Living Downstream: A Scientist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment

By Sandra Steingraber

Book Overview

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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306818698
• ISBN13: 9780306818691
• Release Date: March 2010
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Length: 440 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.1" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Caution: this book will change your life

As a scientist, I must say that this book is extraordinary. You'll realize from this well researched and analyzed text that given the trends in environmental contamination, we are all highly vulnerable to toxicity related cancer. What is more terrifying is that there is not a responsible/objective/non-political entity that has enough power to change this trend near-term (10-15 yrs). After having read the book, I feel obligated to do something (its my nature). In hindsight, I wish that I had never read the book - ignorance may be bliss.

Poetry and Scientific Precision

It is rare to find a book on a scientific subject that is both accurate and precise in its science and beautifully written. It is no surprise to find that Sandra Steingraber, author of such a book, is both a Ph.D. biologist and a published poet. "Living Downstream" is a superb blend of rigorous analysis and poignant memoir. Steingraber documents the increasing evidence of a strong link between rising cancer rates and environmental contamination. At the same time she tells her own story--that of a woman who suffered and survived cancer while only in her 20's. This book has justly been compared to Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" and may, if read widely enough, have the same worldwide impact that Carson's book had forty years ago.

A must-read for anyone concerned about our environment!

This book is chock-full of important scientific information about the connections between cancer and the environment, yet it is very easy to read. I couldn't put it down. You will be shocked by the evidence she puts forth. All her information is well-documented.

"Living Downstream" is the "Silent Spring" of the 1990's..

This book will be remembered not only for its eloquence and poetry, for its accuracy and precision, but also for the silence with which it was received in 1997. Along with Joni Seager's "Earth Follies" and Terry Tempest Williams' "Refuge", "Living Downstream" paints a picture of our behavior toward our planet as nothing less than genocidal. For those who believe Rachel Carson was right, this book is a must-read update and a reminder that faith is not enough. We must live as if we believe the consequences of toxic pollution to be predictable and avoidable.

Steingraber reveals the truth everyone should know!

This book, together with OUR STOLEN FUTURE, reveal the truth chemical corporations have kept secret since the 1930's. All of us our now carrying endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDC's or "gender benders") hidden in our fat cells which are altering our sexuality, our ability to reproduce, our short term memory, our health...perhaps the very survival of the species. Steingraber makes this data accesible while she invokes a sense of land and family, as well as the stigma of cancer. Read this book! Then you can decide what you want to drink and eat---for yourself and those you love! V.S. Ferguson/author of INANNA RETURNS