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International Medical Geology Association
e-news 2-2017 (October 2017)
Dedicated to MedGeo’17
Message from the Chair
Dear Friends & Colleagues from IMGA :
Welcome to this edition of IMGA E-news, especially dedicated to our recent conference in
Russia, MEDGEO´17.
MEDGEO´17 was really a great success. The recent research developments in Medical
Geology were presented in plenary conferences and keynote lectures. I felt very proud to
see how oral presentations and poster contained innovative ideas showing how this
emergent discipline is growing and consolidating as a scientific research field worldwide.
Young researchers were very enthusiastic and it was very enjoyable to share with them
all their hopes and expectations for the development of the medical geology approach in
their respective fields.
On behalf of IMGA, I want to express my gratitude to our friend Iosif Volson, not only for the
organization but also for listening and supporting all our opinions and suggestions to
improve the organizing performance. We appreciate as well, all the efforts and work of the
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organizing committee members and Trialogue Ltd. to carry on the scientific event
logistics, that allowed us to enjoy all the activities that were planned.
We regret for all the inconveniences caused to those colleagues that unfortunately could
not attend MEDGEO due to visa issues that were out of the organizers or IMGA reach.
Finally, we felt fully satisfied with our IMGA business meeting held in Moscow as it had a
very active turnout being therefore very fruitful. We moved forward on IMGA regulatory
issues according to Portugal´s rules and many ideas for the future were proposed.
Enjoy this MEDGEO´17 e-News edition hoping to meet you in the near future.
Sincerely
Prof. Nelly Mañay PhD
IMGA Chairperson
Press Release MedGeo-2017 by Iosif Volfson
The 7th Conference of the International Medical Geology Association -
MedGeo-2017 was held in Moscow with great success,
187 representatives of the geological and
medical community from 30 countries participated in
the conference MedGeo-2017 held at Hotel Salyut
4*, Moscow from August 28 to September 1, 2017.
The main organizers of the conference were the
Russian Geological Society, the International
Medical Geology Association (IMGA) and the
Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the
Russian Federation with the support of the Ministry
of Health Protection of the Russian Federation.
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There were selected for oral presentations and published in the book of
abstracts of the Conference 259 abstracts of authors from 50 countries.
112 participants have presented oral reports. There were presented 52
posters at the poster session.
AWARDS
The following participants were awarded diplomas for the best oral report:
Arsenic in Groundwater of Dagestan Republic, presented by: Tamila
Abdulmutalimova, Dagestan Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of
Sciences.
Oral Bioaccessibility of Potentially Toxic Elements (PTE’s) in Urban Area
of Belfast, presented by: Tatiana Cocerva, Queen’s University Belfast,
Great Britain.
The following participants were awarded diplomas for the best poster
presentation:
Radioactivity and Dose Rate Assessment in Mining Centers of Armenia,
presented by: Olga Belyaeva, Nona Movsisyan, Gevory Muradyan, Lilit
Sahakyan, and Konstantin Pyuskyulkyan, Center for Noospheric
Research, National Academy of Sciences, Republic of Armenia.
Characterization of Solid Airborne Particles in Industrialized Cities —a
Case Study of Western Siberia (Russia), presented by Talovskaya
Anna, National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University, Russia.
IMGA GENERAL ASSEMBLY
The Assembly and the Meeting of the International Medical Geology
Association took a special place in the Conference program. Members of the
Assembly and members of the Executive Committee of the Association, members of
the Presidium and the Executive Committee of the Russian Geological Society
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(ROSGEO), as well as members of the IMGA and participants of the Conference
from a number of countries took part at this Event.
The participants of the Assembly and IMGA Meeting summed up the work of
the Association of the last two years after the 6th Conference of MedGeo –
MedGeo’15, held in the Portuguese city of Aveiro. Reports on the activities and
achievements of IMGA during these 2 years were delivered by the Chairman of the
IMGA Dr. Nelly Manay (Republic of Uruguay), Vice-Chair for Biomedical Sciences
Dr. Diego Fridman (Argentina), Vice-Chair for Geological Sciences Dr. Maria
Armienta (Mexico), Secretary of the Association Dr. Carla Patinha (Portugal), and
representatives of delegations from the Republic of Turkey, Nigeria, Russia and
other countries. Starting in 2016, the Association's office will work at the University
of the Portuguese city of Aveiro.
In her closing remarks on behalf of the participants of the Assembly and the
IMGA Meeting, the Chair of the IMGA, Dr. Nelly Manay thanked the Organizing
Committee of the Conference for the high organizational and scientific level of the
event. She announced the beginning of preparations for the 8th MedGeo
Conference, which will be held in the People's Republic of China in the capital of
Guizhou Province, Guiyang City in 2019, August.
The members of the Presidium of the Society of Engineering Geologists of
Turkey Alper BABA (Izmir Institute of Technology), Gurhan YALCIN and Nurdane
Ilbeyli (both from Akdeniz University, Antalia), Fetullah ARIK (Selcuk University,
Konja), who participated in the MedGeo’17 received with interest the proposal of the
Executive Committee of the IMGA to establish a regional Chapter of the Association
in the Republic of Turkey.
The proposals of the representatives of Nigeria and Turkey to hold the 9th
Conference MedGeo’21 in these countries were received with enthusiasm and noted
for consideration.
A number of participants' proposals were included in the decision of the
general meeting of the members of the Association. In particular, Professor Leonid
Elpiner (Russia), from the Institute of Water Problems of Russian Academy of
Sciences (IVP RAS) invited through the IMGA RC Russia-NIS Chair and MedGeo’17
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Coordinator Dr. Iosif Volfson, to take a decision on the establishment within the
Association's activities of a new direction of research - medical hydrogeology. This
proposal was approved by the general meeting, the Nigerian participant Ngharbu
K'Tso was invited to head the Working Group on Medical Hydrogeology as a co-
Chair together with Dr. Leonid Elpiner. Actually Ngharbu K'Tso has started activities
as a Chairman of IMGA Working group on medical hydrogeology (WGMH).
Similarly, proposals were made for the establishment of a working group to
study the medical and geological features of volcanic areas (the head of the working
group Ines Tomasek, Croatia-England), as well as the working group on arsenic
problems in the geological and in human wellbeing (the head of the working group,
Prosun Bhattacharya, India & Sweden), which were enthusiastically accepted by the
participants of the general meeting of the Association.
The Russian scientist Azariy Gamburtsev suggested through the IMGA RC
Russia-NIS Chair Dr. Iosif Volfson that the Assembly's decision should include an
item on the development and implementation of comprehensive medical and
environmental monitoring of the most problematic regions, and on behalf of the
participants of the Assembly, to recommend including in the list of priority scientific
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directions of the IMGA Chapters as well as Russian Academy of Sciences such an
interdisciplinary field as External impacts from natural , anthropogenic and social
sources on the health and quality of human life and the person's response to these
impacts. "
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Noting the success of the held MedGeo’17 Conference, the achieved high
scientific results of its participants, the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the
Russian Geological Society is grateful to the Ministry of Natural Resources and
Ecology of the Russian Federation and personally to Minister Sergey Donskoy for
assistance in the preparation and holding of the largest scientific and organizational
event of 2017 - the Year of Ecology in Russia. We thank leaders of the International
Medical Geology Association - IMGA Chair Dr. Nelly Manay, Vice-Chair for Geology
Dr. Maria Aurora Armienta (Mexico), Vice-Chair for Biomedical Sciences Diego
Friedman (Argentina), IMGA Secretary Dr. Carla Patinha (Portugal), the members of
IMGA Assembly Professor Dr. Jose Centeno (USA), Professor Dr. Robert Finkelman
(USA), Professor Dr. Olle Selinus (Sweden) for their great contribution in
MedGeo’17 success.
We highly appreciate the efforts and contribution of IMGA Counsellor Dr.
Cassio Silva (Republic of Brazil) in organizational activities and MedGeo’17
success.
We are very much obliged to plenary lecturers of the Conference Jose
Centeno (USA), Robert Finkelman (USA), Yanxin Wang (Republic of China),
Hassina Mouri (South Africa); a big thanks to key-note speakers Nelly Manay
(Uruguay), Carla Patinha (Portugal), Syed Hasan (USA), Maria Aurora Armienta
(Mexico), Fernando Carvalho (Portugal), Kim Dowling (Australia), Natalia
Baranovskaya (Russia) Alper BABA, Fetullah ARIK (both from Turkey), Prosun
Bhattacharya (Sweden), Chaosheng Zhang (Ireland), Anna Kurbatova (Russia).
We thank a lot Gurhan YALCIN, Nurdanne ILBEILY (all from Republic of
Turkey), Leonid Rikhvanov, Natalia Baranovskaya, Bulat Soktoyev (all from Russia),
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Olle Selinus (Sweden), Robert Finkelman (USA), Robert Walinder (Sweden) for their
great job done in peer reviewing of abstracts submitted for the Conference.
We thank Daniel Bonotto (Brazil) – Chair of Session on Radioactivity, Radio
Geoecology and Human Health, Cristiana Costa (Portugal) – Chair of Session on
Mineral and Hydromineral Healing Resources, Rodrigues-Sonia-Morais (Portugal) –
Chair of Session on Modern Techniques for Investigation and Monitoring of
Environment condition and Human Health, Tamila Abdulmutalimova (Russia) –
Chair of Session on Water and Human Health and Tatiana Cocerva (United
Kingdom) Chair of Session on Urban Medical Geology: Integrating Geologic and
Anthropogenic Processes for the great work done during a time of the Conference.
Our special thanks to Dr. Kim Dowling for the donation of 2 copies of her new
and very important book for the medical geology community and decision makers
Sustainability in the Mineral and energy Sectors (coauthors Sheila Devasahayam &
Manoj K. Mahapatra. Publisher: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group) to IMGA
Executive Committee. Two IMGA Chapters were awarded with complimentary
copies of this book: IMGA Chapter Spain (Chapter’s Chair Elena Gimenez-Forcada)
as a very promising newly established organization of the Association as well as
Russian Geological Society (President, Chair of MedGeo’17 Voctor Orlov).
Our special thanks to Dr. Ann Pizzorusso for the donation of 3 copies of her
excellent book Tweeting Davinci devoted to historical aspects of medical geology to
the Organizing committee. This book will be delivered as special present on behalf
of Ann Pizzorusso to participants later on. Who are the lucky owners of the book
Tweeting Da Vinci by Ann Pizzoruzzo will be announced in IMGA e-Newsletter very
soon.
We thank Martha Castro from Pomona Medical College (USA) for her
assistance to the Organizing Committee in the edition of some paragraphs of the
Conference program.
We thank all participants of the Conference, which, in fact, were in a large
amicable Family. Regrettably, however, we are speaking with optimism today:
"Goodbye, Moscow and see you all at the 8th Conference of the International
Medical Geology Association – MedGeo’19, that will be held in the People's
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Republic of China in Guiyang City, the capital of Guizhou Province, from 12 to 15
August, 2019".
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE ORGANIZING
COMMITTEE!!
Some Snapshots of a wonderful experience
OPENING CEREMONY
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Medical Geology Conferences (MEDGEO// GEOMED) . From left to righ: Puerto Rico (2005), Brazil (20027), Uruguay (2009), Italy (2011), USA (2013), Portugal (2015), Russia (2017) In the middle.
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IMGA Business meeting
IMGA Business meeting
MedGeo’17 conference (Moscow) Room Amethyst
Wednesday, August 30th, 2017 18:00-19:30 GTM
This IMGA Business meeting was held in Moscow during the MedGeo’17 Conference on August
30th, 2017 by 18:00 (GTM). Participants in this meeting (a total of 25) included the Executive
committee staff, the Senior Advisers, the Councillors, and participants of the MedGeo’17
conference (members and no members of IMGA).
The meeting followed the order of the agenda sent previously and the main topics discussed are
reported below.
1. Welcome and Introduction
Nelly Mañay (IMGA chair) welcomed the participants attending the meeting and officially opened
the meeting debate, concerning the topics of the call previously sent to summoned members.
2. Overview and achievements 2015-2017
Nelly Manay made a brief point of the situation of IMGA since the last MedGeo Conference (2015)
until present. She started showing the agenda from IMGA Business Meeting in Galway, 17 August
2016 as well as the secretary, webmaster and treasure reports presented at this meeting.
One of the scientific activities was performed by the Spain chapter on September 19, 2016 in
Salamanca: Medical Geology: an emerging discipline “I Jornada de Geología Médica en España.
‘La Geología Médica: una disciplina emergente”. Under the leadership of Elena Gimenez Forcada
the Spanish chapter submitted the project MEDICAL GEOLOGY NETWORK PROPOSAL:
“GeoMedIA: Geología Médica en Iberoamérica: ¿qué necesitamos para un futuro saludable?
(Medical Geology: What we need for a sustainable future?) to CYTED (Programa Iberoamericano
de Ciencia y Tecnología). The IMGA chapters integrated in this Network were: Argentina, Bolivia,
Brazil, Colombia, Spain, México, Portugal and Uruguay.
The IMGA was present at the following conferences: “ISEH 2016, ISEG 2016 & Geoinformatics
2016: Joint International Conference on Environment, Health, GIS and Agriculture” Galway,
Ireland, August 14 to 20, 2016 “XIII Congresso de Geoquimica dos Países da Lingua Portuguesa,
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Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, Brasil, November 16 to 18, 2016”, “1er. Congreso
Internacional de Geología Médica, Tuxtla Gtez., Chis.,México February 22 to 28, 2016, and IAEA
(International Atomic Energy Agency) in Viena, Austria. The IMGA was part of the ISEG 2019
International Board.
3. Current IMGA status. The new registration in Portugal: Rules and Electoral Process
Carla Patinha displayed the 2017 secretary report. At moment the IMGA has 20 chapters and 206
memberships from 47 countries. She presented a detailed bank account balance (Caixa Geral de
Depósitos), until now the account balance is positive with cash inflow of 23 556.1€. In 2016/2017
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transferences to “Caixa Geral de Depositos” in Portugal were performed from Nordea and
Colorado Credit Union (USA). Main expenses in 2016 and 2017 were allocated to: registration in
Portugal, Website services, Credit cards/ Paypal services and Awards of MedGeo 2017.
She also presented the progress of IMGA situation since the MedGeo’15 Meeting. On 22/07/2016
a new registration of the IMGA association was made in Portugal with the tax of collective person
number (VAT) 514.055.987. Although the association continues to be governed by the purposes
and objectives of the original registration, and all the rights, years of membership and fees
payments paid up until today remain valid, it was necessary to adapt the statutes to the
Portuguese laws. For such purpose a new version of the statutes was written and approved by the
EC. The main differences of the new version of the statutes are related to the structure of
Governance Bodies and the election model. Thus, the new Governance Bodies composition is
now: The General Assembly (3 members:1 Chair, 1 Co-Chair and 1 Secretary); the Executive
Committee (1 Chair, Co-Chairs (Geological Sciences and Medical Sciences), 1 Secretary, 1
Treasurer, and 6 councillors); the Audit Board (1 Chair, 2 members - vowels). The main
responsibilities of the General Assembly are: the election process; to assess and vote the annual
budget presented by the Executive Committee for the following year; to assess and vote the
activities and financial reports of the outgoing Executive Committee; to review and approve
changes, additions, and/or modifications to the Statutes and Bylaws; the extinction of the
Association. The functions of the Executive Committee are the social, administrative and financial
management and the representation of the Association. The Audit Board must accompany the
administrative and financial actions of Executive Committee, as well as supervise the accounts
and reports. All these information was previously distributed among members and the new bylaws
to regulate the current statutes are being discussed now by the advisory committee leader by the
vice-chair, Diego Fridman On 02/12/2016 the new bank account was opened and most of the
funds in Sweden, and all the funds in USA were transferred to the Portuguese bank (Caixa Geral
de Depósitos). The secretary advised that the statutes registered at Portugal must be governed by
the bylaws, and the next step is to conduct a review and approval of the bylaws, taking into
consideration the Portuguese legislation, following the regulation stablished for the election.
The webmaster report showed the number of visitors and the countries that accessed to the IMGA
webpage. The Treasurer report showed that IMGA available funds have gradually increased every
year.
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4. IMGA and Medical Geology Promotion
Maria Aurora Armienta presented the actual IMGA advisory committees and leaders: Conference:
Iosif Volfson, Nelly Mañay; Awards and nomination: Bernardino Figueiredo; Constitution and
Bylaws: Diego Fridman; Publications: Mark Cave and Maria Aurora Armienta; and Chapters:
Alejandro Villalobos.
Between September 2015 to August 2017, three e-Newsletter, four e-news and four webinars
were produced. The webinars were: “Estimating human exposure to potentially harmful elements
in soils” by Dr. Mark R. Cave; “Medical Geology - What we need to do for a healthy future” by Dr.
Robert Finkelman and Dr. Olle Selinus; “Determination of trace elements and their concentrations
in clay balls: problem of geophagia in Ghana” by Dr. Emmanuel Arhin; and “Drinking water quality
and health studies – examples and possibilities in Denmark” by Dr. Jörg Schullehner.
Jose Centeno remarked the importance of inviting students to present their work in the format of a
webinar, creating a discussion forum.
5. Presentation of MedGeo 2019 (China)
Chaosheng Zhang presented the next MedGeo meeting (attached) that will be held at Guiyang
(China).
Bob Finkelman make an intervention highlighting the importance of this event in this region of
China, since it was there that he, Olle Selinus and Jose Centeno developed an important work to
help local people to overcome serious problems of fluorosis and selenium diseases.
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6. The Future of IMGA
Several ideas were suggested to improve the IMGA such as: ted talks (short information for
professionals and general public); Ines Tomasek suggested the creation of a database with the
name of each researcher and student that are working on a subject of Medical Geology, this
database will allow the communication between the medical geologists and the easy access to the
published papers in this area. Following this, Nelly Manay asked for a Committee to help the
development of these ideas, and the names suggested were the members Tatiana Cocerva and
Ines Tomasek.
Another suggestion was the integration of working groups in specific areas such as hydrogeology.
7. Questions and general discussion
International Medical Geology Association
Executive Committee of IMGA Chair
Prof Nelly Manay
Director, Specialised Centre for Chemical Toxicology
University of the Republic
Montivideo, Uruguay
Email: [email protected]
Vice-Chair for Geosciences
Prof Maria Aurora Armienta
Geophysics Institute
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Mexico City, Mexico
Email: [email protected]
Vice-chair for Medical Sciences
Dr Diego Fridman
Director, Clinical Research Department
Fundación Centro de Estudios Infectológicos
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Email: [email protected]
Vice-chair for Medical Sciences
Dr Diego Fridman
Director, Clinical Research Department
Fundación Centro de Estudios Infectológicos
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Email: [email protected]
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COUNCILLORS:
Prof Iossif Volfson
Medical Geology Division
RosGeo
Moscow, Russia
Email: [email protected]
Prof. Héctor Rubio
College of Animal Production and Ecology
Autonomous University of Chihuahua
Chihuahua, México
Email: [email protected]
Prof. Laura Börgel
Toxicology and Risk Assessment
Universidad de Chile
Santiago de Chile, Chile
Email: [email protected]
Dr Ester Sztein
U.S. National Committees for the geosciences
Board on International Scientific Organizations of
the U.S. National Academy of Sciences
Washington, D.C., USA
Email: [email protected]
Dr. Darren Beriro
Environmental Geochemist
British Geological Survey
Nottingham, UK
Email: [email protected]
Dr. Cassio Roberto da Silva
Medical Geology and Environ. Geochemistry
Geological Survey of Brazil
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Email: [email protected]
A/Prof Hassina Mouri
Department of Geology
University of Johannesburg
Johannesburg, South Africa
Email: [email protected]
General Secretary
Dr Carla Patinha
Investigadora do GEOBIOTEC - GeoBioSciences, GeoTechnologies and GeoEngineering
University of Aveiro
Aveiro, Portugal
Email: [email protected]
Editor-In-Chief
Dr Mark Cave
Geochemistry and Applied Statistics
British Geological Survey
Nottingham, UK
Email: [email protected]
Prof Theo Davies
Professor of Environmental Geology
Mangosuthu University of Technology
Umlazi/Durban, South Africa
Email: [email protected]
Senior Advisors:
Dr. José Centeno email: [email protected]
Dr.Robert Finkelman email: [email protected]
Dr. Olle Selinus email: [email protected]
Dr. Fiona M. Fordyce email: [email protected]
e-news
If you wish to share information with all IMGA
through this e-news, please send contributions to:
Maria Aurora Armienta
email:[email protected]
Editor-In-Chief
Dr Mark Cave
Geochemistry and Applied Statistics
British Geological Survey
Nottingham, UK
Email: [email protected]
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Newsletter
Articles are a very important part of IMGA Newsletter!
Please send your contribution to the next newsletter
All contributions should be sent to our editor:
Mark Cave.
British Geological Survey Nottingham, UK. Email: [email protected]
We rely on your input and welcome you to share your information, ideas, short papers etc to all other
members.