John Froines

John Radford Froines (; June 13, 1939 – July 13, 2022) was an American chemist and anti-war activist, noted as a member of the Chicago Seven, a group charged with involvement with the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Froines, who held a Ph.D. in chemistry from Yale, was charged with interstate travel for purposes of inciting a riot and with making incendiary devices, but was acquitted. He later served as the Director of Toxic Substances at the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and then director of UCLA’s Occupational Health Center. He also served as chair of the California Scientific Review Panel on Toxic Air Contaminants for nearly 30 years before resigning in 2013 amid controversy and claims of conflict of interest.

Early life and education Froines was born in Oakland, California, on June 13, 1939. He studied chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in 1963.

Froines subsequently undertook postgraduate studies at Yale University, obtaining a Master of Science in 1964 before being awarded a Doctor of Philosophy three years later. His graduate work was done in the laboratory of Dr. Kenneth Wiberg, Yale Professor Emeritus. He won a post-doctoral fellowship from the National Science Foundation to work in the laboratory of Nobel Prize-winning chemist, Dr. George Porter, at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in London from 1966 to 1968.

Noted as a member of the Chicago Seven, Froines was indicted along with seven others by the U.S. Justice Department under President Nixon in March 1969 for their participation and leadership in events at the protest demonstrations during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The two-count indictment cited “conspiracy to travel interstate to incite a riot,” and inciting a riot.

After a lengthy trial that drew national media attention, two of the defendants, Froines and Lee Weiner, were acquitted of the charges against them; the others were found guilty on one count. The contempt of court findings, which included those against Froines, were rejected in their entirety after an appeal. Seale had his case severed from the other defendants after the judge refused to acknowledge his right to have an attorney of his choosing, and had him gagged and bound in the courtroom in an effort to silence him. Upon appeals all convictions in the Chicago Conspiracy Trial (the “Chicago Seven”) were overturned, along with the contempt of court charges leveled by trial judge Julius Hoffman against all defendants.

From 1970 to 1971, Froines and his wife Ann lived in New Haven, Connecticut, where both worked with the Black Panther Party Defense Committee in support of Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins during their controversial trial for conspiracy to murder. That trial resulted in a hung jury and the freeing of both defendants. Froines was also involved with organizing the May 1971 antiwar demonstrations in Washington, D.C.,

Occupational safety and health In September 1968, Froines joined the Chemistry Department at the University of Oregon as an assistant professor. Upon the federal indictments for the activities at the Chicago Democratic Convention, he requested and was granted a leave of absence at the end of his first year of teaching because of the impending trial in Chicago. The university administration resisted the calls for his firing from the university from some Oregon state legislators.

After the two years of full-time anti-war activism, Froines returned to teaching chemistry to undergraduates at Goddard College in Vermont.

Upon the election of Ronald Reagan, in 1981 Froines took his focus on occupational and environmental health to the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA, where he became a faculty member. During his tenure at UCLA, he held many leadership roles, including as the director of the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (for 25 years), the director of the Southern California Particle Center and Supersite, associate director of the Southern California Environmental Health Sciences Center, the director of the UCLA Fogarty Program in Occupational and Environmental Health, and the director of the Sustainable Technology and Policy Program. His research focuses covered the toxicology of arsenic, chromium, and lead, air pollution, and pesticides. from the UCLA School of Public Health, in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences. He resigned in 2013 amid claims that he had conducted independent research with the panel while maintaining ties to other scientists who disapproved of the chemicals he was evaluating, creating a conflict of interest.

Controversy Froines was among five University of California scientists who were not re-appointed to the Scientific Review Panel on Toxic Air Contaminants in 2013, after issues were raised about the independence of their scientific recommendations and number of years of service. Part of the controversy involved claims that Froines was in contact with scientists who had stated that some chemicals under review were a public health risk. Froines wrote that the SRP maintained “our commitment to doing the best science possible and we never wavered from that. That is why we were trusted although not always agreed with.” One example of this disagreement was the decision by the California Department of Pesticide Regulations to “ignore its own staff of scientists and a peer review panel led by Froines when setting legal exposure limits of farmworkers to the strawberry fumigant methyl iodide. The department set the limit at more than 100 times what had been recommended.

Awards and recognition The California Air Resources Board honored Froines in 2011 as an “outstanding individual who has made significant contributions toward improving air quality throughout a lifetime of commitment and leadership and innovation in research and environmental policy.”

Physicians for Social Responsibility in Los Angeles recognized Froines and his wife Andrea Hricko in 2012 for their "courageous commitment to scientific integrity and for of increasing our understanding of the health impacts of toxic chemicals on the health of workers and communities."

In 2013, Froines was the Ramazzini Award Recipient and Lecturer for his “pioneering work the develop the federal occupational lead and cotton dust exposure standards in the United States, and his work in California that led to the recognition of diesel exhaust as a significant toxic air contaminant, preserving the health and lives of millions.” The Collegium Ramazzini in Bologna, Italy is an independent, international academy founded in 1982 of internationally renowned experts in the fields of occupational and environmental health. Froines was portrayed by Daniel Flaherty in the 2020 film The Trial of the Chicago 7.