Dr. Marc Lappé, perhaps America’s leading writer on the issue of the chemically endangered, and endangering, enivironment, and whose “books were often the first to sound alarms about environmental issues that would soon draw wide notice,” has died at his home in Gualala, California of a brain tumor at age 62. As a rather critical New York Times obituary by Douglas Martion observes, Lappé became a controversial figure by sticking up for his beliefs against major corporations such as the Down Corning Corporation, which he discovered withheld data about the dangers of the silicone implants it manufactured. He was also “a consultant or expert witness in cases involving the industrial wastes around Love Canal in upstate New York, Agent Orange in Southeast Asia, farm workers’ exposure to pesticides,” and more. He wrote 14 books, perhaps most famously the 1982 book Germs That Won’t Die, about the overuse of antibiotics, and A Civil Action, which was also made into a hit movie. A more sympathetic San Francisco obituary by Sabin Russell, meanwhile, observes, “A thinker admired by environmentalists and opponents of genetic engineering, Professor Lappé was the founder of the Center for Ethics and Toxics, which provided scientific advice on reducing exposure to herbicides, pesticides and other poisonous substances.” In a tribute at the Guerilla News Network, editor Anthony Lappé, the son of Marc Lappé, pays tribute to his father: “Everyone who met him was struck by his warm spirit, unforgettable stories, and limitless generosity,” he notes. He also offers an in-depth appreciation of his father’s larger gift to society as “a leading figure in the movement to integrate ethics and public policy, especially as it related to toxics and genetics.”