Understanding Environmental Contaminants and Human Fertility Compromise: Science and Strategy (Vallombrosa Workshop)
PRHE has convened a variety of events, conferences and workshops in order to support environmental reproductive health research, education and policy.
PRHE pursues and promotes an interdisciplinary, life-stage approach to research. Below is a description of research projects being conducted by PRHE staff and UCSF-affiliated faculty:
In late February 2005, the Collaborative on Health and the Environment's Fertility/Early Pregnancy Compromise Work Group partnered with Dr. Linda C. Giudice and Stanford University School of Medicine's Women's Health@Stanford Program (for which Dr. Giudice served as Director at the time) to convene a small multidisciplinary group of experts at the Vallombrosa Retreat Center in Menlo Park, California.
The goal of the workshop was to assess what the science tells us about the contribution of environmental contaminants, specifically synthetic compounds and heavy metals, to human infertility and associated health conditions. Workshop organizers chose this focus because critical recent discoveries in the field have raised many new, intriguing scientific questions and have heightened interest in environmental risk factors within patient organizations and reproductive medicine/science professional societies.
This unusual meeting was the first time researchers in reproductive epidemiology, biology, toxicology and clinical medicine gathered with representatives of relevant professional societies as well as infertility support, women's health and reproductive advocacy organizations from the United States to review the state of environmental health science as it pertains to human infertility.
To learn about the objectives, program, leadership and participants at the Workshop - and to view its proceedings - please click on the links below.
The Vallombrosa Consensus Statement on Environmental Contaminants and Human Fertility Compromise (PDF)
Challenged Conceptions: Environmental Chemicals and Fertility - a lay background paper (PDF)
Workshop Description (PDF)
Workshop Program (PDF)
Workshop Participant List (PDF)
Workshop Bibliography (PDF)
UCSF Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment
1330 Broadway Street, Suite 1100
Oakland, CA 94612
phone: (510) 986-8990
email: prhe@obgyn.ucsf.edu
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Last updated:
November 3, 2008
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