Dr. Landrigan’s landmark studies in the early 1970s of children exposed to lead near a lead ore smelter in El Paso, Texas were among the first to show that lead can cause brain damage to children at levels too low to cause clinically evident signs and symptoms – a phenomenon now termed “subclinical toxicity.” This work was critical in persuading the EPA to remove lead from gasoline and paint, actions that resulted in a 95% decline in lead poisoning in US children. This success has been emulated in nations worldwide.

The 1993 National Academy of Science report on Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children that Dr. Landrigan led provided the blueprint for the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996, the major law governing pesticide use in the US, and the only federal environmental law that contains explicit provisions for the protection of children’s health.

Dr. Landrigan 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. Dr. Landrigan was also profiled in The Lancet in 2005. View profile.

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.