David Michaels, PhD, MPH, is professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health of George Washington University.

 

Topic: Protecting Public Health in the Face of Real and Manufactured Scientific Uncertainty

 

From 2009 until January 2017, he was assistant secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, the longest serving assistant secretary in OSHA's history. From 1998 to 2001, Michaels served as assistant secretary of Energy for Environment, Safety and Health, charged with protecting workers, community residents and the environment in and around the nation’s nuclear weapons facilities. 

He has conducted epidemiologic studies on typographers, commercial pressmen, construction workers, bus drivers and paper workers, and has published papers in Science, JAMA, and numerous other journals. In addition to his epidemiologic research, much of Michaels' work has focused on protecting the integrity of the science underpinning public health and environmental protections. He is the author of Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health (Oxford University Press, 2008), and the forthcoming The Triumph of Doubt: Dark Money and the Science of Deception. Michaels received the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award for his work on behalf of nuclear weapons workers and for his advocacy for scientific integrity. 

He is also the recipient of the American Public Health Association's David P. Rall Award for Advocacy in Public Health, and the John P. McGovern Science and Society Award given by Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society. 

*1 CPH credit available*