! Includes capital outlay as follows: 1965, $541,000; 1966, $670,000; 1967, $678,000. 2 Selected resources as of June 30 are as follows: Unpaid undelivered orders, 1965, $1,613,000; 1966, $1,613,000; 1967, $1,613,000. Mr. FOGARTY. The committee will come to order. We have before us this morning Dr. Anderson, who will justify the budget for Environmental Health Sciences. Dr. Anderson, you may proceed. GENERAL STATEMENT Dr. ANDERSON. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, change in our environment continues at an increasing rate with our technological, industrial, and economic development. The effects of a contaminated and polluted environment are brought closer to us all as we continue to crowd together in urban areas. Our concern is that the wastes and products of our technology, which has given us so much material progress, are creating environmental health hazards that are diffcult both to understand and to do something about. There is a growing realization that long-term, low-level exposure to chemicals, radiation, and other environmental stresses may produce deleterious effects upon man's health. The mounting urgency to define with greater precision the health effects of environmental pollution and to explore new methods of environmental control has stimulated development of the Environmental Health Sciences program. These activities are directed toward increasing man's knowledge about the biological effects of environmental con taminants looking forward to utilization of this knowledge in the development of practical techniques which can be used to insure the health and safety of our environment. At the same time that we are moving forward in our categorical programs to develop and institute preventive and control programs, we must seek a more thorough understanding of the biological effect of the pollution to which we are exposed. We at attempting in the Environmental Health Sciences programs to bring together the best talents of the Federal Government, the States, and local communities, and the universities to join in the search for the answers that are needed. The capabilities of our Nation's universities are being increasingly brought to bear on environmental health problems through financial support by grants for research and research training. RESEARCH GRANTS An increase of $2,054,000 is requested for research grants, including $1 million for 5 additional university research and training institutes, making a total of 12 such institutes in 1967. The continued development of these institutes will provide one of the greatest opportunities to increase our national capabilities in environmental health research and training. These grants will assist universities to develop broad-based research and training centers by supporting a leadership group of environmental scientists, financing research and training seminars and symposiums to introduce new ideas and engender scientific interest in environmental health, and stimulating innovation. The National Advisory Environmental Health Committee has recommended two types of grants in this program. One is a pilot type of 2 year duration to assist a school to organize its resources and test its ability to carry out its long-range plan for research and training institute type programs. The other is a grant to a university which is already capable of establishing and operating such an institute. In 1967 we plan to support eight pilot-type projects and four operating institutes. In 1966 an award of an institute grant was made to the Washington University of St. Louis, Mo. The institute will bring together scientists from the fields of zoology, chemistry, physics, botany, environmental enginering, medicine, and computer sciences to focus on the study of the relationship between men, plants, animals, and their environment. TRAINING GRANTS If we are to have the necessary trained manpower to deal with complex environmental health problems, we must increase the opportunities for young people to undertake graduate studies in the appropriate scientific fields. We are requesting an increase of $2,021,000 to support a total of 83 projects. Through this program we will contribute directly to the support of 560 pre- and post-doctoral students in addition to the development and improvement of facilty and curricula in fields basic to the environmental sciences. PESTICIDE ACTIVITIES The pesticide activities supported by this appropriation are an excellent illustration of the partnership between the Federal Government, the State, and local governments, and universities to take advantage of their research capabilities. In 1966 we are conducting, through contracts, large-scale epidemiological investigations in 12 communities. These communities are national laboratories for studying population exposures to pesticides and their on health. They also may be potentially useful in undertaking population studies on the health effects of other environmental hazards. In 1967 we are requesting an increase of $2,555,000 to continue these 12 studies, initiate 5 new studies, and establish a system for determining the time and place variations in human pesticide exposures. In other areas of pesticide activities we are requesting an increase of $774,000 primarily for expansion of intramural research, pesticide registration review activties, and the information collection and distribution system for environmental pesticide levels and health effects. Our intramural research is now being conducted at a temporary laboratory on the south campus of the University of Miami where we have begun our studies and analyses relating to the toxicity of pesticides. These research efforts provide scientific data to assist our staff that review pesticide registration applications for human health implications in cooperation with the Department of Agriculture and other Federal agencies having responsibilities for registration of pesticides. ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER In a number of studies on environmental health problems, the need for a Federal central facility to provide national leadership for environmental health research has been recognized. The National Environmental Health Sciences Center in the research triangle has been established to insure that we are knowledgeable about what changes are taking place in our environment; what these changes mean to the life, health, and well-being of our people; and what principles of environmental control and management are relevant to health protection. The Center will provide the special facilities and the unique setting for all of the scientific disciplines whose skills contribute to a basic understanding of environmental health. In the past year we have made progress in the development of the Center's activities. A specific site within the Research Triangle Park has been identified and reserved for transfer to the Government. Under a contract, the Research Triangle Institute developed recommendations on the programs and the facilities appropriate for them at the Center, and on the relationship between the research triangle universities and the Center that will be important in shaping the contributions that each can make to the other. We have made arrangements to lease interim facilities in the research triangle pending completion of the permanent buildings, thus making space available to us this fiscal year. In 1967 we are requesting an increase of $647,000 to expand our cell biology and environmental toxicology programs and to permit us to recruit the nucleus staff for additional environmental physiology, human ecology, bioengineering activities. ARCTIC HEALTH RESEARCH CENTER Our special research facility in the Arctic is another example of Federal initiative and cooperation with university and local governments. Our new facility in Fairbanks will become available to us in September of 1967. In 1966 with the additional funds provided by Congress we initiated physiological studies related to extreme cold. These and other studies will be expanded with the $201,720 additional funds we are requesting. BUDGET REQUEST In summary we are requesting $24,312,000 in 1967, an increase of $8,340,000 over 1966, of which about half is for grant support to universities and half for direct operations. Mr. Chairman, I shall be happy to answer any questions you may have concerning these activities. Mr. FOGARTY. The adjusted appropriation for 1966 is $15,972,000 and the request for 1967 is $24,312,000, an increase of $8,340,000 and 66 positions. Dr. ANDERSON. Yes. RESEARCH GRANTS Mr. FOGARTY. While you show an increase of $1,054,000 for research grants, this is, again, just leveling off the program, is it not? Dr. ANDERSON. That is right. That will enable us to fund the same amount of new grants. Mr. FOGARTY. But no increase? Dr. ANDERSON. But no increase. We think this will be about adequate for our research grants for next year. Mr. FOGARTY. Will you furnish for the record a few examples of worthwhile accomplishments under research grants. Dr. ANDERSON. Yes, we will do that. (The information follows:) ACCOMPLISHMENTS UNDER RESEARCH GRANTS THE CULTURE OF NORMAL CELLS At the Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., we are supporting studies for the development of cells culture systems which will permit the continuous quantitative analysis of normal metabolic patterns as well as any alterations in such patterns resulting from chemical, physical or other stress factors. In this work a new cell dissociation method using a high osmotic solution has yielded a plating efficiency of 1-5 percent recovery of liver cells are compared to prior reported recoveries of less than 0.1 percent. Success was achiveed in growing four different cell lines in the meta-stat under preset, monitored and controlled pH levels. Starting with L-929 (mouse fibroblast) cells, they subsequently grew Chang Wilton Earl No. 1492 and the primary mouse liver cells dissociated by the high osmolarity method. There were two important apparatus advances: (a) Incorporated a dialysis stabilizing system into the meta-stat operation. This achieved long-term stabilization of growth environment by greatly reducing the problem of protein coating of the sensor elements, thereby permitting continuous monitoring and feed-back control, (b) From the fabrication of new and modification of available equipment, an instrument was developed for automatically determining cell counts and cell size distribution. TOXICOLOGY OF PESTICIDIES IN THE ENVIRONMENT The data collected through research supported by this grant at Oregon State University has provided physiological and biochemical information not previously available on the effects of toxic substances on the metabolism, bioenergetics, growth, food intake and exercise physiology in fish. These data give some insight into the molecular basis for the action of cyanide and pentachlorophenol. This new physiologic and biochemical action of toxic substance in fish will eventually be extrapolated to their reactions in man and assist in determining some of the accumulated effects they might have on man's health. ECOLOGY OF PESTICIDES IN SOUTH FLORIDA A new and simplified gas chromatographic method for the analysis of chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides in human tissues was developed at the University of Miami. This method eliminated the use of the usual cleanup procedures and thereby reduced the contamination problems and improved accuracy, reproducibility and speed in accomplishing this analysis. A method was developed for the determination of p-nitrophenol in the urine of parathion exposed individuals which proved to give 40 times greater sensitivity than the measurement of red blood cell cholinesterase depression. A simple rapid method also has been developed for the analysis of pesticides in water with a sensitivity ranging from 0.1-1.5 (parts-per-trillion). A NEW GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY DETECTOR FOR PESTICIDES Under a grant made to Cornell University, an ultrasensitive gas chromatography detector has been developed which permits detection of the phosphorouscontaining pesticides in microquantities heretofore unobtainable. So successful has this new instrumentation become that over 50 scientists have visited the Cornell laboratories to obtain information. This has resulted in widespread publicity including coverage by the New York Times. From the FDA, Department of Agriculture, universities and instrument companies have come scientists seeking to adopt this detector to an ever-widening array of microchemical hazards. SIGNIFICANCE OF INSECTICIDE RESIDUES IN PHEASANTS The persistence of certain pesticides in animal tissues and the mechanisms by which these pesticides may be magnified to higher levels when they are passed on to successive organisms in the food chain, has been uncovered through a grant made to the California Conservation Department. This phenomenon represents one of the most disturbing aspects of the use of pesticides. The significance of this problem involving the distribution of peticide in the environment is being brought into sharper focus, as this study continues to reveal how pesticides affect reproduction and behavior in animals not the primary target of the pesticide. Mr. FOGARTY. Is there any particular one you want to talk about. now? Dr. ANDERSON. One very interesting one that has been started is a project to determine the biological effects in people of different environmental chemicals acting in relation to each other and in relation to drugs people might be taking at the same time they are being exposed to biologically active pollutant chemicals through their environment. This research will explore how the health effects are brought about through the changes that occur in the body functions that are altered by drugs and environmental chemicals. It is a broad base project-just getting started-and it will be a continuing effort, as we see it, in this area. AREAS COVERED BY RESEARCH GRANTS We have analyzed our research grants and find that nearly 60 percent of them relate to health effects. |