MARY AMDUR |
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(1922-1998) HER RESEARCH HELPED “GET THE LEAD OUT” OF GASOLINE, BUT THIS PIONEER IN TOXICOLOGY SACRIFICED HER OWN SECURITY TO PROVE THAT WHAT WE CAN’T SEE CAN HURT US.
In the 1940s Donora, a Pennsylvania steel town, was so polluted office workers brought an extra shirt to change into at noontime. What they brought home at night was more ominous - asthma, heart disease…and cancer. Mary Amdur watched her 40-year-old father die from lung cancer. To prevent deaths like his, she became a biochemist.
At the Harvard School of Public Health Amdur confirmed that lead in gasoline found its way deep into the brains, hearts and lungs of millions of people. But it took 40 more years to outlaw leaded gas.
In the 1950’s Amdur studied sulphur compounds like those that polluted her hometown. She proved long term exposure to small particles was more damaging than short-term exposure to larger one. But these findings threatened the company funding her work. At a conference, she was accosted by two strangers who warned her not to deliver her paper. Undeterred, Amdur continued exactly as she had planned.
Her collaborator told her not to publish the paper. She refused. Her position at Harvard was eliminated. She was later denied tenure at every major school of public health in the country. For the rest of her life Amdur studied the effects of air pollution. She was an associate professor and lecturer at MIT, Harvard, and NAU, and was the first women to receive the Society of Toxicology’s Merit award.
Scientists have validated Amdur’s pioneering work hundreds of times over. Mary Amdur proved the need for clean air regulation, and is known as the Mother of Modern Toxicology, which makes us all breathe a little easier.
For more information, please
visit:
http://www.inhalation.net/amdur.htm
http://www.geradts.com/~anil/ij/vol_003_no_001/reviews/tb/page005.html
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