Reviews-When Smoke Ran Like Water

Oncology Times
November 25, 2003
"The book is a series of carefully interwoven stories about pullution and health, the challenges of enviornmental epidemiology, and the forces arrayed against those who identify environmental hazards, weaving questions, approaches, solutions, and uncertainties throughout the stories."

Johns Hopkins Magazine
June, 2003
When Smoke Ran Like Water, rooted in a dramatic childhood experience, is a clarion call for immediate policy reform....

America: The National Catholic Weekly
April, 2003
...When Smoke Ran Like Water is the best book on public health and environmental pollution of the last 30 years. Davis is a powerful voice calling from the wilderness....

Whole Earth Magazine
Spring, 2003
Wake Up and Learn From Your Mistakes, You Idiots!

Chemical & Engineering News
April, 2003
...her book -- a finalist for a National Book Award -- is as fascinating and engrossing as a well-written detective novel, yet as accurate and enlightening as the best scientific literature....

Environmental Health Perspectives
January, 2003
...this exceptionally well-written book is excellent environmental literature...

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
December 27, 2002
Best Books 2002

Newsweek
December 9, 2002
The Truth About Smog (PDF)

Sierra Club
December 8, 2002
An Interview with Devra Davis

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Physicians for Social Responsibility
Winter, 2003
http://www.psr.org/documents/psr_doc_0/program_1/Davis.doc
"This is a must read. When Smoke Ran Like Water ranks on my smallest shelf of books that I thrust on friends, colleagues, and strangers alike. Devra Davis mixes passion, personality, and pollution studies in a compelling narrative that takes the non-scientific reader through an introduction to the highlights and history of environmental health. It will leave you wanting to know more and to take action... Davis writes beautiful and pungent prose. And I don’t mean 'for a scientist.'"

National Resources Defense Council
Fall, 2003
http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/03win/reviews2.asp
"Devra Davis reminds us that nobody knew from air pollution back in 1948. Residents of her industrial hometown, Donora, Pennsylvania, considered their grimy curtains and sunless days normal, even reassuring signs of progress. But that October, when Davis was two years old, they witnessed something infinitely more troubling: Noxious fumes from the local steel and zinc plants, trapped for nearly a week under a layer of cold air in the Monongahela Valley, blanketed the town so thickly people could barely see the sidewalk in front of them. The "death" smog killed twenty people and left thousands sick. "

Reason Magazine
March 17, 2003
http://www.reason.com/0304/cr.ts.the.shtml
When Smoke Ran Like Water attacked. "Davis goes to great lengths to describe her more orthodox views on epidemiological methodology with textbook clarity, but when it comes to more controversial matters -- precisely when we most need her to be clear and forceful -- she glides quickly over her opponents’ objections, pausing only to describe them as flacks for polluting companies. So you will learn nothing here about whether high-dose animal experiments really are good predictors of human health effects, or whether there are minimum doses of pollution (as with most poisons) below which we need not fear health effects. On such questions, Davis in effect asks us to trust her intuitions, intuitions shaped by her own unusual experiences and strongly held beliefs."

Scientific American
March 17, 2003
http://www.sciam.com/books/index.cfm?section=review&issue_date=01-APR-03
The Editors Recommend. "Although her prose relies heavily on statistics and historical accounts of pollution, Davis's personal narrative ties the story together nicely."

Northern Sky News
March 17, 2003
http://www.northernskynews.com/frontpage.html
"Excellent."

Audubon Magazine
March, 2003
http://magazine.audubon.org/books/editorchoice0303.html
"With industry-friendly scientists now the dominant voice on the federal advisory committees that are charged with examining the links between environmental pollutants and human health, it would seem that Davis and like-minded advocates have a tough challenge ahead. But their work serves as a welcome beacon to those who wish to follow in their tracks."

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
March 16, 2003
http://www.post-gazette.com/books/reviews/20030316smoke0316fnp3.asp
"Her book is a series of related stories that are well-researched, well-documented and well-written. This narrative form enables a persuasive inductive method to support Davis' conclusions....Davis is a remarkable stylist, mixing anecdotes and anecdotal evidence with science. Her dry wit, rather than dour doom-and-gloom ranting, serves well to present some sad truths."

Washington Jewish Week
February 27, 2003

"Much evidence suggests environmental links to some of these illnesses. Take breast cancer, which hits Jewish women in disproportionate numbers. Fewer than one in 20 cases arise in women with genetic defects, says professor Devra Davis, a Council on the Environment and Jewish Life board member. That means most of these cancers are likely due to something in a person's milieu.
But the work of connecting the dots has lagged, says Davis, author of When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle Against Pollution."

The Washington Post
January 19, 2003
Dirty Business: Risk and Reason and When Smoke Ran Like Water (PDF)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
January 15, 2003
Two anti-pollution books converge on 1948 killer fog in Donora, Pa. (PDF)

The Washington Post
January 12, 2003

National Resources Defense Council
Winter, 2003
http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/03win/reviews2.asp

NewsObserver.com
December 29, 2002

SFGate.com
December 22, 2002
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/12/22/RV36466.DTL

The Globe and Mail
December 7, 2002
Killer Air, Killer Book

History Today
December, 2002
The Great Smog (PDF)

SeventhGeneration.com
December, 2002
http://www.seventhgeneration.com/page.asp?id=1390#1

Time Out New York
November 28, 2002
Muckraker: A scientist dredges up the truth about pollution's effect on our health (PDF)

Providence Journal
November 11, 2002
http://www.projo.com/news/content/projo_20021111_chems11.137af.html

Providence Journal
November 10, 2002
"When Smoke Ran Like Water takes the reader on a grim, yet illuminating tour of diverse communities ravaged by pollution."

Community Pipeline
November 9, 2002

Manchester (VT) Journal
November 8, 2002

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
November 7, 2002
http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/20021107davis3.asp

Newark Star-Ledger
November 3, 2002
"Recently nominated for this year's National Book Awards (to be announced Nov. 20), this frightening book by renowned epidemiologist Davis lays out the links between low levels of pollutants - such as workplace solvents, the burning of fossil fuel, smog and pesticides - and diseases such as cancer and asthma. Davis charges that instead of trying to ameliorate the problem, many corporations spend fortunes to cover it up."

Library Journal
November 1, 2002
"This is an expose on how industrial polluters deceived the public, belittled scientists and academics, and pressured government agencies to stifle regulations. Davis acknowledges that today's environmental regulations are a tribute to those who fought the polluters and demanded change, but the battle continues. Recommended for all environmental and public health collections."

Washington Jewish Week
October 31, 2002

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
October 28, 2002
http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/20021028davis1028fnp4.asp

The Voice of the Hill
October 25, 2002
http://www.voiceofthehill.com/archives/Nov02.pdf
(go to page 12 of this PDF document)

Christian Science Monitor
October 24, 2002
"On Oct. 26, 1948, the small steel town of Donora, Pa., was blanketed by a thick, toxic smog. Within a week, some 20 people had died. Nothing was done to clean up the zinc mill responsible, however, just as little was done in 1952, when a "killer smog" in London caused at least 2,800 deaths in one week. Noted epidemiologist Devra Davis, a Donora native, documents such environmental disasters in this eloquent plea to curb pollution, despite resistance from powerful industries. She argues convincingly that "daily exposure to low levels of pollution can ruin the health of millions." Though scientific and detailed, her writing rarely feels too technical, and often contains personal touches that give her subject urgency. (316 pp.)" By Amanda Paulson

Seattle Times
September 8, 2002
"A leading epimediologist casts her unsparing eye on the 300,000 deaths per year in the U.S. and Europe that she says are caused by pollution, and calls for basic changes in approaches to the public's health."

Academia Magazine online
September, 2002
Academia Magazine, a publication of YBP Library Services, has selected When Smoke Ran Like Water to the YBP Core 1000 list, a list we believe identifies the 1000 essential titles for academic libraries.
http://www.ybp.com/acad/Law/LawFall2002.htm
http://www.ybp.com/acad/Core1000Cover.htm

CBS News
August 16, 2001
Report: Pollution Killing Thousands
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/08/16/tech/main306786.shtml