Philip John Landrigan (born June 14, 1942), is an American
epidemiologist
Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population.
It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidenc ...
and
pediatrician and one of the world's leading advocates of children's health.
His work has been recognized by national non-profit organization
Healthy Child Healthy World (Lifetime Achievement Award) and the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an Independent agencies of the United States government, independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon pro ...
(Child Health Champion Award), and he is included in
New York Magazine
''New York'' is an American biweekly magazine concerned with life, culture, politics, and style generally, and with a particular emphasis on New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to ''The New Yorker' ...
's list of "Best Doctors 2008."
His books include ''Raising Healthy Children in a Toxic World: 101 Smart Solutions for Every Family'' and, with
Herbert Needleman
Herbert Leroy Needleman (December 13, 1927 – July 18, 2017) researched the neurodevelopmental damage caused by lead poisoning. He was a pediatrician, child psychiatrist, researcher and professor at the University of Pittsburgh, an elected ...
, ''Raising Children Toxic Free: How to Keep Your Child Safe From Lead, Asbestos, Pesticides and Other Environmental Hazards''. He has published over 500 scientific papers.
He was formerly the Director of the Children's Environmental Health Center and the Ethel Wise Professor and Chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine at
Mount Sinai Medical Center
Mount Sinai Hospital, formerly at times known as Mount Sinai Medical Center, is a 319-bed major urban hospital in Chicago, Illinois, with its main campus located adjacent to Douglass Park at 15th Street and California Avenue on the city's West Sid ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
.
In 2018 he became the founding director of Boston College's Global Public Health Program and the Global Pollution Observatory within the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society.
Biography
Public health advocate
Landrigan's reputation rests largely on his role as a highly credible evidence-based advocate for public health, specifically in his focus on reducing the level of children's exposure to
lead
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
and
pesticides and for his participation in the
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of ...
's global campaign to eradicate
smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...
. He was also a central figure in developing the
National Children's Study
The ''Eunice Kennedy Shriver'' National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) is one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States Department of Health and Human Services. It supports and conducts research ai ...
and in the medical and epidemiological studies that followed the destruction of the World Trade Center
World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association.
World Trade Center may refer to:
Buildings
* List of World Trade Centers
* World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...
on September 11, 2001
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...
. Additionally, from 1995 to 1997, Landrigan served on the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veteran's Illnesses, and, in 1997 and 1998, served as Senior Advisor on Children's Health to the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where he helped establish the Office of Children's Health Protection.
He has been awarded the Meritorious Service Medal A Meritorious Service Medal is an award presented to denote acts of meritorious service, and sometimes gallantry, that are worthy of recognition. Notable medals with similar names include:
* Meritorious Civilian Service Award
*Meritorious Service Me ...
of the US Public Health Service and is a frequent consultant to the World Health Organization, which called Landrigan's work "instrumental in passing the Food Quality Protection Act
The Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA), or H.R.1627, was passed unanimously by Congress in 1996 and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on August 3, 1996. The FQPA standardized the way the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would man ...
of 1996."[
In 2005, Landrigan, along with Drs. Ramon Murphy and David Muller, founded the Global Health Center, a division of the Mount Sinai Medical Center dedicated to finding evidence-based solutions to global health problems.]
Lead
In the early 1970s, Landrigan took on ASARCO
Asarco LLC (American Smelting and Refining Company) is a mining, smelting, and refining company based in Tucson, Arizona, which mines and processes primarily copper. The company has been a subsidiary of Grupo México since 1999.
Its three la ...
, a smelting company and one of the largest employers in El Paso
El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the seat of El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the 23rd-largest city in the U.S., the s ...
, Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
. In testing the blood of children attending schools near ASARCO's El Paso smelting plant, Landrigan concluded that 60% of children living within one mile of the smelter had elevated blood lead levels and that even small amounts of lead exposure lowers a child's IQ. In a later study (2002), Landrigan correlated childhood lead exposure and lifetime earning potential, concluding that current levels of lead exposure in the United States amount to an aggregate income loss of over $40 billion a year.
Landrigan and his studies played a key role in the government mandate phasing out lead components from gasoline
Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organi ...
, beginning in 1975, and the federal ban on lead paint
Lead paint or lead-based paint is paint containing lead. As pigment, lead(II) chromate (, "chrome yellow"), lead(II,IV) oxide, (, "red lead"), and lead(II) carbonate (, "white lead") are the most common forms.. Lead is added to paint to accele ...
in 1978 – culminating in an 88% drop in lead levels in American children by 2005.
Pesticides
Beginning in 1988, at the request of U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy
Patrick Joseph Leahy (; born March 31, 1940) is an American politician and attorney who is the senior United States senator from Vermont and serves as the president pro tempore of the United States Senate. A member of the Democratic Party, ...
of Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
, Landrigan led a 5-year study at the National Academy of Sciences to examine whether the accepted standard for pesticide exposure – aimed to protect a 150-pound adult – was adequate to protect the health of children. In 1993, the Landrigan Committee released a report, ''Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children'', that was the first to prove that children are uniquely susceptible to adverse effects of pesticides. The report called for standards ten times more stringent than those in effect at publication.
Asbestos
On February 11, 2002, Landrigan testified before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce
The Committee on Education and Labor is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. There are 50 members in this committee. Since 2019, the chair of the Education and Labor committee is Robert Cortez Scott of Virginia.
Hi ...
on the impacts of the September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
on the health of children. Landrigan addressed the issue of asbestos particles found in the air:
''"Almost no data exist on the possible long-term consequences of low-level asbestos in early childhood. Causes of malignant mesothelioma have, however, been reported in the grown children of asbestos workers who were exposed to take-home asbestos; among non-working women in the asbestos mining townships of Quebec who were exposed in the community; and among long term residents of a community near an asbestos-cement plant in Northern Italy."['']
In October 2001, ''New York Magazine'' noted disagreement between Landrigan and the EPA over the dangers posed by asbestos particles found in the air immediately after the September 11 attacks. While generally agreeing that significant risk was to the rescue workers alone, Landrigan disagreed with the EPA that tiny asbestos particles were too small to be considered dangerous, saying, "It's been substantiated by 30 or 40 years of research that the smaller fibers are the ones that can penetrate most deeply into the lungs."
Education
Landrigan graduated Boston Latin School in 1959 and Boston College in 1963. He received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...
in 1967 and completed his internship at Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital and his residency at Boston Children's Hospital
Boston Children's Hospital formerly known as Children's Hospital Boston until 2012 is a nationally ranked, freestanding acute care children's hospital located in Boston, Massachusetts, adjacent both to its teaching affiliate, Harvard Medical Scho ...
.
His post-graduate education included the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) is a public research university in Bloomsbury, central London, and a member institution of the University of London that specialises in public health and tropical medicine.
The inst ...
and his completion, with distinction, of a Master of Science in Occupational Medicine
Occupational medicine, until 1960 called industrial medicine, is the branch of medicine which is concerned with the maintenance of health in the workplace, including prevention and treatment of diseases and injuries, with secondary objectives ...
at the University of London
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...
.
Military service
From 1996 to 2005, Landrigan served in the Medical Corps
A medical corps is generally a military branch or officer corps responsible for medical care for serving military personnel. Such officers are typically military physicians.
List of medical corps
The following organizations are examples of medica ...
of the United States Naval Reserve
The United States Navy Reserve (USNR), known as the United States Naval Reserve from 1915 to 2005, is the Reserve Component (RC) of the United States Navy. Members of the Navy Reserve, called Reservists, are categorized as being in either the Se ...
, retiring at the rank of Captain. He continues to serve as Deputy Command Surgeon General of the New York Naval Militia
The New York Naval Militia is the naval militia of the state of New York, and is under the authority of the Governor of New York as Commander-In-Chief of the state's military forces. With the New York Guard, the New York Army National Guard and Ne ...
. From 2000 to 2002, he served on the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board.
He received Navy & Marine Corps Commendation Medals in 2002, 2003, and 2005, the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service in 2002, and the National Defense Service Medal
The National Defense Service Medal (NDSM) is a service award of the United States Armed Forces established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953. It is awarded to every member of the US Armed Forces who has served during any one of four ...
in 2003.
Awards
Books
References
External links
The Children's Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai Medical Center
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Landrigan, Philip J.
Living people
1942 births
American medical academics
American public health doctors
American pediatricians
Boston Latin School alumni
Boston College alumni
Harvard Medical School alumni
Harvard University staff
University of Cincinnati faculty
Alumni of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai faculty
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Members of the National Academy of Medicine
Foreign Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences
United States Navy Medical Corps officers