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$2.2 Million in Research Grants Awarded to Better Protect Health of Native Americans
Release Date: 04/21/2004
Contact Information:
Suzanne Ackerman 202-564-7819 / ackerman.suzanne@epa.gov
(04/21/04) To study the health effects of environmental contaminants on tribal populations, EPA announced $2.2 million in research partnership grants. These tribal-academic partnerships will focus on strategies to reduce the risk of exposure to mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), pesticides, and other chemicals. Tribes may be at high risk for diseases because of environmental releases impacting their lands or due to their subsistence lifestyles or customs. Grants were awarded to: 1) Alaska Community Action on Toxics, Anchorage, Alaska for $449,000 to examine the content and preparation of traditional foods (seal, whale, walrus, sea bird eggs, berries) of the Siberian Yu'pik people, who show high serum levels of PCBs and pesticides; 2) Mote Marine Laboratory, Sarasota, Fla. for $437,399 to develop outreach tools and informational messages to reduce Alaskan Inupiats’ risk of hydrocarbon exposure from eating bowhead whales and bearded seals; 3) Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment, Inc., Hogansburg, N.Y. for $450,000 to examine the impacts of toxic substances on traditional cultural practices of the Haudenosaunee Nations; 4) Oregon State University, Corvallis, Ore. for $449, 970 to prepare regional scenarios that illustrate where tribes are exposed to environmental contaminants; and 5) Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, Odanah, Wis. for $445,830 to reduce risks of exposure to methylmercury from subsistence fishing by the Wisconsin Anishinaabe tribe. The projects were funded through EPA’s Science to Achieve Results (STAR) competitive grants program in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. More information about these grants is available at: https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/recipients.display/rfa_id/335 . For more information on EPA’s STAR program, see: http://es.epa.gov/ncer/ .
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