Welcome Eric Olson from NRDC. So great to have you here and be part of this today. Eric can you share with us a little bit about what you do at the NRDC? What that's about? >> Sure, well, I work in a variety of areas, but heavy emphasis on toxic chemicals and their effects on people and specifically a lot of attention to drinking water contamination. And I've really been working in this arena for many years and have seen all sorts of serious problems arise with contaminated water, contaminated consumer products and environments. And it's really that intersection between public health and environmental contamination that has been my career. >> Interesting. I know as long as I've been doing it, you've been probably doing it longer and are certainly so grateful for your work. I did want to mention you were going to be part of another panel, the environmental panel. And I did want to mention and find out a little bit and he let the audience here, why you couldn't be, could you tell us about what occurred a couple of weeks ago that you could share with us? >> Sure. The Vice President Harris decided she was going to announce along with the EPA Administrator Regan a major initiative to reduce lead contamination of drinking water and who addressed lead paint issues across the United States. So I was invited to participate in an event that she held and there were a couple of talks that were given, including by her to talk about these major new developments. Huge amounts of new funding under the new infrastructure bill that passed just before thanksgiving. And also they announced plans to change the rules for lead in drinking water and some of the other requirements for addressing lead paint. So they were very exciting announcements. There's still some issues that are unclear that we're concerned about making absolutely sure that EPA is going to fix their lead in drinking water rules. But I think the direction that they're headed looks really good and we're hoping that they are able to follow up and really overhaul the rules that desperately needs to be fixed. >> Well, I know you've been chipping away at this for about 20 years. And so we're grateful for your work. >> Actually since 1991 when we originally filed the lawsuit to try to address lead in water. So it's been a long time, a long fight but it's really amazing that we're seeing light at the end of this tunnel. And having the president of the United States and the vice president saying that this is a big issue that really needs to be addressed. I think helping a lot and seeing Congress dedicate billions of dollars to address the lead contamination problem of our water is just a huge step forward. But we still need to get that build back better bill path with going to include another $10 billion to addresss lead contaminated water and about $5 billion dollars to address lead paint. So let's hope that we can see that legislation passed as well. >> Well, I know I speak for many when I say we're grateful for your hard work and your diligence and persistence and seeing change on this front. You brought up policy I'm wondering how our audience members can help in that area. Is there a way that folks that are watching this, wherever they are in the country or the globe can help in this? >> But there's so much attention that's paid to cleaning up messes after the fact or to helping people get treated for cancer after they get it. And not enough attention is given to prevention. So as my grandmother used to say, announce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And this is really true in the environmental arena. If we can just adopt policies that will stop people from being exposed to things like lead contamination or toxic chemicals, we will not have to be treating people that get sick. So it's really important for folks in the audience to recognize that weighing in with your elected representatives, with your senators, your members of the House, with the White House and with your state elected representatives is so critical. I will tell you, I used to work in the Senate and what I heard time after time is when they get a lot of emails, when they get a lot of handwritten letters, when they get a lot of phone calls about an issue that does register with elected representatives and honestly, the opposite is also true. I can't tell you how many times I was in meetings where people said, well, we haven't really been hearing much about this from our constituents, so people must not care about it very much. So it is crucial that people weigh in with their elected representatives and with people in government agencies and tell them and you don't have to have a lot of connections. you can just be a regular citizen, a regular voter and tell those elected representatives or members of the White House staff or wherever, that you really care about this issue. And it does make a difference and it does, we know it does, it's so important. We know that policy is a critical tool in treating the masses and protecting the masses. But it's it's the critical tool in public health, unlike a Band aid or an aspirin, which we've discussed in this workshop before, it is, it's one of the key tools for protecting the public's health and when it gets to things like cancer lead exposures, things that really are so devastating. And we understand many of these things are unnecessary and preventable and knowing that we can have different outcomes. And so your work, your long, long work of many years has really paid off and we're seeing it pay off from a healthcare provider's perspective? what can they do to help minimize some of these impacts? Do you think healthcare providers really have a unique perspective that will be respected by people in government, like elected representatives. If you are a health care provider, a doctor, a nurse, a P A. whatever you mentioned that you have that background when you reach out to your elected representatives, they really will respect the fact that you've dedicated your career to trying to protect people's health and it can have an impact. The other thing that's obviously critical is to talk to your patients and talk more broadly, I think just speaking up at meetings and speaking to patients, whatever forms you can speak at and talk about the need to really do this kind of prevention. So a lot of doctors and healthcare providers know about talking about something like smoking and how important it is to talk to patients about not smoking, but a lot of other environmental exposures are very important and people need to know about that and that will help motivate them to protect themselves as much as they can or to try to weigh in and get their government to protect them where that's not possible because I think as some other panelists have said, you can't always shop your way out of these problems, a lot of these exposures, you have no choice. You can't choose whether to breathe, you can't choose whether you're going to drink water or not. so it's really important for the government to be stepping in and protecting us with strong standards and really I think healthcare providers play a unique role both in talking to the public and their patients, but also in speaking with a lot of gravitas to their elected representatives well. And I think gravitas to any community member that understands a health care provider, understands science. They've been educated in science, health and medicine, maybe not all areas of the environment. Maybe there are many areas that they have not been, but they have the ability to understand the evidence behind it and they know how to read science and and so they are a bit there, the community ambassadors, their community leaders because they're the ones that understand these things and it's why I call on so many to help communicate these messages because I'm really in my role just a squeaky wheel. These people are the ones with the expertise and the education and the know how to help lead. And most often, trusted authorities and so their voice means a lot to not only policymakers but also you know community members and community leaders and and parents and especially one of the reasons we do these C mes is so people have trusted evidence based information so they know and are aware it's not something that we shoot from the hip pond and so I couldn't agree with you more. Eric. I want to thank you for being here today, but I also want to let the audience know what an important partner you have been and are D. C. Has been in helping us develop the environmental panel. Your leadership on this has been critical to this workshop and we are, I'm so grateful for everything that you've done to support us. Well I really appreciate your involving us. I think it's so important to have, especially healthcare providers, the kind of audience that you draw with your CME A CME e. Work to really bring folks into this discussion. They are so important to the broader discussion and the broader conversation about how we're going to change policy, how we're going to fix these problems. So we truly appreciate all that you're doing and the work that that less cancer has been doing over the past many years to try to address these really important issues
