About Marilyn Brachman Hoffman:
Marilyn Brachman Hoffman (1930-2013) built a legacy as an organizer of research on the health effects of environmental chemicals. She worked to bring together scientists, physicians and others to promote public awareness and strategies for prevention, and she endowed a private foundation to continue her work. Born in Texas, Mrs. Hoffman was the daughter of energy-company executive Solomon Brachman. Her mother, Etta Brachman, led community and philanthropic activities in the family’s hometown of Fort Worth. Mrs. Hoffman received her bachelor’s degree in art history from Wellesley in 1952 and her master’s in early childhood development from Columbia Teacher’s College in 1954. She was a doctoral student in experimental psychology at Harvard University from 1955-58.
After her health deteriorated following exposures to environmental toxicants, Mrs. Hoffman turned her energy toward understanding the causes of chemical intolerance.
Speaking to the Boston Globe in 2006, Mrs. Hoffman described years of suffering: “It’s not just the physical hurt, but the psychological, emotional impact that family members, friends, people you work with, how they treat you. They’re afraid of something they don’t understand.”
Due to her condition, Mrs. Hoffman could find no place to live that was free of the chemicals, such as those in paints, new furnishings, cleaning products and fragrances, that made her sick. Scientists and physicians had dismissed her symptoms and the notion she had a physical illness. In regret, she once remarked, “What the eye doesn’t see, the mind often doesn’t believe.”
As a “citizen-scientist,” Mrs. Hoffman anonymously funded strategic research studies, and she supported a wide variety of activities in science, medicine, education, and the arts. Longtime associate Jean A. Lemieux called her “sophisticated, intellectual and spunky.”
Mrs. Hoffman closely followed the work of UT Health San Antonio physician and professor, Claudia S. Miller, MD, MS. Dr. Miller and Nicolas A. Ashford, PhD, had coauthored the groundbreaking book Chemical Exposures: Low Levels and High Stakes, in which they described chemical intolerance and Toxicant-induced Loss of Tolerance (TILT).
Over a 10-year period (2015-2025), the Marilyn Brachman Hoffman Foundation invested $6.7 million for research on chemical intolerance and TILT at the UT Health San Antonio Department of Family and Community Medicine. With this support, Dr. Claudia Miller and Principal Investigator Dr. Raymond Palmer published groundbreaking research, grew public awareness, and developed guides for patients and health care practitioners to identify, understand, and treat chemical intolerance.