugs
– Determine risks for chemical
exposures
– Develop treatments for chemical
exposures
– Teach ( e.g., other toxicologists,
graduate students, and youth)
Anthrax in Peace and War
Bill Klemm, D.V.M., Ph.D.
College of Veterinary Medicine
Texas A&M University
Personal Web Site:www.cvm.tamu.edu/wklemm
Anthrax
An 8,000 year-old
Weapon of War and
Tool of Medical Research
Stained bacilli in monkey blood
History: Roman Empire
(70-19 B.C.)
Reports by Virgil
• Described an anthrax plague
• Observed that eating meat from dead
animals caused human anthrax
• Observed that wearing hide or wool of
infect animals caused human anthrax
• Concluded that disease was incurable and
could affect multiple species
A Landmark in Medical Research
• It was also the first for which a practical
vaccine was produced.
• The anthrax bacillus, Bacillus anthracis,
was the first bacterium shown to be the
cause of an infectious disease.
How Does Anthrax Kill?
• When growing inside the body, it
releases a toxin that kills cells.
• New discovery: the toxin that clips an
important signalling protein (MAP kinase
kinase) into two pieces.
– See story at
www.aomc.org/NewsRelease/AnthraxLead.htm
l
Key Things to Remember
• To get anthrax, you must be exposed to
spores of Bacillus anthracis.
• Anthrax is not spread from person to
person, like a cold.
• To cause disease, spores have to enter
breaks in the skin, be eaten, or inhaled.
• Early and sustained use of appropriate
antibiotics will cure anthrax.
Future of Anthrax
• Medical
– It has served its purpose. We don’t need it any
more for fundamental research.
• As a livestock disease.
– It will always be with us, usually under control.
• As a weapon of war.
– Difficult to deliver against masses of people.
Education’s Role
NIEHS and EHSIC program feels the responsibility to help
educate the next generation of citizens to better understand
the world around them and, especially, to understand how
chemicals (man-made or natural) present both risks and
benefits to society.
Since everything we eat, drink, breathe, touch, or use is made of
chemicals, the task is LARGE!
We hope to make the science of toxicology ‘less obscure’ to the
public.
Education’s Role
Risk is a part of everyday life, and one’s decisions as to the
‘acceptability’ of a particular risk is influenced by
knowledge and experience.
While we can’t do much about the ‘experience part’, we
can try to increase the public’s knowledge about the
risks and benefits of all things chemical.
The power of EDUCATION
K-12 Risk Communication
Inform of danger (potential, likely, or real risk).
Inform of sources and routes of exposure and that
exposure is necessary for toxicity to exist.
Inform of ways to prevent or reduce exposure.
Inform of ways to assess the situation and the risk.
Inform that toxicologists and government agencies
work to evaluate and reduce risk to the public.
Tendency to err on the side of caution.