His insistence on following the evidence, regardless of who it offended, has been recognised with the 2026 Maddox prize, which honours people who stand up for science and evidence despite challenges or hostility.
The Flint water crisis left residents exposed to lead and other contaminants after a change in the city’s water supply. Early public concern centred on lasting harm to children’s brains. New research later questioned whether that damage was permanent, shifting the scientific picture and the scientist’s standing in the community.
A scientist who was once hailed as a local hero in Flint later faced hostility after research challenged the idea that children there had been left permanently brain damaged by the water crisis.
The award underscores a tension familiar in public-health crises: findings that contradict widely held fears can isolate researchers even when they match the data.
He has described reflecting on his time in Flint and said the work cost him friends. The Maddox prize cites that record of holding to evidence under pressure.