Philip J. Landrigan
Philip Landrigan, MD MSc is a pediatrician and epidemiologist. He directs the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good and the Global Observatory on Planetary Health at Boston College. His research examines health impacts of toxic environmental hazards. His studies of lead conducted at CDC in the 1970s demonstrated that low-level lead exposure reduces children’s IQ and contributed to EPA’s 1975 decision to remove lead from paint and gasoline, actions that reduced blood lead levels by 95% and increased the IQ of all American children born since 1980.
His documentation of children’s exquisite sensitivity to pesticides as Chair of the NAS Committee on Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children contributed to enactment of the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996, the only federal environmental law in the United States containing explicit provisions to protect children’s health. In the 1990s, he served as Special Assistant to the Administrator of the US EPA and helped to establish EPA’s Office of Children’s Health Protection.
From 1985 to 2018, he was a member of the faculty of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where he served as Chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine, Professor of Pediatrics, and Dean for Global Health. He co-chaired the Lancet Commission on Pollution & Health, which reported in 2018 that pollution causes 9 million deaths annually and that pollution prevention is feasible, cost-effective and saves lives. Since 2019, he has led the Monaco Commission on Human Health and Ocean Pollution. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.
