Comment on Hearing Loss Panel Membership is Encouraged by NIOSH as List is Posted

Contact: Fred Blosser (202) 401-3749

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) encourages its stakeholders to comment on the provisional membership of a National Academies scientific panel that will review NIOSH's program of research for the prevention of hearing loss. The National Academies posted the list on Dec. 5, and will accept comments until Dec. 25.

The National Academies will consider public comments, along with other information, before the committee membership is made final, the National Academies notice said. The provisional list is available on-line, along with a link for feedback, at http://www7.nationalacademies.org/retirees/Rx_Drug_Cov_2007.pdf.

The provisional list includes Bernard D. Goldstein, Ph.D., (Chair), Dean of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health; Beth A. Cooper, M.S., an acoustical engineer and manager of the Acoustical Testing Laboratory at the NASA Glenn Research Center; Susan E. Cozzens, Ph.D., a professor of public policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology and director of its Technology Policy and Assessment Center; Karen J. Cruickshanks, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences as well as in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin, School of Medicine and Public Health; Judy R. Dubno, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery of the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC); Dennis A. Giardino, M.S., an acoustic consultant specializing in the evaluation of the noise environments of industrial and mining facilities; Rena Glaser, M.A., a former manager of medical surveillance for 3M Corporation; William W. Lang, Ph.D., president of the Noise Control Foundation; Laura C. Leviton, Ph.D., a senior program officer of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; Richard J. Salvi, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Communicative Disorders and Sciences at the State University of New York at Buffalo and director of the university's Center for Hearing and Deafness; and Michael A. Silverstein, M.D., a clinical professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine.

Through the process of inviting public comment, "we determine whether the committee contains the requisite expertise to address its task and whether the points of views of individual members are adequately balanced such that the committee as a whole can address its charge objectively," the National Academies notice said.

The project is expected to last until July 31, 2006. The first meeting of the provisional committee will be held on Jan. 5 and 6, 2006, at the Keck Center of the National Academies, 500 Fifth St. N.W., Washington, D.C. Further information on meeting times and agenda will follow.

The hearing loss prevention review is one of several interactions through which NIOSH has sought the National Academies' expert external scientific review of NIOSH's programs. Further information is available at www.cdc.gov/niosh/nas/.