Basic contact information
Email b_brunkhorst @ hotmail.com
Click this link to read Bea Brunkhorst’s caucus speech
What inspires you to continue volunteering in your current role, and how do you plan to keep your outlook fresh? It is very important to keep an eye on health trends. I will be checking the CDC site regularly and will discuss with the BOH how we can get more input from the community.
What challenges do you anticipate in your coming term? I would like to continue to work on tick borne diseases this year and follow up on a letter we sent to the Mass Public Health Commissioner asking for a more coordinated state effort like the one advocated by the Governor of NY state for example.
We face continued threats from the opioid epidemic, vaping, Mental health issues in the old and the young including rising suicide rates, new influenza strains, emergencies created by severe weather, obesity, heart disease, cancer and violence. I want to use both my scientific and partnership skills to help our BOH be ready for such threats.
Final campaign statement
- Resident since 1995
- Board of Health Member from 1998-present minus one year
- B.A. in Biochemistry from Douglass College, Rutgers University 1983
- Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Boston University 1990
- Scientist doing research and development in Cancer Immuno-therapy since 1992.
- Member of Bedford’s Institutional Bio-safety Committees that are a part of the Recombinant DNA permitting process since 2000.
My background is in the Sciences, I hold my Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Boston University. For the past 20 years, I have been a Project Leader, Research Scientist and the BioSafety Officer at a local pharmaceutical company. My scientific work has centered around research on Cancer inhibitors that target tumors and mobilize our own body’s defenses to fight the tumor.
As BioSafety Officer and Chair of my companies Institutional Biosafety Committee, I have been helping to set safety policies, training, as well as coordinating recombinant DNA applications and interfacing with local Health officials. Day to day I am approving what comes into our facility and ensuring that our biosafety levels are appropriate for that work.
Bedford Board of Health
- VISION: Helping neighbors lead healthy lives in Bedford.
- MISSION: We are dedicated to serve all Bedford residents, particularly the underserved, and to promote healthy people, healthy families, and a healthy environment through compassionate care, education, and prevention. The Board will create needed regulations, set policy, hold hearings, and consider variances.
- Your health is our concern.
Brief BOH update: I am proud of our professional staff (Director Heidi Porter, Community Nurse Mark Waksmonski, Health agent Katherine Dagle, Admin assistant Danielle Williams). We have been active in the Falls prevention program this past year that has helped us to help seniors to keep living at home through implementing fall prevention strategies as part of a COH grant. Our director keeps active in recruiting interns which this past year worked on developing a survey about people’s perceptions of ticks and tick-borne illnesses. Ms. Porter has been keeping on top of tick borne disease programs, is on the Middlesex Tick Task Force, and has been recognized by others in our state as a resource with being invited to speak at the tick conference on November 19th at UMass for example. The BOH has Administered over 1000 flu vaccinations
What the BOH has been doing for the past year: We have advocated for mental health public forms such as the one run by the BOH last November called QPR- strategies for suicide prevention. We signed onto a letter advocating gun violence be treated as a public health concern. The board has revised Smoking in the Workplace and Retail Sale of Tobacco Regulations to increase the sale of tobacco products to 21 and to include e-cigarettes and ban smoking in Hotels. This has made us ready to implement the new state law that went into effect Jan 1 of this year.
Worked on getting bus shelters at a number of important stops. Bus shelters have been shown to improve use of mass transportation which is a goal in the Built Environment guidelines which are a part of Bedford’s master plan. We are currently working on body art regulations.
I would like to continue to work on tick borne diseases this year and follow up on a letter we sent to the Mass Public Health Commissioner asking for a more coordinated state effort like the one advocated by the Governor of NY state for example.
We face continued threats from the opioid epidemic, vaping, Mental health issues in the old and the young including rising suicide rates, new influenza strains, emergencies created by severe weather, obesity, heart disease, cancer and violence. I want to use both my scientific and partnership skills to help our BOH be ready for such threats.
I ask for your support on March 9th.