Dr. Howard Frumkin served as director of the ATSDR from September 2005 until January 15, 2010, when he was transferred after extended criticism ot the agency's handling of formaldehyde-contaminated trailers that the government provided to Hurricane Katrina victims.. He also currently serves on the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research and Medicine.

 

Frumkin was born in Poughkeepsie, New York. He received his B.A. from Brown University, his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and his MPH and DrPH from Harvard.

Frumkin has served on the board of directors of Physicians for Social Responsibility, as president of the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics and as chair of the Science Board of the American Public Health Association. He has also served as a consultant to several corporations, including Hewlett-Packard, Southwire, Georgia Power, and Polaroid, and to several unions, including the Chemical Workers Association and the Utility Workers Union.

 

Prior to 2005, Frumkin held several teaching positions, including professor and chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta and Professor of Medicine at Emory Medical School. He founded and directed Emory’s Environmental and Occupational Medicine Consultation Clinic and the Southeast Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit.

 

Frumkin is the author or co-author of more than 100 scientific journal articles and chapters, and his books include Urban Sprawl and Public Health(Island Press, 2004, co-authored with Larry Frank and Dick Jackson), Emerging Illness and Society: Negotiating the Public Health Agenda (Johns Hopkins Press, 2004, co-edited with Randall Packard, Peter Brown, and Ruth Berkelman), Environmental Health: From Global to Local (Jossey-Bass, 2005), and Safe and Healthy School Environments (Oxford University Press, 2006, co-edited with Leslie Rubin and Robert Geller).

 

Official Bio