In Review: Toxic Whodunnit

Living Downstream: An Ecologist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment, Sandra Steingraber, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press, 2010 (second edition), 440 pages.

Searching for what caused the blad- der cancer that struck her at age 20, biologist Sandra Steingraber uncovered a history of environmental contamina- tion in Tazewell County, Illinois, where she grew up. The cancer cluster she doc- umented there formed the basis of her 1997 book Living Downstream, which proposed a link between toxic chemicals in the environment and cancer. Readers of that book will find she has thoroughly updated this new edition. Her analysis has also matured. Steingraber has become more thoughtful and reflective.

Living Downstream remains a detec- tive story. Steingraber's own cancer and the occurrence of the disease in her central Illinois community prompt her to ask questions about the chemicals to which she and her neighbours have been exposed, opening a deep and wide- ranging examination of the subject. …