Ridiculed scientist saved millions of children from brain damage
His death the other day passed almost unnoticed, but to my mind, Derek Bryce-Smith, an eccentric and obdurate retired professor at Reading University, was one of the greatest public health heroes of them all.
More than half a century ago, Bryce-Smith was the first to draw attention to the dangers of lead in petrol, sparking off the worldwide campaign to eliminate it. Ridiculed and marginalised for decades, he lived to see the toxic metal banned from fuel in almost every country. That puts him in the same rank as John Snow, the celebrated 19th-century physician, who identified London’s contaminated drinking water as the cause of cholera.
Will the tide ever come in at Britain's depressed seaside resorts?
August 17th, 2014 12:33
Both extreme hot and extreme cold weather is likely to be caused by global warming, say scientists
August 14th, 2014 9:41
Tidiness helps cause the wildlife crisis
August 12th, 2014 10:03
Want to know how fracking will affect you? Sorry, that's a state secret!
August 11th, 2014 15:25
There's something distinctly fishy about claims that global warming has stopped
August 7th, 2014 12:04