WASHINGTON -- A group of international scientists, backed by two senators, Tuesday initiated Collegium Ramazzini, an new organization aimed at obtaining a scientific consensus on occupational and environmental issues.
Founded by Dr. Irving Selikoff of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, a renowned authority on environmental medicine, the group is named after Bernardino Ramazzini, a 17th Century Italian occupational medicine scientist.
Sens. Charles Mathias, R-Md., and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., helped launch the international organization at a news conference attended by labor and industry officials.
Selikoff said the group will neither lobby for nor initiate legislation, but rather interpret scientific findings, present them in lay language, demonstrate the policy implications, and make recommendations.
'We will advise on the adequacy of a standard, but will not lobby to have a standard set,' Selikoff said. 'Our function is not to condemn, but rather to be a conscience among scientists in occupational and environmental health.'
Selikoff said the first full meeting of the collegium, which hopes to include 100 eminent international scientists as fellows, will be held Oct. 18 in Carpi, Italy, the town where Ramazzini was born and practiced medicine.
It will be followed by a two-day symposium, Nov. 3 and 4, in New York City to review recent animal and human studies on the toxic and carcinogenic effects of benzene and assess policies and regulations limiting benzene exposure.
Mathias applauded the group as 'dedicated to the improvement of the human condition,' while Lautenberg said it 'calls to the conscience' the relationship between the workplace and human health.
Monte Throdahl, senior vice president of Monsanto Corp. which has donated funds to the organization, said he hopes the new forum will emphasize decisions of scientists 'and not reporters or public interests groups' on occupational medicine issues.
But Selikoff later said: 'I don't mind seeing it on the front pages sometimes. I think it stimulates all of us.'
