By Carolyn B. Stegman
Dr. Ellen Silbergeld is an international authority on lead and mercury poisoning. Her work contributed to the removal of lead from gasoline in 1990, an environmental milestone. She has also documented the health risks of many chemical by-products of industrial processing.
“Science is exciting and it is all about questioning,” she says. “If somebody tells me something, I don’t take it as proven fact. Be skeptical.”
For decades, Silbergeld’s investigations have questioned established practices and backed up those queries with solid science. Imbued with a sense of social responsibility as a child, she was taught to speak truth to power, take a stand, and do things for social justice.
“Whether confronting the government or the private sector, I believe in ‘persistent annoyance’ when it comes to safeguarding the public’s health.”
Silbergeld was a graduate student when, in 1971, legislation passed prohibiting manufacturers from adding lead to interior paint. Yet there had been long delays in banning lead in paint and millions of children continued to be exposed (mainly through peeling paint in older homes), in part because societal responsibility for removing lead paint languished under a prevailing, archaic attitude that blamed neglectful mothering. In questioning this viewpoint, Silbergeld did a simple, yet profound experiment: she picked a piece of leaded paint off a window sill and ate it. To her amazement, it tasted sweet and appealing. The ‘bad mother’ myth was diminished, but Silbergeld says “that the failure to abate lead paint hazards in housing has not been overcome even to this day.”
Her latest work focuses on the widespread use of antibiotics in farm animals and poultry raised for public consumption. Silbergeld, now at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, has linked the increase in drug-resistant infections to these food sources.
“Nobody was doing anything about this,” she said, “yet it is a major public health issue. For example, people are coming into hospitals already carrying resistant bacteria or resistance genes from food or other community sources. Therefore, to say that all infections are generated in the hospital is like saying pregnancies begin in the hospital because that is where most babies are delivered.”
When the FDA claimed that antibiotic use in agriculture was rigidly controlled, Silbergeld questioned this and went to a feed store to find out for herself. After she inquired about purchasing antibiotics, a clerk merely asked her, “What do you want, Tetracycline or Penicillin? And how much do you want, 5 lb. or 40 lb. bags?” So much for rigid regulation.
Maryland’s Ellen Silbergeld is not afraid to confront those responsible for public health threats and backs up her hypotheses with science. She has linked various environmental and occupational exposures to health risks in human populations, and as an advocate and role model, she has improved and saved countless lives.
Carolyn B. Stegman is author of the book, Women of Achievement in Maryland History. Information for this article was gathered from “Lead’s Nemesis,” Johns Hopkins Magazine (Hendricks, April 2000) and an interview with Ellen Silbergeld (December 18, 2008).
Source:
Image: Johns Hopkins University
Maryland Women’s Heritage Center Newsletter, Winter 2009