Under a photograph of the late Irving J. Selikoff, MD, Philip J. Landrigan, MD, MSc, and Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney display a Congressional Tribute to Mount Sinai for its leadership in environmental health.
Government officials, visiting physicians, and members of the Mount Sinai Health System recently gathered at a symposium honoring a seminal figure in environmental medicine—the late Irving J. Selikoff, MD—and to celebrate the renovation of Mount Sinai’s Selikoff Centers for Environmental Health. The Selikoff Centers treat thousands of patients each year for World Trade Center-related health issues and other work-related illnesses and injuries.
At the symposium, sponsored by Mount Sinai’s Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, U.S. Representative Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), a champion of workers’ health, presented Mount Sinai with a Congressional Tribute for being the “birthplace of environmental health and a leader in the United States in this research.”
Representative Maloney called the late Dr. Selikoff, whose work at Mount Sinai spanned more than 50 years from the early 1940s to his passing in 1992, a “remarkable” physician and scientist. His pioneering research, which included linking asbestos exposure to the development of lung cancers, mesotheliomas, and multiple other cancers one to five decades later, was able to shape national legislation that imposed strict exposure limits for workers. Dr. Selikoff’s leadership in public health was central to establishment of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
Speakers at the symposium included Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and President for Academic Affairs, Mount Sinai Health System, and Philip J. Landrigan, MD, MSc, Dean for Global Health and Professor of Preventive Medicine, and Pediatrics. David Michaels, PhD, MPH, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Health and Safety; John Howard, MD, JD, MPH, Director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health; and representatives of the World Health Organization also attended the event, along with Dr. Selikoff’s former trainees, two of whom traveled from Ecuador and Israel.
“He was a tough guy, but he was also smart and charming,” Dr. Landrigan told the audience, comprised of national and international specialists in environmental and occupational health. “We are all the children of Irving Selikoff.”