Investigative Journalist Karl Grossman Interviews Dr. Devra Davis
Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative journalist and full professor of journalism at the State University of New York. For 30 years he hosted the nationally aired TV program Enviro Close-Up, produced by New York-based video production company EnviroVideo. Grossman has written and presented TV documentaries for EnviroVideo, including Three Mile Island Revisited, The Push to Revive Nuclear Power and Nukes In Space: The Nuclearization and Weaponization of the Heavens.
Dr. Devra Davis, founder and president of Environmental Health Trust, is interviewed in Part 1 of a two-part Enviro Close-Up series. She is the author of the classic book, The Secret History of the War on Cancer, of which O Magazine wrote, “Davis diagnoses two of the most lethal diseases of modern society: secrecy and self-interest.”
Davis says of cancer-causing substances, “Whether it’s asbestos, vinyl chloride or a number of pesticides, most recently Roundup, what the companies have done is to attack the science and scientists and they spend more money on public relations than research.” They utilize a “new playbook to manufacture doubt” to cover up the lethality of their products, a playbook “first perfected” by the tobacco industry.
She details the deadliness of Roundup pointing out that there have “already” been $12 billion in judgments meted out as a result of legal actions brought against Roundup for causing cancer. Davis also speaks of her book When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle Against Pollution, a finalist for the National Book Award. . Davis says, “There are things you can do to lead a healthier and safer life, but you have to get more informed.”
The Secret History of the War on Cancer, a book by Devra Davis PhD
For much of its history, the cancer war has been fighting the wrong battles, with the wrong weapons, against the wrong enemies. The Secret History of the War on Cancer by Dr. Devra Davis shows, decade by decade, how the campaign has targeted the disease and left off the table the things that cause it—tobacco, alcohol, the workplace, and other environmental hazards. Conceived in explicitly military terms, the effort has focused on defeating an enemy by detecting, treating, and curing disease. Overlooked and suppressed was any consideration of how the world in which we live and work affects whether we get cancer. The result is appalling: over 10 million preventable cancer deaths over the past thirty years. This has been no accident.
Newsweek named The Secret History of the War on Cancer its must read pick for the week of October 8, 2007!
Also selected as one of the best books of the year by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Toronto Globe and Mail.
