Rick J. Smith

Rick Smith is a prominent Canadian author and environmentalist. He is Executive Director of Environmental Defence Canada and co-author, with Bruce Lourie, of Slow Death by Rubber Duck: How the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Life Affects Our Health, a surprising look at common pollutants and the ease with which they accumulate in the human body. To illustrate this issue Rick and Bruce experimented on their own bodies, raising and lowering levels of toxic chemicals in their blood and urine through the performance of ordinary activities.

A major Canadian and Australian bestseller and a Quill & Quire “Book of the Year” for 2009, Slow Death by Rubber Duck was recently released in the U.S. and has already been featured by the Washington Post (which said it “is hard-hitting in a way that turns your stomach and yet also instills hope”), Dr. Oz, Fox News, and Oprah Magazine. The book has now been translated into six languages.

With a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Guelph and a stint as Chief of Staff of the federal New Democratic Party, Rick’s career has been equal parts science and policy. He is regarded as one of the country’s leading environmental campaigners and has spearheaded efforts to achieve important new environmental and health protections such as Canada’s first federal Endangered Species Act; the world’s largest Greenbelt, now enacted around Toronto; and Canada’s recent decisions to ban the toxic chemical bisphenol A (BPA) in baby bottles (becoming the first country in the world to do so), and get hormone-disrupting flame retardants out of consumer electronics and phthalates out of kids toys. Rick lives in Toronto with his wife and their two young sons.

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