Customer Reviews

Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks At Cancer And The Environment

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Early on it is evident Steingraber is an ecologist (informative) and a poet (delightful writing) - exceptionally rewarding read: packed with data interwoven with relevant anecdotes from her life. When you finish reading this I urge you to read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring if you haven't already. Steingraber presents the overwhelming evidence confirming Carson's early insights, fears and predictions.

Ms Steingraber provides poignant views of the environment where she and others are bathed in toxins. Her chapters are simply titled air, water, fire, ... , but they each delve deeply into both science and personal history.

Ms Steingraber knows her science and at the same time has a wonderful gift for conveying it to others less knowledgeable.

On the personal level, the author relates very closely to the place where she grew up and its effects on her immediate environment where she became a cancer victim at the age of 20.

My only disappointment was that the author did not quantitatively describe the various risks. Specifically, what is the relative level of risk of eating meat versus being a vegetarian?

All in all a wonderful and very readable book that I would strongly recommend to all.

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

Sandra Steingraber gives a well researched, objective, yet highly personal account of the interplay between our environment, and the degradation thereof, and the ever increasing face of cancer in the US. This book sould be read by every person who cares about their own health and the health of those around them. We should thank Ms. Steingraber for giving us this cricial information in an easy to understand format.

Sandra Steingraber is a poet, a scientist and an ecologist. She brings the best of all those worlds to an excellent review of the world in which we all "live downstream." Amazon's service and the quality of the book itself were also excellent.