Before you reach for that Diet Coke or buy a place within 500 feet of a major roadway, read The Secret History of the War on Cancer by Devra Davis.
The world with its new technologies, makes life easier but increasingly produces an environment that makes people sick.
Additives make foods last longer. Cars barrell down freeways, and fuel emissions barrel down lungs. Pesticides kill pests on plants and those who eat them accumulate chemicals. Combined, the above creates an internal toxic cocktail with unknown consequences.
Devra Davis, Ph.D., MPH wrote a comprehensive cancer study book, linking one's work and living environments to cancer risk.
She notes cancer is happening more to young people, whereas it used to be an older person's disease. And she remarks on how doctors treat individuals, not the world into which they were born.
It's the world that is the problem.
Ms. Davis emphasizes that knowing how your environment impacts your health is important, and getting this information is no easy task because industry is frequently behind research studies.
People too often quickly take hold of a new technology without adequate research into its short and long term health impacts.
As Director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, and an environmental advisor to Newsweek, Devra Davis has done a wonderful job with this book. It reminds me of other niche ground-breaking books on similar subjects, Living Downstream and Silent Spring.
