Book Review Living Downstream: An ecologist looks at cancer and the environment By Sandra Steingraber. 357 pp. Reading, Mass., Addison–Wesley, 1997. $24. 0-201-48303-3

Abstract

An older colleague of mine once suggested that the work product of an environmentalist is controversy. Fear and the threat of unseen, unchosen hazards enhance fund-raising for environmental political organizations and fund environmental research, he suggested. Though his view may be cynical, it was my introduction to the “politics” of the environment. Living Downstream is an environmental polemic and an unapologetic call to arms. Dr. Sandra Steingraber has analyzed an enormous volume of data with which she attempts to convince us first, that we are in the midst of a cancer epidemic and second, that chemical residues and pesticides in the environment are the cause of this deadly scourge.