Mary Amdur

Mary Ochsenhirt Amdur (February 18, 1921 – February 16, 1998) was an American toxicologist and public health researcher who worked primarily on pollution. She was charged with studying the effects of the 1948 Donora smog, specifically looking into the effects of inhaling sulfuric acid by experimenting on guinea pigs. Her findings on the respiratory effects related to sulfuric acid led to her being threatened, her funding being pulled, and her losing her job at the Harvard School of Public Health in 1953. Undeterred, she carried on her research in a different role at Harvard, and subsequently at MIT and New York University. Despite the early controversy related to her work, it was used in the creation of standards in air pollution, and towards the end of her life she received numerous awards and accolades.

Early life Mary Amdur was born in 1921 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She received a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1943 from the University of Pittsburgh, moving to Cornell University to study biochemistry at the postgraduate level. She received her PhD in biochemistry in 1946, writing her thesis on the "Role of Manganese and Choline in Bone Formation in the Rat".

"The trouble with this branch of medical science is that it is always tied up more or less with somebody's pocketbook—Maybe the companies, maybe the insurance people, maybe the doctor in charge ... Looked at that way, realize that Philip Drinker has wife and children who are 'hostages ... to fortune, an impediment to all great enterprises, whether good or evil'" — Personal note from Alice Hamilton to Mary Amdur after she was fired. to the American Association for the Advancement of Science at their annual meeting in December 1953. The paper was never published. In 1974, she received the Donald E. Cummings Memorial Award from the American Industrial Hygiene Association in recognition of her lifetime contributions and application of her knowledge in the field. The American Academy of Industrial Hygiene Council awarded her the Henry F. Smyth Jr. Award in 1984 for identifying and fulfilling research needs within the industrial hygiene profession. In 1986, she received the Inhalation Specialty Section's Career Achievement Award from the Society of Toxicology. She received the Herbert E. Stockinger Award from the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists in 1989. In 1988 she gained, the Mid-Atlantic Section, Society of Toxicology Ambassador Award.

Death and legacy

"At every step along the way, people tried to pull the rug out from under her. In fact, she got it right years before the rest of us. The world only caught up with her several decades later, by which time so many people had confirmed what she found that it could no longer be discounted." — John Spengler At least three societies wrote obituaries She is considered the "mother of smog research" and her work had "a major role in the development of air pollution standards."