Ruth Etzel, MD, PhD, Director, Office of Children’s Health Protection, EPA

The head of an Environmental Protection Agency office in charge of protecting children’s health was put on leave this week, a move she says is part of a Trump administration effort to “disappear” her office.

The New York Times first reported that Ruth Etzel, a renowned pediatrician and head of the Office of Children’s Health Protection, was removed from her post. And since then, a leaked email from Etzel suggested the worst fears of children’s health advocates may be true.

“I appear to be the ‘fall guy’ for their plan to ‘disappear’ the office of children’s health,” Etzel wrote Tuesday in an email obtained by BuzzFeed. “It had been apparent for about 5 months that the top EPA leaders were conducting ‘guerrilla warfare’ against me as the leader of OCHP, but now it’s clearly official.”

Perhaps you’ve never heard of Etzel or her office. It’s small, with a $2 million budget and only 15 full-time employees. But it has the huge […]

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