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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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SOME OF MANY INTERESTING PRESENTATIONS

SOCIAL ACTIVITIES

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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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CLOSING CEREMONY

PARTICIPANTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND AWARDS

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Best Students Presentations

IMGA CHAPTER STIMULUS AWARD TO SPAIN

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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: nellymanay@gmail.com

Vice-Chair for Geosciences

Prof Maria Aurora Armienta

Geophysics Institute

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Mexico City, Mexico

Email: victoria@geofisica.unam.mx

Vice-chair for Medical Sciences

Dr Diego Fridman

Director, Clinical Research Department

Fundación Centro de Estudios Infectológicos

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Email: dfridman@stamboulian.com.ar

Vice-chair for Medical Sciences

Dr Diego Fridman

Director, Clinical Research Department

Fundación Centro de Estudios Infectológicos

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Email: dfridman@stamboulian.com.ar

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COUNCILLORS:

Prof Iossif Volfson

Medical Geology Division

RosGeo

Moscow, Russia

Email: mgeolog1955@mail.ru

Prof. Héctor Rubio

College of Animal Production and Ecology

Autonomous University of Chihuahua

Chihuahua, México

Email: rubioa1105@hotmail.com

Prof. Laura Börgel

Toxicology and Risk Assessment

Universidad de Chile

Santiago de Chile, Chile

Email: dra.borgel@toxicologia.org

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: esztein@nas.edu

Dr. Darren Beriro

Environmental Geochemist

British Geological Survey

Nottingham, UK

Email: darrenb@bgs.ac.uk

Dr. Cassio Roberto da Silva

Medical Geology and Environ. Geochemistry

Geological Survey of Brazil

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Email: cassio.silva@cprm.gov.br

A/Prof Hassina Mouri

Department of Geology

University of Johannesburg

Johannesburg, South Africa

Email: hmouri@uj.ac.za

General Secretary

Dr Carla Patinha

Investigadora do GEOBIOTEC - GeoBioSciences, GeoTechnologies and GeoEngineering

University of Aveiro

Aveiro, Portugal

Email: cpatinha@ua.pt

Editor-In-Chief

Dr Mark Cave

Geochemistry and Applied Statistics

British Geological Survey

Nottingham, UK

Email: mrca@bgs.ac.uk

Prof Theo Davies

Professor of Environmental Geology

Mangosuthu University of Technology

Umlazi/Durban, South Africa

Email: theo.clavellpr3@gmail.com

Senior Advisors:

Dr. José Centeno email: tonycent@comcast.net

Dr.Robert Finkelman email: bobf@utdallas.edu

Dr. Olle Selinus email: ole.selinus@gmail.com

Dr. Fiona M. Fordyce email: fmf@bgs.ac.uk

e-news

If you wish to share information with all IMGA

through this e-news, please send contributions to:

Maria Aurora Armienta

email:victoria@geofisica.unam.mx

Editor-In-Chief

Dr Mark Cave

Geochemistry and Applied Statistics

British Geological Survey

Nottingham, UK

Email: mrca@bgs.ac.uk

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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: mrca@bgs.ac.uk

We rely on your input and welcome you to share your information, ideas, short papers etc to all other

members.