I have a thesis defense date!

March 30, 2021

It’s official: I have a defense date scheduled for August 10 at 11 am. MARK YOUR CALENDARS, FRIENDS! Also hit me up for that Zoom link. The buildup to this has been pretty stressful, so I am ecstatic that is worked out and I get to leave.

Before August 10, I have to write a thesis — specifically, I turn it in July 6! The average PhD thesis is around 75,000 words. The task is pretty daunting, but I have a strategy to tackle it. Basically, I will write about 15,000 words of introduction, about the same for a discussion, and my two papers will go in between. Older graduate students in my program have called the strategy, “the sandwich method.”

After I write and defend, my next step is a move to Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. My partner has accepted a job at the Environmental Protection Agency, which is AWESOME and I am so freakin’ proud. On my end, I aspire (dream) to become a science journalist that covers environmental health news and toxicology. I have accepted that I might not be able to get there right out of the gate, so I have been casting a wide net with my job applications and career search. I have applied for science communication multimedia fellowships and toxicology consulting and risk assessment positions. Additionally, this week I am meeting with some mentors to *gulp* inquire about post-docs. Ideally the post docs would be at the National Toxicology Program or NIEHS, and have an obvious public-health focus and maybe even value science communication and outreach. Does such a specific post-doc exist?! I have no idea. Hopefully time (and the right contacts) will tell.

At work, my main responsibilities have shifted from laboratory work, writing, and extracurricular activities to mainly writing all day, every day. Honestly, thank GOODNESS because 1) I love to write/edit and 2) I have gotten to the point in my PhD where I want to bang my head against the black Masonite benchtop every other day. Apparently, that level of frustration is a good indication that a student is ready to leave.

Another indication is a publication record.

I published my first first-author manuscript in Toxicology last fall, which is the unwritten base-requirement (in addition to completing coursework and maintaining good academic standing) to graduate from my program. However, my advisor wanted a second first-author publication from me before he would let me go.

At first, I was basically like “heck no this is dumb and I am tired” but in slightly more articulate and professional language, of course. Eventually (and begrudgingly), I acquiesced. While I’m proud of myself for doing it, I must credit a supportive committee member who gave me the tough love I needed to “just write the damn paper and get out.” In a three week span, I pivoted from an obstinate stance against writing the paper at all, to having the first draft completed and sent to my advisor.

That draft has been sitting in his inbox for over a week now, but it’s not productive to dwell…

Anyway, I’m really proud of myself for setting my mind to something and just doing it, even though I very much did not want to. I’m leaving out a lot of details, such as panic attacks and angsty walks to work. In any case, please trust me when I say that my experience with the second paper is pretty emblematic of the grind of a PhD: it can be mentally grueling.

Now would be an opportune time to say something along the lines of, “if it was any other way, everyone would do it.” Approximately 2% of the U.S. population has a PhD, according to Inside Higher Ed. Sure, a small fraction of people in general complete the PhD. Here’s a thought: what if we made it less mentally grueling?! Surely more people would have a PhD. Why is that such a bad thing? I digress. This is definitely a topic for a future post.

Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to joining a tiny nerd-guild of Toxicologists in the very near future.

Methylmercury pollution is a problem – can Hollywood help?

January 29, 2021

The story of the world’s worst methylmercury poisoning disaster comes to the screen in February. The film, Minamata stars Johnny Depp as American photojournalist, W. Eugene Smith, whose work publicized the disaster in Minamata, Japan. Hopefully the film will renew public interest in mercury pollution, which remains a major threat to global public health.

(Warning – spoiler alert) The movie is set in Minamata in 1971, where Smith and his wife, Aileen, visited the small coastal fishing village for a journalistic expedition. The pair learn how Minamata and surrounding towns were ravaged by methylmercury water pollution from the chemical factory owned by Chisso Corporation. Smith captures the tragedy on his camera, which leads to an infamous eight-page spread in Life Magazine in 1972. Based on the trailer, centerpiece of the film is likely to be Smith creating this photospread.

The photos captured emotional scenes of the distorted, frail bodies of poisoning victims. To implicate Chisso, Smith sequentially arranged the photos: shots of factory wastewater followed by people fishing to explain the exposure, and lastly images of physically crippled victims in their daily life.

Left: Industrial waste from the Chisso Chemical company. Middle: Fishermen in Minamata Bay. Right: Tomoko Uemura is bathed by her mother. Photo credit: W. Eugene Smith.

Methylmercury is a potent neurotoxicant, a poisonous substance that causes brain damage. In the case of methylmercury, the damage is permanent. With high levels of exposure, such as those at Minamata, the brain damage results symptoms akin to cerebral palsy: erratic, uncoordinated movements and cognitive impairment.

A peculiar attribute of methylmercury is that it accumulates in fish tissue. Even small amounts in the environment can lead to extraordinarily high levels in fish. Thus, people who ate fish from the bay in Minamata were poisoned. Chisso stopped dumping wastewater in 1968, but hundreds of Japanese had already been crippled or killed by the poison. To date, approximately 3,000 victims been officially recognized, according to a recent report in the Japan Times.

Dr. John O’Donoghue, toxicologic neuropathologist based in Rochester, New York, first learned of Minamata after seeing Smith’s photo spread in Life Magazine many years ago. “One particular black and white photo has stayed in my mind ever since,” he said. “It was a picture of a woman who was bathing her crippled daughter with such care and tenderness – the child was precious to her.” In Smith’s photobook, Let Truth Be the Prejudice, the photo is called “Tomoko Uemura is bathed by her mother,” and is also pictured above.

Dr. Celia Chen, director of the Dartmouth Toxic Metals Superfund Research Program, was similarly struck by the same photo. “Seeing the degree of physical impact of a toxin through the environment was really sobering,” she said. “It was painful and inspiring as well – there are so many emotions with the photograph.”

The story of Minamata is powerful, but Dr. Chen stressed that the poisoning event was distinct from most mercury exposures. “Minamata was like a punch to the gut,” she said. Chen explained that the more subtle low-level exposures experienced most often today can still be dangerous. The most sensitive populations to methylmercury are unborn babies, who are exposed through contaminated seafood eaten by the mother. While all fish contain some level of mercury, the most concerning are large predatory species like swordfish, tuna, and shark; these are the ones clinicians advise pregnant mothers to avoid. Another way to protect the next generation is by reducing the amount of mercury in fish to begin with. For this reason, international limits on mercury emissions are crucial.

Indeed, the international Minamata Convention of Mercury was formed limit mercury emissions into the environment. According to Chen the Minamata Convention “is like the Treaty of Paris for carbon emissions.” Italy joined the Convention on January 5, 2021, bringing the total number of participating nations to 127.

Chen said that coal fire-power plants have the highest mercury emissions in the U.S. In order to regulate power plant mercury emissions, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) in 2012. Chen explained that the MATS rule helps the U.S. meet commitments under the Minamata Convention.

The MATS rule has helped substantially reduce mercury emissions. According to EPA data, mercury emissions from the U.S. coal-fire power plants have declined by 85% from 92,000 pounds in 2006 to 14,000 pounds in 2016. Additionally, the estimated number of children born in the U.S. each year with pre-natal exposure to methylmercury levels exceeding the EPA reference dose has decreased by half.

Despite such progress, the EPA recently stepped back from its commitment to reduce mercury emissions.  On April 16, 2020, the Agency deemed that it is not, “appropriate and necessary” to regulate mercury and other hazardous pollutants from coal-fired power plants under section 112 of the Clean Air Act. According to legal scholars, this decision undermines the foundation of the MATS rule and invites challenges to mercury emissions standards.

While the Biden administration is likely to consider more stringent environmental regulations, it’s noteworthy that our new President neglected to include coal-fired power plants in his January 27^th executive order limiting emissions (coal leasing) on federal lands.

Nevertheless, movies like Minamata can help people take notice of important environmental issues surrounding mercury. Public awareness and understanding of such issues can help protect the next generation from the health threats of methylmercury.

Researchers who study mercury today such as Chen, O’Donoghue, and myself are hopeful that the public reception of the film will be similar to that of prior historical dramas with an environmental interest. In the 1984 film, Silkwood, Meryl Streep brought a story of corporate negligence and plutonium radiation toxicity into the public eye. Mark Ruffalo did so more recently for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in Dark Waters.

As Chen succinctly put it, “These kinds of movies, whether on mercury or PFAS, are so important because the public will go see a movie and gain interest. Movies can be an on-ramp for people to care about important environmental issues.”