Plastics and Health
March 7th, 2025
WEHN’s annual series and conference on health and environment
Join us on Friday, March 7th, 2025 (11 AM - 5:30 PM CST) for WEHN's annual Making the Connection conference, where we will be exploring the crucial link between health and plastics. The conference will be held online and in-person at the Health Sciences Learning Center (HSLC) in Madison, Wisconsin. Whether you're a student, environmental advocate, medical professional, or just curious about the topic, this event is perfect for anyone looking to learn more about the connection between health and the environment.
This conference is eligible for 5 hours of CE or CME credits.
Featured Speakers:
Philip Landrigan, MD, MSc, FAAP
Topic: Health Effects of Plastic
Philip Landrigan, MD, MSc, FAAP, is a pediatrician and epidemiologist, and director of the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good at Boston College. He leads the Monaco Commission on Plastics and Ocean Pollution and in 2022-23, led the Minderoo-Monaco Commission on Plastics and Human Health, which documents that plastics and associated chemicals harm human health at every stage of the plastic life cycle
Hilary Ong, MD, FAAP
Topic: Plastics and Human Reproduction: A Life Course Perspective
Hilary Ong, MD, FAAP, is a physician and assistant professor of pediatric emergency medicine at University of California, San Francisco. Her research and academic pursuits include waste reduction and decarbonization in emergency departments. She also co-created a climate health and equity curriculum for the UCSF emergency medicine residency program. She will speak about plastic pollution from healthcare systems and how we can reduce our reliance on single use plastics.
Matthew Campen, PhD, MSPH
Topic: Neuroplastics: Out of Sight, Into Mind
Matthew Campen, PhD, MSPH is a professor at the University of New Mexico Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences whose interest includes the mechanisms underlying the systemic impacts of microplastics and nanoplastics, an emerging toxicant of global concern. He will discuss his research on how much plastic is in the human body using data from innovative methods for assessing nanoplastics in clinical and pathological specimens.
Linda Kahn, PhD, MPH
Topic: Plastic in Healthcare: A Call to Action
Linda Kahn, PhD, MPH is an assistant professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Population Health at New York University Grossman School of Medicine. As a life-course epidemiologist, she studies associations of exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals during various critical periods with reproductive health outcomes, including fecundity, pregnancy complications, postpartum maternal health, and offspring reproductive development.
Panel: Plastics, Policy, and Legislation
Johnathan Berard is the Policy Director at Beyond Plastics, with over a decade of public policy and strategic communications experience. As the Rhode Island State Director at Clean Water Action, he conducted the very first trawl for microplastics in Narragansett Bay, wrote Rhode Island’s statewide plastic bag ban, and helped lead the fight against the plastic industry’s attempt to change state law to allow so-called “advanced recycling” facilities to be built in Rhode Island.
Leah Holloway
Panel: Plastics, Policy, and Legislation
Leah Holloway is a program manager for Plastic Free MKE and Milwukee Riverkeeper, working on plastic waste reduction. She earned a BA in Environmental Science and English from Cornell College and had a 14-year career in environmental education before returning to school to complete her MS in Freshwater Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Registration is open!
Location: The Health Sciences Learning Center is located at 750 Highland Avenue in Madison, WI. To view bus route options, please use this interactive map from UW Madison. Below is a map of the parking options and the pink arrors indicate entrances to the HSLC.