October 15, 2020
2:00am – 3:00am
RSVP at https://tinyurl.com/EHS411
About the lecture: Arsenic in drinking water and COVID-19 have many common denominators. Both are silent, invisible, odorless, and tasteless killers. Initially, neither was thought to be much of a killer, but both were grossly underestimated. It is now known that the highest mortality risk from any environmental exposure involves drinking high concentrations of arsenic in drinking water. COVID-19 rapidly kills about 2% of those infected, but we keep learning more about other short- and long-term health effects, as well as serious effects in children. It is well known that COVID-19 is a key factor in the current Presidential election, but arsenic in water was a factor in the 2000 election.
About the speaker: Allan Smith was born in New Zealand and completed a BSc in mathematics at the Victoria University of Wellington (1964) followed by MB,ChB (same as the MD in the US) (1971) and a PhD in epidemiology at the University of Otago (1975). He has been Professor of Epidemiology at the School of Public Health in the University of California, Berkeley, since 1983, where he has taught courses in occupational and environmental epidemiology, causal inference and meta-analysis, and risk assessment. Until recently he directed the Arsenic Health Effects Research Program involving studies in Argentina, Chile, India, Bangladesh and the United States. As well as cancer studies, he has directed studies of chronic respiratory disease, pregnancy outcomes, cognitive function in children, arsenic skin lesions, cardiovascular disease, interactions of arsenic with diet and micronutrients, studies of arsenic metabolism, molecular epidemiology studies, and studies of adult diseases following early life exposure. Allan served for a term as President of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology, and in 2009 received in the John Goldsmith Award for Sustained and Outstanding contributions to the knowledge and practice of Environmental Epidemiology. He has published over 200 scientific papers with more than 15,000 citations to his work (Web of Science).
RSVP at https://tinyurl.com/EHS411