Dr. Howard Frumkin

It is my pleasure to nominate Dr. Howard Frumkin, Director of the National Center for Environmental Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at the CDC, for Climate Change Communicator of the Year for 2009.

When Dr. Frumkin took on this leadership role within the federal government's public health enterprise in September of 2005, he brought a determination to raise the nation's awareness of the public health impacts of climate change. This took a tremendous amount of courage and personal sacrifice. He has been tireless in his efforts to communicate with the public on climate change and health, ranging from scientific information and policy statements on the CDC website (http://www.cdc.gov/ClimateChange/default.htm) to influential scholarly articles and Congressional testimony. In addition, he gives many dozens of talks each year on the topic in a variety of public venues.

One of his greatest challenges in communicating with the public on climate change came when the testimony of Dr. Julie Gerberding, Director of the CDC and Dr. Frumkin's supervisor, had large portions describing the health effects of climate change removed from it prior to her appearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Dr. Frumkin persevered in his efforts and ultimately delivered much of the redacted content in testimony six months later (see http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/index.php/csw/details/frumkin_gerberding_climate_health_testimony/).

In his role as a funder of research and public health activities, Dr. Frumkin has been a model of ensuring that climate change health risk communication research is supported as well as health impact analyses and public health preparedness projects.

Lastly, anyone who has attended a talk given by Dr. Frumkin will know that he possesses unusual skill and grace as a speaker and communicator himself. I believe he is well deserving of recognition for the tremendous role he has played in furthering communication on climate change.

John Balbus, MD, MPH
Former Chief Health Scientist, Environmental Defense Fund

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