Phone: (919) 541-4578
Fax: (919) 541-2511
Email: rogan@niehs.nih.gov
Mailing address:
Epidemiology Branch, NIEHS
Mail Drop A3-05, P.O. Box 12233
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 USA
FedEx/delivery address:
Epidemiology Branch, NIEHS
Building 101, Room A302
111 Alexander Drive
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 USA
Dr. Rogan's main research focus has been the effect of pollutant chemicals on the growth and development of children. He has been involved with three major studies.
The first is a cohort study of North Carolina children exposed to background levels of PCBs and DDT. These children were born between 1978 and 1982, and were followed through puberty. Although the primary hypothesis of this study was that PCBs and DDT (as DDE) in breast milk might produce toxicity in nurslings, Rogan and his co-investigator, Beth Gladen (Statistics Branch, NIEHS), showed that transplacental but not lactational exposure to PCBs produced small but persistent delays in motor development detectable from birth to age 2 years. They also showed that DDE at higher levels was associated with markedly earlier weaning, replicated that finding in Mexico, and speculated that this might be because DDE is a weak estrogen.
In the second study, Rogan and his colleagues studied a complex food poisoning episode in Taiwan, in which children were exposed transplacentally to PCBs and PCDFs that their mothers ate in contaminated cooking oil. They demonstrated that these children had a syndrome of ectodermal defects, global persistent developmental delay, and disordered behavior.
Now Dr. Rogan is project officer for a 4 site, randomized, controlled clinical trial of oral chelation therapy to prevent lead-induced disorders of growth, behavior and cognitive development in toddlers. The Treatment of Lead-exposed Children (TLC) trial has randomized 780 children between 13–33 months of age with blood leads of 20–45 µg/dL and is following them for 3 years after treatment. Follow-up should be complete in the year 2000.
Dr. Rogan received a BA in Biology from LaSalle College, Philadelphia; an MD from the University of California, San Francisco; and his MPH in Biostatistics from the University of California, Berkeley. After internship at San Francisco General Hospital, he came to NIEHS as a Staff Associate in 1976. He was Medical Officer in the Epidemiology Branch until 1986, Chief of Epidemiology until 1991, Associate Director of the Division of Biometry and Risk Assessment through 1993, Acting Clinical Director in the Division of Intramural Research until 1997, and has now returned to the Epidemiology Branch as a clinical investigator. He is Board Certified in General Preventive Medicine and licensed in North Carolina.
Rogan's positions on the NIEHS Institutional Review Board, from his CV (archived July 17, 1998):
- 1980–1983 — Founding chair, NIEHS Institute Clinical Review Subpanel (now IRB)
- 1983–1993 — Member, NIEHS IRB
- 1992–1993 — Chair, NIEHS IRB
The RFP for the TLC trial was published July 31, 1992. The preproposal conference was held October 8, 1992. The Amendment of Solicitation was issued October 22, 1992. KKI submitted its Technical Plan on November 23, 1992. The JHU IRB approved the protocol on February 9–10, 1993. The NIEHS IRB reviewed and rejected KKI's consent form during this period, requiring revision. The contract was awarded June 25, 1993.
"We proposed to Dr. Olden that we do a clinical trial, because lowering blood lead might be a good thing, but it might not be a good thing in the sense of reversing any effect that lead had already had, and it exposed you to the side effects of drug, which you might or might not need. The only thing wrong with you from these low levels of lead that we were going to treat was you'd lost some IQ points, two or three per every 10 micrograms per deciliter of blood lead."
— Walter J. Rogan, 2016 NIEHS Oral History
"We followed 780 kids, half of whom had gotten Succimer, half of whom got placebo... We lowered their blood leads pretty dramatically, and we changed their IQs not at all."
— Walter J. Rogan, 2016 NIEHS Oral History
"That study ended drug treatment, which had been being promoted as something that you ought to do to these kids."
— Walter J. Rogan, 2016 NIEHS Oral History
"Nothing I've done would have been possible outside of a government agency, either NIH or CDC or EPA... My career has been very much a government scientist career."
— Walter J. Rogan, 2016 NIEHS Oral History