2009 Events

Jump to: 2009 Banquet Speaker 2009 Founders Awards 2009 Posters 2009 Keynote Speakers 2009 Workshop Partners

2009 Banquet Speaker

Images by Terry Maresca

In the Land of Camas and Cedar:
American Indian Plant Medicines of the Pacific Northwest

Terry Maresca, MD

The tribes of the Pacific Northwest were fortunate to have diverse and plentiful flora to use for both food and medicine. In many cases, a single plant could be dually valued for its healing and culinary uses. Although individual Indian doctors might possess specialized knowledge on certain plants in their area, a large body of knowledge belonged to the common people to treat common conditions.

In this talk, we’ll focus on several common regional medicinal plants used in pre-contact and contemporary times; explore the diaries of Lewis and Clark for their pertinent botanical observations, and summarize several local programs that work to keep traditional teachings around such plants alive
Dr. Maresca (Mohawk Tribe) currently sees patients with the Snoqualmie Tribe of Western Washington, where she maintains a medicinal herb garden at their clinic with the permission of their elders. Her training and clinical practice blends both traditional plant medicine work with Western family medicine approaches to health. She is a clinical associate professor at University of Washington School of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine, and the former director of the Native American Center of Excellence there. She teaches an elective in traditional plant medicine and a course in Indian health issues there. She is also on faculty at Seattle Indian Health Board’s family medicine residency program.

Terry Maresca is a long-time member and former officer of the Association of American Indian Physicians, and has presented topics related to plant medicine to a variety of regional and national audiences. Terry graduated both from Vassar College and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in her home state of New York, and did her family medicine residency at Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound in Seattle. When not teaching, she is home tending her own garden and restoring her property to include more native plants.

2009 Founders Awards

This year we will honor the following individuals who founded the Pacific NW Section and supported the section in the early years:

H. Michael Wehr (Award for Founding Section)

Mike established the AOAC Pacific Northwest Regional Section (and served as their first Chair) and also the Oregon State Agency Laboratory Consortium during his 25 years with the State of Oregon Department of Agriculture. There he served as Director of Laboratories and as Administrator of the Oregon Export Service Center. Dr. Wehr has been active in many professional organizations including service as President of AOAC International, Chairman of the AOAC Research Institute, and President of both the Oregon and Washington, D.C. Sections of the Institute of Food Technologists. He also served on the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Standards in Foods and on the APHA Committee for Standard Methods for the Examination of Dairy Products, serving as Editor for the 17th Edition of Standard Methods for the Examination of Dairy Products. Mike currently serves as Senior Advisor for International Activities and Codex Alimentarius Program Coordinator for FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN). His current responsibilities at CFSAN involve, besides coordinating Codex activities, assisting with many other international activities carried out by the Center and these include many issues impacted by globalization, including specific Codex work in such areas as food hygiene, biotechnology, food labelling, and various commodity committees, plus other FDA international activities such as those dealing with the implementation of WTO trade agreements, food import and export issues, and technical assistance. Prior to joining FDA, Mike also provided assistance to private food consultancies and carried out many U.S. AID projects involving food safety matters throughout the world with projects focusing in the Asian and North Africa areas.

John Wiskerchen (Award for Co-founding Section)

John has 47 years of experience in food and drug safety including 37 years with the US Food and Drug Administration and 10 years consulting the pharmaceutical industry. In addition to being one of the two principle founding members of AOAC’s first section, the Pacific Northwest Section, John has also served in various leadership roles in FDA. These have included serving as the Laboratory Director of the Seattle District (now the Pacific Regional Laboratory, Northwest) and in the design of two major laboratory facilities, the Seattle and Los Angeles District labs.

In addition to the national-level challenges faced by FDA over the years, John and others in FDA’s Seattle District were also put to the test by multiple Northwest region crises. Two of the crises involved over-the-counter medications laced with cyanide, resulting in 5 deaths. Both cases concluded with successful prosecutions. Two major disasters also presented crisis situations for the Seattle District FDA during John’s tenure, including the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska and the eruption of Mount St. Helens. In each case the public wanted to know if the food affected was safe for consumption.

John’s experience as a consultant includes audits, mock FDA inspections, and training of personnel in GMP, GLP and CLIA laboratory regulations on pharmaceuticals. This has included extensive experience in providing training and guidance in “Out of Specification” (OOS) Lab Investigations in GMP, GLP and CLIA laboratories. The consulting work has been both National and International with travels to Ireland, Italy, Sweden, South Africa, India, and South Korea.

Jerry Hirsch (Award for Section Support)

Jerry is President of JH TechRight Consulting. Jerry retired in 2001 from his position as Associate Director of the Burnaby Laboratory for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) in Vancouver, Canada. From 1997 to 2000 he was Laboratory Director of the Burnaby Food Safety Laboratory with CFIA, and prior to that he was Chief of the Food/Drug Laboratory Division for the Health Protection Branch (Health Canada) laboratory in Burnaby. He led the CFIA Burnaby Food Laboratory in its successful application to achieve ISO Guide 25 accreditation with the Standards Council of Canada in 1999. Jerry assisted in the integration of the Burnaby Food and Burnaby Fish Laboratories, and led the scope expansion accreditation activities to ISO 17025 in 2001. Jerry’s CFIA laboratory developed a basic EMS program in 2000 as part of a national ISO 14000 self-assessment exercise. Jerry has been an active member of AOAC International for over 25 years, serving as Chair of the Laboratory Quality Assurance Committee, Chair of the Committee on Sections, and as Secretary of the Pacific Northwest Section since 1983. He continues to be a Planning Committee member of the PNW Section. Jerry has been an instructor for the AOAC International “Quality Assurance for Analytical Laboratories” course for more than 10 years. Jerry has a BSc in Pharmacy and an MSc in Pharmacology from the University of Alberta, and a PhD in Pharmacology from Michigan State University. Jerry now works primarily in the area of quality assurance, for example in doing contract work for Standards Council of Canada in auditing food, forensic and other laboratories to assist them in meeting ISO 17025 accreditation, and with various laboratories and companies in developing basic quality systems.