Within the Combat Over Gasoline Stoves, Meet the Trade’s Go-To Scientist

Dr. Goodman, who holds a doctorate in toxicology from Johns Hopkins College, is without doubt one of the firm’s most distinguished scientists, serving to to defend industries as assorted as tobacco, plastics and fossil fuels in opposition to well being issues — a mirrored image of the widespread apply through which numerous industries rent specialists who publicly help their place.

She helped develop professional testimony for Philip Morris in a class-action lawsuit that went to trial in 2015, portraying the tobacco large’s best-selling Marlboro Lights cigarettes as being safer for people who smoke. In a choice for the plaintiffs, Decide Edward Leibensperger of Massachusetts Superior Court docket stated Gradient’s evaluation “was shown to be inconsistent and contrary to the consensus of the scientific community.”

At Gradient, Dr. Goodman additionally co-authored an article, sponsored by the now-defunct American Plastics Council, criticizing dozens of educational articles that had raised issues over Bisphonal-A, or BPA, a chemical used to make arduous plastics resembling water and juice bottles. A physique of analysis means that BPA and different bisphenols can act as endocrine disruptors that intrude with hormones within the physique. The chemical compounds have been linked to decreased fertility, earlier puberty in boys and behavioral issues in kids.

In congressional testimony, Dr. Goodman has argued in opposition to regulatory requirements for mercury and air toxics, and has criticized research linking air air pollution and mortality, often figuring out herself as an impartial scientist, regardless of Gradient’s work for company shoppers. In articles funded by the American Petroleum Institute, she has additionally attacked analysis linking publicity to smog-causing ozone to deaths from respiratory ailments.

Frederick vom Saal, a professor emeritus of biology on the College of Missouri, is among the many scientists whose work Dr. Goodman has criticized. “There are over 1,000 publications on BPA, but she claimed none of them stand up to their standards,” he stated. He stated her argument is actually, “‘You don’t need to worry about anything because there’s so little exposure,’” he stated, including that many years of analysis has proven that to not be true.

Gradient declined to remark.

Dr. Goodman’s presence in Multnomah stunned folks on the county listening to. The county, which incorporates most of Portland, lately handed a decision aimed toward lowering the well being results of air air pollution.

“We were all looking at each other going, ‘Who is that? Why is she here?’” stated Melanie Plaut, a retired doctor in Oregon who was attending to induce for larger scrutiny of gasoline stoves. “There were just so many points that needed to be refuted.”