Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
Washington Post Davis put it together in a way that illuminates the underbelly of medical research."
O magazine
"In her devastating, 20-years-in-the-making expose...Devra Davis... shows how cancer researchers, bankrolled by petrochemical and pharmaceutical companies, among others, collude in 'the science of doubt promotion.'...Davis diagnoses two of the most lethal diseases of modern society: secrecy and self-interest. This book is a dramatic plea for a cure."
Discover
Daviss new book, The Secret History of the War on Cancer, is a wake-up call for all those who have accepted the poisons of our age of plenty without a blink.”
Lancet Oncology
A feisty and highly accessible writer, Davis lays her cards on the table...a rattling good read and raises vital issues that remain relevant today.”
Booklist starred review
&ldquoSeveral big ACS [American Cancer Society] contributors, are heavily invested in keeping the public from becoming fully informed of the risks of myriad chemicals to which we and our children are exposed.... Money, it seems, trumps all. Treatment and cures are hefty profit generators, and its expensive to change or eliminate the use of potentially toxic chemicals.... Kudos to Davis for stepping up to the plate.”
The Times (Higher Education Supplement)
The Secret History of the War on Cancer reflects the complex interaction of science, politics and society in the 20th century. I am left wondering how it will change in the 21st.”
Toronto Globe and Mail
Easily the most important science book of the year.... Each and every chapter in this book offers an uncomfortable revelation.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Davis is excellent at following the money and fearless about naming names.... With this work, Devra Davis has permanently reframed the war. It should be required reading for those with cancer histories in their families. In other words, just about all of us.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer / Best 20 Books of 2007
This searing book from a University of Pittsburgh epidemiologist lays out 35 years of medical greed and cowardice that left millions of Americans vulnerable to environmental and occupational cancer deaths. Countless political books attempt to influence the electorate, but this one stands out from the pack, demonstrating why money changes everything.”
New York Law Journal
Compelling and well-written text moves from past to present to assess scores of contemporary workplace and lifestyle hazards, from cell phones to household cleansers to diet soft drinks, and makes clear that the law has been useless in protecting our health.”
New York Review of Books
Joining this increasingly fractious debate with devastating force, Devra Davis, director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, claims that the war has been fighting many of the wrong battles with the wrong weapons and the wrong leaders.” She calculates that these fundamental misdirections” have thrown away well over a million American lives. Her aim in The Secret History of the War on Cancer is to deliver nothing less than a reckoning” of this terrible toll.”
Library Journal
Davis writes with passion, driven by the conviction that premature deaths among her family members resulted from exposure to industrial toxins...a powerful call to action.”
Kirkus Reviews
A detailed history of workplace and environmental carcinogens that predates Nixon's "war" on cancer in the '70s.... Fascinating reading as Davis reviews the
Synopsis
From the National Book Award finalist and author of "When Smoke Ran Like Water" comes this searing, haunting, and deeply personal account of how a major public health effort was diverted and distorted for private gain.
Synopsis
Why has the War on Cancer” languished, focusing mainly on finding and treating the disease and downplaying the need to control and combat cancers basic causestobacco, the workplace, radiation, and the general environment? This war has targeted the wrong enemies with the wrong weapons, failing to address well-known cancer causes.
As epidemiologist Devra Davis shows in this superbly researched exposé, this is no accident. The War on Cancer has followed the commercial interests of industries that generated a host of cancer-causing materials and products. This is the gripping story of a major public health effort diverted and distorted for private gain that is being reclaimed through efforts to green health care and the environment.
About the Author
Devra Davis, PhD, MPH, directs Pittsburghs Center for Environmental Oncology and is Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh. Contributor to the Nobel Peace Prize of 2007, she was founding director of the Board on Environmental Studies at the National Academy of Science and presidential appointee to the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. She is the acclaimed author of
When Smoke Ran Like Water, Finalist for the National Book Award. She lives in Washington, D.C., and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
www.DevraDavis.com