Key NIH institute gets a new Director

Environmental health researchers got some good news yesterday. The NIH's only institute that focusses almost entirely on public health and environmental science, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), got a new Director after years of chaotic and controversial regime of former Director David Schwartz, who left under a cloud of alleged conflicts of interest and mismanagement. For the last year NIEHS has been under very capable and stabilizing direction of an Acting Director, Sam Wilson, but there were limits on what could be done by a Director and his Deputy who didn't have permanent status. Now the answer as to who will guide this very important NIH institute into the 21st Century, and it is a welcome one. The New Director will be Dr. Linda Birnbaum, a highly respected scientist in her own right with a track record of scientific leadership in the profession and someone who knows the ropes of the government science world, having been a researcher at NIEHS or EPA for the last 30 years.

NIEHS is not geographically with the other NIH institutes in Bethesda, Maryland, but down in North Carolina's Research Triangle Park area cheek by jowl with Raleigh - Durham. It is situated on a lovely artificial lake, across which one can see the EPA's research facility where Birnbaum now works as director of experimental toxicology. In the interests of full disclosure I admit to knowing and being a fan of Dr. Birnbaum's, so consider that when judging my optimism for this appointment. While this is not a Presidential appointment, per se, like Obama's cabinet and staff appointments it is characterized by high competence and a pragmatic a straightforward character. I know her primarily through scientific relationships, where she is enormously productive of work of high importance in the field. Her specialty involves dioxins and the biology of the dioxin receptor and more recently flame retardants, a growing concern in environmental health. But scientists are usually enthusiastic about other scientists, some of whom turn out to be great leaders and some who don't. So I'll also provide you with an informed non-scientist's view of the new Director, that of science journalist Janet Raloff.

Raloff is one of the best science reporters around (I've been interviewed by her and one quickly learns to tell the good ones from the not so good ones on the basis of the questions alone). Her stories in Science News are always top notch). And here is what she said there about Birnbaum:

As a reporter who has worked with Birnbaum for probably 20 years, I've found her singularly articulate in explaining the often arcane effects and mechanisms by which many environmental agents cause harm. A straight shooter, she won't hazard wild guesses about implications of her data, but she will offer informed speculation. The kind of comments, for instance, she'd share with colleagues at a research conference.

She doesn't look for attention or grandstand, but she will speak up repeatedly to keep colleagues grounded on what the data that they're considering show -- or don't show. She also points out what kinds of studies would be required to fill in all those niggling data gaps. These would be the investigations needed to understand whether the chemicals we encounter in the home, workplace and environment are likely to be benign or not -- at the doses to which we may be exposed.

[snip]

As people look for science to once again hold sway in research agencies, appointments like Birnbaum's appear to be a step in the right direction. (Janet Raloff, Science News)

A step in the right direction. Indeed.

(Other posts on NIEHS here, here, here, here, here, here)