Dr. Elizabeth Hait has been a staff gastroenterologist at Boston Children’s Hospital for over a decade. While she maintains a thriving general pediatric GI practice, Dr. Hait has a particular interest in the relationship between the immune system of the GI tract and the environment.

As a fellow, she studied the gut microbiota and inflammatory mechanisms of recurrent inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) post colectomy. Dr. Hait also studied with Dr. Russ Hauser, Professor of Occupational and Environmental Health at the Harvard School of Public Health, and brought her pediatric GI perspective to his work on endocrine disruptors. Phthalates are widely used chemicals that adversely affect male fertility in animal models. They are an inactive ingredient in Asacol®, a medication commonly used to treat children with IBD. Together, Dr. Hait and Dr. Russ designed a unique study to examine the effects of Asacol® on male reproductivity.  The clear impact of their work, and one of Dr. Hait’s proudest achievements, is that their study led to Warner Chilcott Pharmaceuticals replacing Asacol® with phthalate-free Delzicol®.

After fellowship, Dr. Hait was recruited to become a faculty member at Boston Children’s Hospital and helped build a multidisciplinary program to treat children with allergic gastrointestinal disorders. Boston Children’s Hospital’s Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Disease (EGID) Program was the first program of its kind in the Northeast. Our team has published several articles on novel therapeutic approaches to treat allergic gastrointestinal disorders.