Renee Dufault

Dr. Renee Dufault is a research scientist specializing in nutritional epigenetics, focusing on how diet and food ingredients influence gene expression and human health. Dufault's career includes extensive federal service in toxicology, environmental health, and industrial hygiene. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning from the University of California, Davis, and a Doctorate of Health Education from A.T. Still University. Before her research career, Dufault served in the U.S. Army as a medical laboratory specialist and as a Naval Industrial Hygiene Officer, later joining the United States Public Health Service. Her federal roles included work with the National Institutes of Health, Environmental Protection Agency, and Food and Drug Administration.

During her tenure at the Food and Drug Administration, Dufault identified trace amounts of mercury in high fructose corn syrup, a common ingredient in the American food supply. After presenting these findings to the agency's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, she was asked to halt the investigation. Denied the use of federal extramural data to publish her results, Dufault retired early from federal service to make her research public. Her findings were published in a peer-reviewed journal, establishing her as a Food and Drug Administration whistleblower and drawing significant media attention.

After leaving the Food and Drug Administration, Dufault developed and published the first nutritional epigenetics model for autism, demonstrating how dietary mercury exposure can impact the metallothionein gene in zinc-deficient children. This model, initially called the Mercury Toxicity Model, established a possible link between ultra-processed food consumption, heavy metal exposure, and increased rates of autism and ADHD in children. The model has been updated and expanded by Dufault and collaborators and is recognized by scientific communities as a framework for understanding neurodevelopmental disorders through diet and gene-environment interactions. Her research is widely cited in the field of nutritional epigenetics.

Dufault co-founded the Food Ingredient and Health Research Institute, where she serves as executive director and principal investigator. She is the author of "Unsafe At Any Meal: What the FDA Does Not Want You to Know About the Foods You Eat" and the companion "Nutritional Epigenetics: Unsafe At Any Meal Study Guide." This curriculum has been used in clinical trials as a nutrition intervention, supporting parents of children with autism and ADHD in reducing ultra-processed food intake and improving diet quality. Dufault is the elected Chair of the Nutrient Gene Interactions Research Interest Section. She continues to educate scientific and public audiences on the impact of food ingredients and dietary choices on health and gene expression.