When Smoke Ran Like Water
Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle Against Pollution
Devra Davis (Author)
December 2003
Trade Paperback · 352 Pages
$18.99 U.S. · $22.00 CAN · £12.99 U.K. · €13.99 E.U.
ISBN 9780465015221
Basic Books
The National Book Award Finalist from a leading public-health expert, this is the unknown story of how … More
About the Book
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Description
In When Smoke Ran Like Water, the world-renowned epidemiologist Devra Davis confronts the public triumphs and private failures of her lifelong battle against environmental pollution. She documents the shocking toll of a public-health disaster-300,000 deaths a year in the U.S. and Europe from the effects of pollution-and asks why we remain silent. For Davis, the issue is personal: Pollution is what killed many in her family and forced some of the others, survivors of the 1948 smog emergency in Donora, Pennsylvania, to live out their lives with impaired health. She describes that episode and also makes startling revelations about how the deaths from the London smog of 1952 were falsely attributed to influenza; how the oil companies and auto manufacturers fought for decades to keep lead in gasoline, while knowing it caused brain damage; and many other battles. When Smoke Ran Like Water makes a devastating case for change.
About the Author
Devra Davis, Ph.D., M.P.H., is the Director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and Professor of Epidemiology, Graduate School of Public Health. She was appointed by President Clinton to the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board in 1994 and also served as Scholar in Residence at the National Academy of Science. She works in Pittsburgh, and lives in Washington, D.C. She is married to Richard D. Morgenstern and has two children and two grandchildren.
Wrenching…. Davis writes with the authority of a battle-scarred veteran…. Impassioned and rich in anecdotes about campaigns she has fought and scoundrels she has encountered.
— Washington Post
When Smoke Ran Like Water is probably the most readable exposé of the hidden costs of pollution since Silent Spring…. It's chock full of square science, damning details and arresting tales…. Davis does an excellent job of exposing the game that industry and government play to avoid being accountable for killing people.
— Toronto Globe and Mail
After reading this riveting analysis of the state of the environment and its catastrophic implications for human health, you might find yourself tempted to run out into the street, grab the first strangers you see and tell them to wake the hell up.
— Time Out New York
The book is a passionate statement, but the details undergirding that passion are the stuff of sophisticated science. Sometimes, though, the passion is highly personal, and haunting.
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Devra Davis is a hero with a nose for trouble…. The beauty of this book is its ability to describe the business of epidemiology while keeping the human stories of the victims at the forefront. And she can certainly put it over.
— New Scientist
This book by Devra Davis is going to be one of those books to which I periodically return, both to enjoy her writing as well as to glean material for lectures…. All in all, this is a masterful book. I know I will visit it often, and that years from now I will think of it as highly as I do now, just after reading it.
— P. Aarne Vesilind, Bucknell University
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