Why I am calling for a Local Health Emergency in San Francisco

The term emergency can be applied to any situation where urgent and immediate action is required to mitigate or prevent an adverse situation that threatens public health, property and the environment. California abides by two sets of laws governing the decision to declare or proclaim a public health emergency in order to exercise extraordinary powers to respond to an emergency.

Biomonitoring detects pollution in people. As a method for measuring toxic chemicals in human tissues, HBM is a proven tool for studying harmful environmental chemicals to confirm exposures and validate public health policies. Population biomonitoring was first applied to environmental public health in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory reduction of lead in gasoline on Jan. 1, 1986.

“HBM is the only way to identify and quantify human exposure and risk, elucidate the mechanism of toxic effects and ultimately decide if measures have to be taken to reduce exposure. Risk assessment and risk management without HBM leads to wrong estimates and inadequate measures.” — “Human Biomonitoring: State of the Art,” Jurgen Angerer et al. Int J Hyg Environ Health May 2007.

Biomonitoring for measuring and detecting toxic chemicals in human tissue was enacted by the EPA in 1967 when the National Human Monitoring…