Greening Our Children & Yours! Sharing Ideas on Environmental Health and Hazards

STEPHANIE BLANK – LAURA SEYDEL – LISA TUSH

Imperial Room
265 Peachtree Center Avenue Northeast
Atlanta, GA 30303

About Phil Landrigan

Philip J. Landrigan, M.D., M.Sc., the Ethel Wise Professor and Chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine, is a pediatrician, epidemiologist, and internationally recognized leader in public health and preventive medicine. He has been a member of the faculty of Mount Sinai School of Medicine since 1985 and Chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine since 1990. Dr. Landrigan is also the Director of the Children’s Environmental Health Center.

Dr. Landrigan graduated from Boston College in 1961 and from Harvard Medical School in 1967. He completed an internship in pediatrics/medicine at Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital and a residency in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Boston. In 1977, he received a Diploma of Industrial Health from the University of London and a Masters of Science in Occupational Medicine degree from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He then served for 15 years as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer and medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). While at CDC, Dr. Landrigan served for one year as a field epidemiologist in El Salvador and for another year in northern Nigeria. He participated in the Global Campaign for the Eradication of Smallpox. Dr. Landrigan directed the national program in occupational epidemiology for NIOSH. He was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal of the US Public Health Service.

In 1987, Dr. Landrigan was elected as a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He served as Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine and Editor of Environmental Research. He has published more than 500 scientific papers and 5 books. He has chaired committees at the National Academy of Sciences on Environmental Neurotoxicology and on Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children. The NAS report that he directed on pesticides and children’s health was instrumental in securing passage of the Food Quality Protection Act, the only environmental law in the United States that contains explicit provisions for the protection of children. From 1995 to 1997, Dr. Landrigan served on the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veteran’s Illnesses. In 1997-1998, Dr. Landrigan served as Senior Advisor on Children’s Health to the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and was instrumental in helping to establish a new Office of Children’s Health Protection at EPA. From 2000-2002, Dr. Landrigan served on the Armed forces Epidemiological Board. Dr Landrigan served from 1996 to 2005 in the Medical Corps of the United States Naval Reserve. He retired in 2005 at the rank of Captain. He continues to serve as Deputy Command Surgeon General of the New York Naval Militia, New York’s Naval National Guard.

Dr. Landrigan is known for his many decades of work in protecting children against environmental threats to health, most notably lead and pesticides. His pioneering research on lead toxicity at low levels persuaded the US government to mandate removal of lead from gasoline and paint, actions that have produced a 90% decline in incidence of childhood lead poisoning over the past 25 years. Dr. Landrigan has been a leader in developing the National Children’s Study, the largest study of children’s health and he environment ever launched in the United States. He has been centrally involved in the medical and epidemiologic studies that followed the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He has consulted extensively to the World Health Organization.
In the News

Dr. Landrigan and his work were recently profiled in The Daily News feature The Daily Check Up. View the PDF.  Read the commentary by Philip J. Landrigan, MD, MSc, “What’s Getting Into Our Children?” that appeared in the New York Times on August 4, 2009.