2025 PFAS Conference

Clinician’s Guide to PFAS: Exposure, Effects, and Action Against the Forever Chemical

Thursday, September 11, 2025, from 12:00 – 4:00 pm

This conference was curated in partnership with

Presentations

Perils of PFAS

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Dr. Linda Birnbaum, PhD, DABT, ATS is the former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, and the National Toxicology Program. After retirement, she was granted scientist emeritus status and still maintains a laboratory. As a board-certified toxicologist, Dr. Birnbaum served as a federal scientist for 40 years. Prior to her appointment as NIEHS and NTP Director in 2009, she spent 19 years at the US Environmental Protection Agency, where she directed the largest division focusing on environmental health research. (This presentation was given as a part of ChristianaCare’s Internal Medicine Grand Rounds.)

Assessing the Utility of Healthcare Claims Data to Determine Potential Health Impacts of PFAS Exposure with Public Drinking Water

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Dr. Amy Lavery, PhD, MSPH is the unit lead and epidemiologist for the Office of Innovation and Analytics, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Gonza Namulanda, DrPH, MS is a health scientist at the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice, in the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Links:

PFAS Information for Physicians

Captain Arthur Wendel, MD, MPH, is a physician with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry’s Environmental Medicine and Health Systems Intervention Section and an officer in the United States Public Health Service. He joined CDC/ATSDR as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer, and he has worked on a variety of environmental health topics throughout his career. He is board certified in family medicine and in preventive medicine, and he volunteers at a free clinic as a primary care clinician and clinical instructor.

Links:

Current Efforts in Delaware: PFAS Sampling and Remediation Efforts

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Amanda Lacklen is the Senior Environmental Scientist IV for the Office of Environmental Hazards and Toxicology with the Delaware Division of Public Health, Health Systems Protection Section. Amanda oversees programs ranging from radon gas to testing private wells. She is passionate about promoting educational awareness to prevent cancer on a plethora of fronts, and speaks at community, regional, and national conferences and other educational outreach initiatives. Amanda sits on the Delaware Strategic Planning Committee for PFAS Remediation and the DNREC-DHSS Fish Advisory Committee.

Todd A. Keyser, PG, is the PFAS Team Lead, Hydrologist VI in the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) Division of Waste and Hazardous Substances. Todd is an experienced environmental professional with over 25 years of service in the State of Delaware. He obtained his BS and MS from the University of Delaware, and started his career at the Delaware Geological Survey, conducting groundwater recharge mapping and natural hazards assessments. Todd spent 15 years working through Voluntary Cleanup, Enforcement, Superfund and Brownfield redevelopment projects statewide, and spent 10 years as a Hazardous Materials Technician and Specialist on the DNREC Emergency Response Team. He is the co-author of the Watershed Approach to Toxics Assessment and Restoration (WATAR).

Links:

PFAS: Moving Forward & PFAS Policy

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Sarah Bucic, MSN, RN, PMHCNS-BC (she/her) is a Policy Analyst with the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. In her work at ANHE, Sarah focuses on outreach to current administrative officials and legislators around ANHE’s climate policy initiatives including reducing exposures to toxic chemicals. Sarah has been a RN since 2001 and has also worked on successful state level legislation centered on lead poisoning prevention in children. She has taught undergraduate nursing students both in the classroom and in the community, holds a Master’s in Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing from the University of Pennsylvania and a Post Master’s from University of Maryland in Community/Public Health Nursing.

Dr. Ruth McDermott-Levy, PhD, MPH is the Co-Director of the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health and the Environment (Region 3 PEHSU). Her clinical area of focus is Public Health Nursing. Dr. McDermott-Levy has completed research in the areas of international student experience, community health workers in Nicaragua, Arab immigrants in the US, health concerns in fracking communities, and community-based organizations’ adaption to climate change. Her current scholarship includes environmental health with a focus on climate change mortality and adaption, and extraction communities.