PSU Magazine Winter 2001

Providing needed medical assistance in the Amazon Basin. For Professor Jan Semenza the health of people-all people- is a passion that has taken him from Egypt to Asia to South America. Semenza is a molecular epidemiolo– gist, a relatively new field that combines the study of genetic and environmental risk factors at the molecular level with the distribution and prevention of disease within populations. Anative of Zurich, Switzerland, he brings a global perspective to PSU's School of Community Health through his worldwide investigations of environmentally caused health crises. As a former epidemic intelligence officer with the Atlanta Centers for Disease Con– trol and Prevention (CDC), he received a commendation from the city of Chicago for his work following the 1995 heat wave that killed more than 700 people. Semenza identified risk factors for heat-related death that has formed the basis for an exten– sive public health intervention by the city for future crises. The CDC also took him to Nukus, a city near the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan, where extensive irrigation of cotton fields has created one of the greatest ecological disas– ters in recent history. He was able to pinpoint the link between water contamination and diarrheal disease that resulted in treatment and distribution of drinking water. Today he remains a collaborator with the World Health Organization, having trav– eled to Egypt and Sudan in the fight to eradicate polio throughout the world. During the academic year, he teaches classes in environmental health and epidemiology, and conducts research on environmental causes of cancer. He is currently investigating gene-environment interactions and cancer susceptibility. This is an account of his recent experiences in Brazil's Amazon Basin. Jan Semenza (right) performed eye examinations, assisted with surgery, and monitored the health status of the people along the Amazon. 12 PSU MAGAZINE WINTER 2001 By Jan Semenza W hen a friend from Sao Paulo contacted me in Portland and asked me to join a health mission to the Amazon in Brazil, I could not in my wildest dreams imagine what she had in mind. She wanted to draw on my expertise in preventive medicine and epidemiol– ogy and suggested that I assist in a pro– ject ded icated to delivering health care to the local population along the Amazon. I was intrigued by the project and decided to embark on the mission. I flew directly to Manaus, at the confluence of the Amazon and Rio Negro rivers, where I caught a boat for the three-hour trip to Ariau Tower, a conference resort in the middle of the jungle where a public health meeting was planned to kick off the mission. I found myself not only in the mid– dle of tropical forest but also in the midd le of a vast spider web-like net– work of cat walks spreading above nine miles of flooded jungle. The Rio Negro, an Amazon tributary, floods vast areas of jungle forest annually. Walking through dense jungle brush several feet above turbid water, made me feel disoriented, and I began to question having accepted the offer. Then I noticed wild monkeys bounc– ing from branch to branch stealing food and teasing one another. And how cou ld I have missed the colorfu l macaws? Fascinated by these exotic animals I eventually overcame my ini– tia l disorientation and began to appre– ciate this unique environment. Brazil, the largest country in South America, has a population of 157 mil– lion, which ranks it fifth in the world. The Amazon River is the largest in the world in area of drainage and in volume of discharge into the sea. With 2.3 mi llion square miles, the Amazon Basin contains the greatest rain forest in the world. When the river floods it