Dr. Robert F. Mobbs, of Pinehurst, N.C., retired physician and a life-long environmental activist, passed away Wednesday, October 29, 2003 at Melrose-Wakefield Hospital in Massachusetts after a lengthy illness. He was 85 years old.
He enjoyed a long career as a practicing physician and surgeon and was an active researcher into the toxic effects of environmental pollutants. For some thirty years, beginning in the 1950s, he served as an influential legislative consultant to Congressional members, a member of the Massachusetts Pesticide Control Board, and a Medical Examiner for the State of Massachusetts. As a U.S. Army Reserve officer with the rank of Colonel, Dr. Mobbs commanded the 331St General Hospital, Lawrence, Massachusetts.
Dr. Mobbs was born Oct. 23, 1918, in Springfield, MA, to Clarence Herbert and Alice Roche Mobbs. He grew up in a largely Irish-American neighborhood of Woburn, Mass. He was a graduate of Tufts University and BU Med. School and from there joined the navy.
In 1944, while serving his internship at Bainbridge Naval Hospital, Bainbridge, MD, he learned the price of protest. There he witnessed emergency room attendants violently subdue and kill a hysterical patient. He complained about the unnecessary use of force. Commanded to withdraw his complaint, Dr. Mobbs refused. He was confined to Bethesda Naval Hospital and held under observation. His release and discharge were obtained only by the intervention of James Michael Curley, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts. This incident shaped his commitment to speak truth to power and advocate for the underdog, motivating his environmental advocacy for decades to come.
Upon his release from the Navy, Dr. Mobbs trained in surgery at Charlotte Memorial Hospital, in Charlotte, NC, and later, at the VA Hospital in Louisville, Ky. He set up his first practice in Aberdeen, NC in 1948 and in 1950 married Mary Aurelia Smith. He was drafted into the Army in 1956 and commanded the U.S. Army Hospital in Toole, Utah. Upon completion of his term of duty he continued to serve in the Army Reserves. In the later part of his career Dr Mobbs enjoyed a general surgical and family practice in Wilmington, Massachusetts. His principal hospital was the New England Memorial Hospital in Stoneham, Massachusetts. He enjoyed working with families, treating all kinds of complaints, and seeing patients from birth through maturity. Patients remember him as a kind and attentive physician.
Over his lifetime he waged a lonely battle for corporate accountability, taking chemical companies in particular and industry in general to task for the release of toxins into the environment and unsafe chemical consumer products into the marketplace.
In 1948 the sad and mysterious death of his patient and niece, 3 year old Mary Hue Keith, of Aberdeen, NC, led him to suspect that the fallout of dust from pesticide mixed by neighboring Taylor Chemical Company was dangerous to workers and families living nearby. Dr. Mobbs was among the first to sound the alarm about the public health dangers attending the unregulated manufacture, distribution and use of chemical poisons, pesticides and food additives.
His findings often put him in conflict with the powerful interests of the chemical industry and, sometimes, his neighbors. Ironically, he occasionally found himself at odds with the very people he was concerned to protect, as his whistle-blowing was seen as a threat to local industry and employment.
Fifty years after Dr. Mobbs first voiced his alarm, Aberdeen, NC, became the site of one of the largest and most expensive EPA Superfund clean up efforts in the country.
While never achieving high public profile or recognition for his work, Dr. Mobbs nevertheless influenced public opinion and public health legislation and policy. Rachel Carson used him as a source for material for her best-selling book, “Silent Spring”, which drew public attention to the problems of chemical contamination of the environment.
At Senate Health Sub-Committee hearings in 1954 he emphasized the deleterious effects of the substitution of the word “useful” for the word “essential” in the Food and Drug Law as applied to additives. Dr. Mobbs also suggested that pesticides be kept at a zero tolerance levels in food and tobacco, a suggestion later developed into the Delaney Amendment of 1958. That amendment stated, “the Secretary (of the Food and Drug Administration) shall not approve for use in food any chemical additive found to induce cancer in man, or, after tests, found to induce cancer in animals.” That clause expired quietly with the signing of “The Food Quality Protection Act of 1996.”
Dr. Mobbs also warned of the health and environmental dangers of plasticizers and dioxin and decried the use of Agent Orange. He pointed out the cruel irony of the government’s denial of benefits to Vietnam veterans who were victims of Agent Orange while indemnifying chemical companies for losses incurred in the U.S. because the products were deemed too hazardous for use. He later offered $1,000 to any person in the United States who could produce a tissue sample free of cancer causing chemicals manufactured by Dow Chemical or Monsanto. The challenge went unmet.
In 1987, his career was cut short by a massive stroke. No longer able to work he turned his attention to family, his true love and passion. He is survived by his wife of 53 years, Mary Aurelia Smith Mobbs, of Pinehurst, NC, his five children, Rick Mobbs, of Wilmington, NC, Betty Mobbs, of Andover, MA, Melanie McDonald, of Aberdeen, NC, Alice O’Leary, of Winchester, MA, and Stephanie Deady, of Andover MA, as well as eighteen grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Dr. Mobbs will be remembered as a family man. He and Mrs. Mobbs have been active in the local community, members of a local supper club and supporters of Moore Force, an environmental group.
The family will gather Sunday, Nov. 16, 2003, at 3.p.m.for a service at Bethesda Presbeyterian Church, U.S 1, in Aberdeen. All are welcome. Rev. David Hudson will officiate. A service was also held Nov. 1 at South Church in Andover, Mass.
Memorial donations be made to The Brandon McDonald Foundation, PO Box 1149 Pinehurst, NC 28370, a foundation set up to assist Dr. Mobbs grandson who suffered a spinal cord injury last summer.
