Expertise

Director, Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good and Global Observatory on Planetary Health, Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society, Boston College

Philip Landrigan, MD, MSc, FAAP, is a pediatrician and epidemiologist. He directs the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good at Boston College. His research examines the impacts on human health of toxic hazards in the environment. His studies of lead toxicity conducted at CDC in the 1970s demonstrated that low-level exposure reduces children’s IQ and contributed to EPA’s 1975 decision to remove lead from paint and gasoline, actions that reduced lead levels by 95% and increased the IQ of all American children born since 1980. His documentation of children’s exquisite sensitivity to pesticides contributed to fundamental revision of federal pesticide legislation in the United States, the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996, to better protect children’s 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. In 2022-23, he led the Minderoo-Monaco Commission on Plastics and Human Health, which documented that plastics and their chemicals harm human health at every stage of the plastic life cycle and that children are especially vulnerable.

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