In the United States alone, industrial and agricultural toxins
account for about 60,000 avoidable cancer deaths annually.
Pollution-related health costs to Americans are similarly
staggering: $13 billion a year from asthma, $351 billion from
cardiovascular disease, and $240 billion from occupational disease
and injury. Most troubling, children, the poor, and minorities bear
the brunt of these health tragedies.
Why, asks Kristin Shrader-Frechette, has the government failed to
protect us, and what can we do about it? In this book, at once
brilliant and accessible, Shrader-Frechette reveals how
politicians, campaign contributors, and lobbyists--and their power
over media, advertising, and public relations--have conspired to
cover up environmental disease and death. She also shows how
science and regulators themselves are frequently "captured" by
well-funded polluters and special interests. But most important,
the author puts both the blame--and the solution--on the shoulders
of ordinary citizens. She argues that everyone, especially in a
democracy, has a duty to help prevent avoidable environmental
deaths, to remain informed about, and involved in, public-health
and environmental decision-making. Toward this end, she outlines
specific, concrete ways in which people can contribute to
life-saving reforms, many of them building on recommendations of
the American Public Health Association.
As disturbing as it is, Shrader-Frechette's message is ultimately
hopeful. Calling for a new "democratic revolution," she reminds us
that while only a fraction of the early colonists supported the
American Revolution, that tiny group managed to change the world.
Her book embodies the conviction thatwe can do the same for
environmental health, particularly if citizens become the change
they seek.
"Timely, accessible, and written with enviable clarity and
passion. A distinguished philosopher sounds an ethical call to arms
to prevent illness and death from pollution."
--Sheila Jasanoff, Harvard University
"Influential and impressive. A must-read."
--Nicholas A. Ashford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"By one of America's foremost philosophers and public
intellectuals; immensely readable, courageous, often startling,
insightful."
--Richard Hiskes, University of Connecticut
"Like Rachel Carson's Silent Spring--brilliant, brave."
--Sylvia Hood Washington, University of Illinois, Chicago
"A blistering account of how advocacy must be brought to bear on
issues of justice and public health."
-- Jeffrey Kahn, University of Minnesota
"No other author can so forcefully bring together ethical
analysis, government policy, and environmental science.
Outstanding."
--Colleen Moore, University of Wisconsin
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