Devra Davis

Born June 7, 1946, in Washington, DC; daughter of Harry B. and Jean Langer Davis; married Richard D. Morgenstern, October 19, 1975; children: Aaron, Lea. Education: University of Pittsburgh , B.S. (with honors), 1967, M.A. (with honors), 1967; University of Chicago , Ph.D., 1972; Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, M.P.H., 1982. Religion: Jewish. Hobbies and other interests: Hiking, skiing, playing cello, reading the Torah. Home— Washington, DC. Office— University of Pittsburgh , Center for Environmental Oncology, 5150 Centre Ave., Ste. 435, Pittsburgh, PA 15232; fax: 412-623-1382. E-mail— [email protected]. Conceptualization of Religion and Science in Some Writings of Immanuel Kant and Auguste Comte (Ph.D. thesis), University of Chicago (Chicago, IL), 1972. (Editor, with L.S. Ritts and V. Wolf) Toxic Substances and Hazardous Wastes , American Law Institute, American Bar Association (Washington, DC), 1980. (Editor, with J. Trauberman and others) Six Case Studies of Compensation for Toxic Substances Pollution: Alabama, California, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey , and Texas , U.S. Government Printing Office (Washington, DC), 1980. (Editor, with Lorenz K.Y. Ng) Strategies for Public Health: Promoting Health and Preventing Disease , Van Nostrand Reinhold (New York, NY), 1981. (Editor, with David Hoel) Trends in Cancer Mortality in Industrial Countries , New York Academy of Sciences, (New York, NY), 1990. (Editor) Environmental Epidemiology , Volume I: Public Health and Hazardous Wastes , National Academy Press (Washington, DC), 1991. When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle against Pollution , Basic Books (New York, NY), 2002. Renowned epidemiologist Devra Lee Davis grew up in a town famous for a deadly smog that killed twenty people within the first twenty-four hours and another fifty within the month. The smog occurred in October 1948, when Davis was two years old, as an atmospheric inversion settled over Donora, Pennsylvania, trapping sulfur and fluoride fumes from nearby steel and zinc plants. In addition to those killed, it sickened some 6,000 others, leaving many residents who moved away—including her Uncle Len—to die later from its effects. A contributor to Currents , an online journal of the Sierra Club , wrote: "As much as anything, it is a book about how science works—and often fails—in the service of public health and the environment." In an interview for Currents , Davis noted that part of the failure to get the message out results from high-level public relations campaigns funded by major industries to keep them thriving in spite of public health concerns. Davis discusses the cost-benefit analysis of such cover-ups in her book, asking whether lost lives are worth the extra production of chemicals, metals, or crops. Davis says she is deliberately popularizing her findings in hopes of reaching ordinary citizens. Kirk W. Junker, in a review for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Online , pointed out: "Davis concludes that we need to make decisions in the presence of uncertainty, and … we should not put the burden of proof or persuasion upon those alleging harm, but upon those disavowing harm." He praised her book, saying, "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." In the mid-1990s Davis studied the high incidence of breast cancer among women on Long Island , New York, where the pesticide DDT was sprayed on potato fields. Her theory is that xenoestrogens (a word she coined meaning "foreign estrogen") produced by manmade chemicals disrupt natural hormone function, causing breast, testicular, and prostate cancers as well as reproductive disorders. Amanda Spake, in a 1995 article about Davis for Health , commented that if Davis is right it would require "sweeping changes in agriculture and industry—that is, if we knew where to start." A