Death of Dr. Marc Lappe ... a Scientist & Hero

[Guest guest]

http://www.gnn.tv/articles/1394/Dr_Marc_Lapp_1943_2005

EXCERPT: Between 1984 and 1998, he worked extensively as a

consultant on the high stakes litigation that had erupted over

silicone-gel breast implants.

Dow Corning sent a private detective to the small northern

California town of Gualala where my father lived to investigate his

non-profit organization in an effort to discredit his testimony.

He worked on 30 silicone implant cases, each one the defendant

either settled or paid out a jury award, one totaled $20 million. In

1998, Dow Corning settled a class action suit for $3.2 billion.

http://www.gnn.tv/articles/1394/Dr_Marc_Lapp_1943_2005

By Lappé

GNN's editor remembers his father - a scientist who stood up for the

planet's most vulnerable

" Three interrelated issues mark our times: We have altered the

planet with our chemicals; we are transforming agriculture with

bioengineering; and we are contemplating the recreation of humankind

through genetic technologies. All three compel us to reexamine how

we use scientific knowledge: will our new technologies be greeted

with `hurrahs' or a whisper of despair from the species that we have

decimated, crops that are gene-contaminated and people who, though

yet to be created, may yet curse us for our technological prowess? " –

Marc Lappé

My father, Dr. Marc Lappé, an author, educator and prominent

toxicologist and medical ethicist, died Saturday. He was 62. Marc

was a lifelong teacher, known for instilling in his students a love

of learning and an appreciation for ethics. Everyone who met him was

struck by his warm spirit, unforgettable stories, and limitless

generosity.

Marc was a leading figure in the movement to integrate ethics and

public policy, especially as it related to toxics and genetics. He

authored or edited fourteen books, many of which predicted public

health and environmental problems long before their appearance.

Germs That Won't Die (Anchor/Doubleday, 1982) warned of public

health threat of antibiotic resistance. Against the Grain (Common

Courage, 1998) accurately predicted that many claims by

manufacturers of genetically modified foods would prove false. He

held a PhD in experimental pathology from the University of

Pennsylvania and was a frequent source for the news media, appearing

on 60 Minutes, The Today Show, and Dateline NBC. He was a key expert

witness in numerous high-profile lawsuits, including et al

v. W. R. Grace & Co., popularized in the best-selling book and

Hollywood film A Civil Action. Between 1984 and 1998, he worked

extensively as a consultant on the high stakes litigation that had

erupted over silicone-gel breast implants. Most recently, he was the

director of the Gualala, California-based non-profit Center for

Ethics and Toxics (CETOS), a national leader in environmental public

policy, which works directly with California municipalities with

concerns about contaminants in their water supplies.

His career was marked by a commitment to standing up to powerful

corporate interests and a concern for populations most vulnerable to

toxic contamination of their ground, water and air. He was a natural

teacher, gifted in explaining complicated ethical and scientific

concepts to lay audiences. In late 1960s, he began teaching as a

volunteer professor in the politically-charged " free university "

movement in Philadelphia and Berkeley while in his early 20s. He

later held posts at UC Berkeley, Lawrence College, University

of Illinois at Chicago School of Medicine (where he was a tenured

professor), and the College of Marin. In 1999, he co-founded an

experimental charter grammar, middle and high school on the redwood

coast of California's Mendocino County.

Early years

Marc Alan Lappé was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1943. His father

, the son of a Jewish Russian émigré, entered the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology at age fifteen. His mother Jeanette taught

in the Newark public schools. As an undergraduate at Wesleyan

University, Marc did cancer research at the Weizmann Institute of

Science in Israel. At age 25, he was granted the first PhD in

experimental pathology awarded to a candidate without a medical

degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

While working on his PhD, Marc met my mother Frances . She was

a social worker in West Philadelphia, and he was teaching a class

called " Biology for Poets " at the free university. They married in

1967. In 1971, I was born, and my mother published the classic Diet

for a Small Planet.

My sister , a bestselling author and co-founder of the Small

Planet Institute, was born in 1973.

In 1971, Marc was named as of the original fellows of the Hastings

Center, the nation's top bioethics think tank, where he began

examining the ethical implications of the looming genetic revolution

long before they reached the popular consciousness.

My father's ethics were shaped by his longtime interest in Eastern

philosophy, particularly Zen Buddhism. He was a proponent of the

precautionary principle, the ethical theory that if consequences of

an action, especially concerning technology, are uncertain but are

known to have a high risk, it is best to not carry out the action.

In 1976, he published Of All Things Most Yielding (Friends of the

Earth/McGraw Hill) with his friend, Sierra Club founder

Brower, which combined photographs of Glen Canyon, now flooded by

the Colorado River, and classic Chinese poetry selected by my

father.

Taking a stand

In 1978, he was named by California Governor Jerry Brown as chief of

the state's Office of Health, Law, and Values, and then as head of

the state's Hazard Evaluation System. When California's citrus crops

were plagued by an outbreak of the Medfly, Marc refused to sign onto

the spraying of Malathion, an insecticide with known toxicity to

humans. The state sprayed; my father stepped down.

Beginning in the 1980s, he began working independently with

plaintiff lawyers on high-profile legal battles over environmental

contamination and drug and medical device failures. Cases he

consulted on included the infamous Love Canal, New York toxic waste

disaster; Agent Orange; pesticide exposure among farm workers and

neurological problems connected to the malaria drug Lariam. He

played a pivotal role in the contentious silicone-gel breast implant

litigation, which pitted tens of thousands of women who claimed to

have been sickened by their implants against Dow Corning Corp. and

other makers of the devices. He discovered Dow Corning had covered

up their own early studies that found silicone was not the inert

substance they later claimed when the implants began leaking and

rupturing. Dow Corning sent a private detective to the small

northern California town of Gualala where my father lived to

investigate his non-profit organization in an effort to discredit

his testimony. He worked on 30 silicone implant cases, each one the

defendant either settled or paid out a jury award, one totaled $20

million. In 1998, Dow Corning settled a class action suit for $3.2

billion. The company was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

protection. In a bit of dark irony, last month, a Food and Drug

Administration panel voted to allow a limited number of silicone-gel

implants back on the market.

Marc's work on breast implant litigation earned him a spot on the

Food and Drug Administration's panel on medical devices and plastic

surgery. He also was asked to testify in front of numerous

congressional panels on genetics, ethics and biotechnology.

In 1988, he became a tenured professor of Health Policy and Ethics

at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

He served on the board of the March of Dimes, where he was a strong

advocate for acknowledging the connection between the environment,

toxics and birth defects. He served on the March of Dimes National

Foundation's Bioethics Committee since its inception in 1975.

Ahead of his time

Many of his theories about environmental pollution – initially

controversial – later became accepted by the wider scientific

community. As early as the 1970s, he promoted the importance of an

eco-system level approach to setting limits for toxins in the

environment. He argued that minimum allowed concentrations of toxic

substances needed to account for their reactions with other

substances in the real world. He was an early proponent of the

importance of the immune system in fighting cancer and other

diseases. He also aruged that long-term exposure to low levels of

carcinogenic compounds may be more dangerous than a single high

dosage – today an increasingly accepted tenet of environmental

science.

In 1977, he married Nichol Lovera. They had three children, ,

who holds a MS from Stanford University; e, a PhD candidate in

sociology at the University of California, San Francisco; and ,

a junior in high school who is a champion horseback rider.

Nichol died in 1996.

In 1992, Marc founded the Center for Ethics and Toxics (CETOS) in

the small redwood coast town of Gualala, California. CETOS is

dedicated helping communities fight toxic contamination of their

environment. Since its inception the center has developed guidelines

and strategies to reduce toxic exposures in numerous areas,

including a 1996-7 campaign to prevent roadside spraying with

herbicides in Mendocino County, Ca. and a testing regiment to

monitor pesticides in the drinking water of the small town of Fort

Bragg, California. The organization also played in an active role in

the ongoing battles over logging on the Pacific coast. CETOS worked

as a consultant to the Forest Stewardship Council which regulates

the conditions for ecologically sound and sustainable logging

practices. In 2004, CETOS played a leading role in the passage of

Measure H, which banned raising genetically altered crops and

animals in Mendocino County, the first such ban in the nation. The

organization continues to educate the public toxic chemicals and

environmental health and to research environmental contamination.

In 1998, Marc and his partner Britt authored Against the

Grain, which examined the implications of the rapid transformation

of the food supply to include genetically modified organisms. In

particular, they questioned the toxicological concerns around

Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, used with Roundup Ready GMO seeds.

Monsanto, the largest supplier of genetically modified seeds,

threatened to sue if the book was published. Their first publisher

pulled out of a contract. My father persisted, finding a publisher,

Common Courage, with the guts to go forward. Against the Grain was

released in 1998. Monsanto has since failed to take any legal

action. A documentary by the same name is available from the Video

Project.

Building a community

In 1997, Marc married lifelong friend Durbin, an

intensive care nurse and yoga instructor.

In 1998, Marc and founded the Pacific Community Charter

School with other parents in Point Arena, California to provide an

alternative educational environment for local students. Despite his

heavy workload, Marc devoted time to teach science at the charter

high school. He was known as a life-transforming teacher who

instilled in his students a love of learning and an appreciation for

the importance of ethical thinking.

Marc was also an award-winning poet who wrote emotionally intense

poems that explored family, science, philosophy and nature.

More recently, my father helped me and my co-author Marshall

on our book, True Lies. He provided invaluable insight on our

investigations into depleted uranium, the anthrax vaccine and the

military's use of Lariam.

He died at his home in his sleep. The cause was cancer.

The planet will miss him deeply.

He is survived by his father , brother cardiologist Don of Salt

Lake City and wife , and children , 33; , 31;

Matt, 25; e, 22; , 17; and step-children, le Spoor,

16; and Sasha Spoor, 29.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Center for Ethics

and Toxics through cetos.org.

~~~~~~~~

www.BreastImplantAwareness.org

The Humantics Foundation joins the world in mourning his loss.