American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access originally published online on July 16, 2008
American Journal of Epidemiology 2008 168(10):1211-1212; doi:10.1093/aje/kwn210
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American Journal of Epidemiology Published by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health 2008.
BOOK REVIEW |
The Secret History of the War on Cancer
By Devra Davis
Tobacco Control Research Branch, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD 20892
(e-mail: paramark@mail.nih.gov)
ISBN 978-0465015665, Basic Books, New York, New York (Telephone: 800-343-4499, Fax: 800-351-5073, Website: http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/basic/contact_us.jsp), 2007, 505 pp., $27.95 (Hardcover)
| The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below. |
In 1936, 200 of the world's top medical scientists met in Brussels to address an emerging epidemic. Since the turn of the century, cancer had been steadily growing as a major cause of death. Naturally, researchers looked first to environmental factors, particularly agents of the Industrial Age, such as asbestos, road tar, ionizing radiation, and synthetic dyes. Since then, however, attention has been diverted away from such important environmental causes of cancer, especially where economic interests are at stake, according to Dr. Devra Davis in The Secret History of the War on Cancer (1).
This expansive, ambitious book spans nearly a century and dozens of controversies, anecdotes, and personal stories. Davis devotes