Hawai'i receives ocean health grant
By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser Health Writer
Hawai'i is one of four states chosen to receive more than $1 million a year from the federal government to study how ocean environmental issues affect public health, University of Hawai'i oceanographer Ed Laws said.
Residents are invited to voice their concerns on environmental health issues in Hawai'i at a town meeting from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the Ala Moana Hotel's Hibiscus Ballroom. The free event will include discussions on vog, ocean pollution and a study on the banned pesticide heptachlor. It is sponsored by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Laws said yesterday the concept is to link scientists and oceanographers like him with doctors from the UH John A. Burns School of Medicine. Together, they can help find ways to make sure ocean waters are safe for swimmers and develop a cheap and easy test for ciguatera, one of the most common kinds of fish poison, he said.
Environmental town meeting
"This is certainly a coup for the University of Hawai'i," said Laws, one of the people who worked on the grant application to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a part of the National Institutes of Health.
The grant will establish four Centers for Oceans and Human Health. Laws said the UH groups just received word they had been selected; he was not told where the other sites will be.
The director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Dr. Kenneth Olden, is in Honolulu this week for a conference and town meeting to ask people in the community about their top priorities for environmental health concerns.
Olden declined to discuss the details of the ocean health initiative because the selection of the four states has yet to be announced. He did say that they will share some $6 million annually.
"What we're trying to do is untangle the relationship between human health and the ocean," Olden said.
One project for the new centers to tackle is the link between mercury in some fish and certain health risks, he said. He also sees the ocean as having the potential to help develop new drugs that could treat cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and a host of other illnesses.
Laws said researchers plan to study water-quality monitoring to help find an effective way to determine if sewage has contaminated beaches. State and federal experts disagree on which are the best kinds of bacteria to test for as an indicator of water quality.
Another goal of the oceans project would be to develop an inexpensive, easy-to-use test that fishers could use to see if their catch was safe to eat.
Laws said ciguatera poisoning is a widespread problem in the tropics. Fish consume an organism that produces the toxin, the poison is retained in the fish and people who eat the fish then get sick, he said. "When people go to the store and buy a fish, they'd like to know if it's safe to eat," he said.
Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2429.
