April 23, 2005 -- Houston Mayor Bill White today announced the formation of a Task Force on Reducing Air Quality Health Risks. The Task Force consists of public health and medical experts from some of the regions most prestigious research and medical institutions.
The panel’s main goal will be to assess risk from air toxics, chemical linked to cancer and other serious health effects, and report to the Mayor and Houstonians as soon as possible.
“Our region is blessed with great scientists, and we need their advice on health risks of pollution, so we have a road map to reduce those risks,” said Mayor White, who promised earlier this year in his State of the City speech to take stronger actions to fight air pollution here. “We’re going to take on this problem and this is exactly the kind of expertise to help us draw up our battle plans.”
Mayor White was joined in making the announcement by Dr. James T. Willerson, president of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and president-elect of the Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, who helped form the Task Force.
The Task Force’s goals include:
- To review and summarize the available evidence on the health risks associated with air pollution in the Houston region.
- To recommend areas of research needed to allow regional leaders to make the best decisions on strategies for reducing pollution, within established legal timetables.
- To provide guidance to the City on strategies for reducing health risks.
Members of the Task Force (biographies .pdf file) are:
- Task Force Chair Ken Sexton, a professor in Environmental Sciences at the University of Texas School of Public Health, Brownsville Regional Campus.
- Task Force Coordinator and Staff Director Stephen H. Linder, Interim Director of the Institute for Health Policy and is currently an Associate Professor in three Divisions at The University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston -- Management, Policy and Community Health, Health Promotion and Behavioral Science, and Environmental and Occupational Health.
- Thomas H. Stock, Associate Professor in Environmental Sciences at the University of Texas School of Public Health.
- George Delclos, Director of the Division of Environmental and Occupational Health, and Director of Southwest Center for Occupational and Environmental Health at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.
- Melissa L. Bondy, professor of epidemiology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Director of the Center for Childhood Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention.
- Jonathan Ward, Jr., a professor and director of the Division of Environmental Toxicology in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, as well as deputy director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Toxicology Center, at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston.
- Stuart L. Abramson, assistant professor of pediatrics and immunology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, associate director for Clinical Research and Health Professional Education at the Children’s Asthma Center at Texas Children’s Hospital and director of the Pediatric Allergy and Immunology Clinic at Ben Taub General Hospital in Houston.
- Matthew P. Frasier, an Associate Professor of Engineering and member of the faculty of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Rice University.