Morton Mintz Obit

Morton Mintz Obituary

 He was not on the list.

On Monday, July 28, 2025. Beloved father of Margaret (John Birdsall), Roberta (Harry Levine) and Daniel (Meredith Berkman); and much loved grandfather to Alex, Sophia, Emilia, Peter, Jesse, Casia, Noa, Caleb, Avital and Yael and great grandfather to Shiloh and Gideon. Born in Ann Arbor, MI January 26, 1922 to the late William and Sarah Mintz, he attended the University of Michigan and was a staff reporter and Daily Editorial Director for the Michigan Daily. Longtime award winning investigative reporter at The Washington Post and active member of the newspaper guild, he reported on anticompetitive business practices, automobile safety, air pollution, the tobacco, pharmaceutical and medical device industries, waste and fraud in military contracting, the power of campaign financing to corrupt, and the influence of lobbying and corporate donations on elected officials. Service will be held Wednesday, July 30, 11 a.m. at Sixth & I Synagogue NW.

He was an American investigative journalist who in his early years (1946–1958) reported for two St. Louis, Missouri, newspapers, the Star-Times and the Globe-Democrat; and then, most notably The Washington Post (1958–1988). He exposed such scandals as thalidomide and the Dalkon Shield. From 2004 onwards, he was a Senior Adviser to Nieman Watchdog.

In 1955, at the Globe-Democrat, Mintz did the nation's first newspaper series on the plight of the mentally disabled. At the Post, he broadened conventional definitions of "news" with people-oriented reporting on issues mainly involving the pharmaceutical, medical-device, tobacco, oil, auto. and insurance industries.

At the Post, in 1962, Mintz broke the story of thalidomide, the sedative/tranquilizer that caused several thousand children worldwide to be born without arms, legs, or without any limbs at all. Although the press greeted the advent of the original oral contraceptive uncritically, he revealed that in approving The Pill, in 1960, the FDA had launched the greatest uncontrolled medical experiment in human history. Tens of millions of healthy human beings would take The Pill 20 or 21 days a month, often throughout their child-bearing lifespan, on the basis of inadequate scientific evidence of safety.

Mintz also reported on numerous unsafe and/or ineffective medicines and medical devices, including cholesterol-lowering MER/29, which afflicted thousands with cataracts; Oraflex, a killer anti-arthritis drug withdrawn by the manufacturer only a few months after sales began, and the Dalkon Shield and Cu-7 IUDs. Starting in 1965, and continuing into 1999, he reported on the tobacco industry, including the 1988 smoker-death trial in which cigarette makers were compelled to disclose for the first time what they knew of the dangers of smoking and when they knew it. In 1993, Mintz wrote Allies: The ACLU and the Tobacco Industry, which exposed the American Civil Liberties Union's conflict of interest in advocating a key industry cause in the U.S. Congress and soliciting and accepting money from that industry, both while disclosing nothing to ACLU members of either activity.

In 1966, Mintz broke the story of the tailing of Ralph Nader by a private detective retained by General Motors and for years covered automotive-safety issues. He was often alone in reporting grave corporate crime and misconduct. Mintz covered the U.S. Supreme Court's 1965 and 1978-1980 terms. In 1983, he reported on the refusal of the United States during World War II to bomb the rail lines to the gas ovens at Birkenau and the Auschwitz death camp itself. He based the story on an exclusive interview with John J. McCloy, who as an assistant Secretary of War had played a key role in the episode.