The Secret History of the War on Cancer

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 528 pages
• Published by: Basic Books
• Edition: 1st Edition October 1, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0465015662
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0465015665
• Book Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.8 inches
• Weighs: 1.9 pounds

Product Description
The War on Cancer set out to find, treat, and cure a disease. Left untouched were many of the things known to cause cancer, including tobacco, the workplace, radiation, or the global environment. Proof of how the world in which we live and work affects whether we get cancer was either overlooked or suppressed. This has been no accident. The War on Cancer was run by leaders of industries that made cancer-causing products, and sometimes also profited from drugs and technologies for finding and treating the disease. Filled with compelling personalities and never-before-revealed information, The Secret History of the War on Cancer shows how we began fighting the wrong war, with the wrong weapons, against the wrong enemies-a legacy that persists to this day. This is the gripping story of a major public health effort diverted and distorted for private gain. A portion of the profits from this book will go to support research on cancer prevention.

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.

Reader Reviews
Devra Davis has combined history, personal anecdote and experience, and deep scientific knowledge and research to provide readers with a sometimes chilling view of where we stand in the "war against cancer." She is not afraid to name names of both individuals and corporations who have too often put profit above people. The frightening thing as one reads this is how current the continuing coverups and dissembling are; this is not the story of past misdeeds alone. There is a lot of information here that needs to be much more widely disseminated and discussed. As we look to a new administration in 2009, this book will be a good one for voters and policy makers alike to read and use for beginning new ways of approaching some of the environmental health issues Dr. Davis raises. As she points out over and over, we need not only to work for better treatments for cancer cases; we need to work to eliminate those carcinogenic factors we can control. As long as factions pit tobacco against pollution against other chemicals, always pointing the finger away from their own actions, the "war on cancer" will continue to be too weakly fought. Dr. Davis has provided a great service, but I have given this only 4 stars due to the need to tighten the writing of the book. Her history lessons were superb, but too many chapters jumped from one subject to the next without cohesiveness; sometimes I found myself having to go back a couple of pages to review the thread of a topic that she suddenly brought back into her narrative. A little more editing and this would be a standout five star book. Nonetheless, read the book, buy a copy or two and pass it on to all those you know who are in or outside the field of medicine, whose family members have already been touched by cancer or, as is more and more likely, will be in the future. Comment | | (Report this)