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Sandra Steingraber, biologist, poet, and survivor of cancer in her twenties, brings all three perspectives to bear on the most important health and human rights issue of our time: the growing body of evidence linking cancer to environmental contaminations. Her scrupulously researched scientific analysis ranges from the alarming worldwide patterns of cancer incidence to the sabotage wrought by cancer-promoting substances on the intricate workings of human cells. In a gripping personal narrative, she travels from hospital waiting rooms to hazardous waste sites and from farmhouse kitchens to incinerator hearings, bringing to life stories of communities in her hometown and around the country as they confront decades of industrial and agricultural recklessness. Living Downstream is the first book to bring together toxics-release data--now finally made available through under the right-to-know laws--and newly released cancer registry data. Sandra Steingraber is also the first to trace with such compelling precision the entire web of connections between our bodies and the ecological world in which we eat, drink, breathe, and work. Her book strikes a hopeful note throughout, for, while we can do little to alter our genetic inheritance, we can do a great deal to eliminate the environmental contributions to cancer, and she shows us where to begin. Living Downstream is for all readers who care about the health of their families and future generations. Sandra Steingraber's brave, clear, and careful voice is certain to break the paralyzing silence on this subject that persists more than three decades after Rachel Carson's great early warning.
"A Merloyd Lawrence book."
Includes bibliographical references (p. 277-340) and index.
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Library Journal Review
In this "scientific narrative" on the environmental causes of cancer, biologist Steingraber weaves a compelling story that blends personal experience (her friend Jeannie died of a rare cancer of the spinal cord; she herself is a victim of bladder cancer), with a passion for scientific detail. She examines cancer registry data, the rise of the West's petrochemical-based economy, and the effects of substances such as DDT, dioxins, and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals on human health and ecosystems. Steingraber uses data and stories from her native state of Illinois to illustrate the overuse of incineration as a treatment technology for the "reduction" of hazardous waste and the misuse and misapplication of pesticides. She asks "why so much silence still surrounds questions about cancer's connection to the environment, and why so much scientific inquiry into this issue is still considered preliminary." This question is critical to Steingraber's argument; at least 60 different occupations have elevated death rates from cancer. While not easy reading, her work is a powerful addition to the literature on cancer's relationship to environmental exposure. Strongly recommended.Susan Mart, Univ. of Colorado Lib., Denver (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publishers Weekly Review
Thirty-five years ago, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring warned of the destructive impact of chemicals on the environment. Steingraber, a biologist, builds upon Carson's work, focusing on the link between chemicals in the environment and increasing cancer rates: "From dry-cleaning fluids to DDT, harmful substances have trespassed into the landscape and have also woven themselves, in trace amounts, into the fibers of our bodies." A cancer victim herself, Steingraber weaves a dark and pithy trail through the lives of cancer victims, their environments and increasing cancer rates. Using her home territory of Illinois as a backdrop, she successfully connects the environmental contamination of DDT, dioxin, PCB's and many other chemicals that increase the cancer rates both in nature and humans. In a chapter titled "Fire," she describes the mass building of garbage incinerators throughout the country and how they have impacted our environment by creating cancer-causing agents like dioxin and furans. Levine's writing is clear and concise, displaying complicated chemical and biological transformations with elegance and ease. We are living downstream, watching the increasing flow of cancer, Steingraber says, but our efforts are so consumed in curing cancer that we forget to investigate its cause. The author's well-documented account should help to rectify this disturbing and dangerous situation. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
CHOICE Review
Steingraber's title identifies a review of investigations into the connection between environmental toxins and cancer (especially breast cancer). But there is a second book between these covers--a maudlin, feverish diary of a woman's experience with cancer--two books, tangled and interwoven, with blurred edges and ragged boundaries. The challenge for a reviewer is to offer constructive criticism of the technical scholarship without appearing to be insensitive to the anguish revealed in the personal journal. The book offers prodigious reading (there are more than 60 pages of source notes) and some understanding (many of the simple explanations of genetics, cell "ecology," and physiology are illuminating), but this is a gravely flawed work. There are no footnote references, and readers must struggle to connect data, analyses, and quotations with primary sources. Steingraber exploits ignorance and paranoia about "chemicals everywhere." She claims a mystical, privileged insight into the nature of cancer. There is blatant appeal to militant antiestablishment feminism; one of the stirring dust-cover accolades is from Bella Abzug, a Washington Quixote known more for things on her head than in it. Perhaps suitable in a collection on women's studies; not for technical libraries. General readers; undergraduates. D. W. Larson; University of Regina
Booklist Review
When in college, Steingraber had bladder cancer, and as most cancers do, it changed her life. She was struck, though, by the fact that no one who spoke of her illness asked about environmental conditions where she grew up. Tazewell County and its seat, Pekin, in central Illinois have a long, continuous history of agricultural and industrial pollution that badly contaminated the Illinois River, the surrounding farmland, and the major aquifer. This book is not a screeching tirade. It is the account of a young woman who has a deep feeling for the land and its crops. Her descriptions of soybean and corn fields throughout the year show an imaginative and deep appreciation for growing plants. The book also contains much information not easily available elsewhere, a series of tight and logical arguments, a large number of pointed, fair, thought-provoking questions, and 63 pages of references and notes documenting the text and directing the curious to sources for further examination. --William Beatty
