Overview

After working twenty years in the environmental health field, Renee Dufault (aka Ms. D) now teaches special education part-time and serves as FIHRI's founder and Executive Director.  Prior to her retirement from the Public Health Service, she doggedly pursued the environmental fate of the missing mercury from the chlor-alkali industry.  Upon locating some of the mercury in high fructose corn syrup and publishing the findings http://www.ehjournal.net/content/8/1/2 , she then worked with her collaborative team to determine how this source of mercury exposure might interact with other epigenetic risk factors to affect learning in children.  After a lengthy review of the literature, Ms. Dufault and her interdisciplinary team developed a mercury toxicity model to explain these interactions.   The mercury toxicity model made it through an exhausting peer review process and was published in Oct. 2009 http://www.behavioralandbrainfunctions.com/content/5/1/44 

Ms. D can really enjoy her retirement now.  Three days a week, you can find her in the special education resource room where she is teaching children with learning disabilities how to read.  Most evenings, you will see her working in her home office furiously writing her book, managing the day to day operations of FIHRI, or teaching environmental hazard assessment skills on line at the United Tribes Technical College.  During summers and vacations, Ms. D loves spending time with her grandchildren at the beach.  Renee's E-mail: rdufault@phaccountability.org