John Balmes, MD
Profile
Dr. Balmes’ laboratory, the Human Exposure Laboratory (HEL), has been studying the respiratory and cardiovascular health effects of various air pollutants for the past 25 years. The HEL is currently investigating the respiratory and cardiovascular effects of secondhand tobacco smoke. Dr. Balmes is a Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) where he is the Chief of the Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at San Francisco General Hospital, Director of the Human Exposure Laboratory of the Lung Biology Center, and Attending Physician in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. He is also Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley where he is the Director of the Northern California Center for Occupational and Environmental Health and the Center for Environmental Public Health Tracking. In December 2007, he was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger to be the physician member of the California Air Resources Board.
BA in Psychology, 1972, University of Illinois, Urbana
MD, 1976, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Residency in Internal Medicine, 1976-1979, Mount Sinai Hospital, New York City
Post-doctoral Fellowship in Pulmonary Medicine, 1979-1981, Yale University
Eisner MD, Balmes J, Katz PP, Trupin L, Yelin EH, Blanc PD. Lifetime secondhand smoke exposure and the risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Environ Health 2005;4:7.
Eisner MD, Balmes JR, Yelin EH, Katz PP, Hammond SK, Benowitz N, Blanc PD. Directly measured secondhand smoke exposure and COPD health outcomes. BMC Pulm Med 2006;6:12.
Eisner MD, Wang Y, Haight TJ, Balmes J, Hammond K, Tager IB. Secondhand smoke exposure, pulmonary function, and cardiovascular mortality. Ann Epidemiol 2007;17:364-373.
Heiss C, Amabile N, Lee AC, Real WM, Schick SF, Lao D, Wong ML, Jahn S, Angeli FS, Minasi P, Springer ML, Hammond SK, Glantz SA, Grossman W, Balmes JR, Yeghiazarians Y. Brief secondhand smoke exposure depresses endothelial progenitor cells activity and endothelial function: sustained vascular injury and blunted nitric oxide production. J Am Coll Cardiol 2008;51:1760-71.
Eisner MD, Jacob P, Benowitz NL, Balmes J, Blanc PD. Longer-term exposure to secondhand smoke and health outcomes in COPD: impact of urine 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanol (NNAL) Nicotine & Tobacco Research 2009;11:945-953.