THE NIEHS SUPERFUND BASIC RESEARCH-PROGRAM - OVERVIEW AND AREAS OF FUTURE-RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences' Superfund Basic Research Program is currently funding 142 separate research projects within 18 programs encompassing 29 universities and institutions around the United States. The research under this program covers a wide range of interdisciplinary science from both the biomedical and nonbiomedical perspectives. This is a unique program of technology-driven research. Nonetheless, there are some areas of research that should be investigated or investigated further, should funds become available. Environmental health risk posed by the location of Superfund sites may be distributed inequitably across socioeconomic status and racial groups. Since one in five children now lives below the poverty line, an important aspect of environmental equity must be the investigation of the health effects of environmental factors on children. The multidisciplinary investigation of the effects of hazardous substance exposure on children is an area that needs much research due to the fact that most of the toxicologic data available are based on adults and animals. This program is funding 27 projects on ecologic damage posed by hazardous wastes. Much more research is needed in the investigation of toxic effects on natural succession of ecosystems as well as on their effects on biodiversity to further our understanding of the food web in the role of bioavailability in human health, and to examine the bioaccumulation of these chemicals as it relates to their fate and transport. This program is researching and developing many innovative technologies for detecting, assessing, and reducing toxic materials in the environment. As these products are developed through basic research, it becomes necessary to design a technology-transfer strategy for this program to handle the unique problems associated with transferring multidisciplinary technology from basic research to applied research and eventually to technology demonstrations and commercialization. Two areas of prime consideration are biologically based risk assessment and bioremediation. Presently, more than half of hazardous waste remediation is done via incineration. Additional funding will allow for investigating innovative technologies in incineration, to augment studies on the health effects of exposure to toxic combustion by-products, and to develop real-time monitors for hazardous waste incinerator emissions. From a public health perspective, this technology may allow for the destruction of environmental hazardous wastes such that potential human health effects are ameliorated, or indeed prevented, specifically by reducing the amount and toxicity of hazardous substances.