Davis, Devra Lee 1946–

PERSONAL:

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.

ADDRESSES:

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—davisdl@upmc.edu.

CAREER:

Epidemiologist, public health official, educator, and writer. Queens College of the City University of New York, Queens, assistant professor of sociology, 1970-76, director of Interdisciplinary Studies, 1971-73, codirector, National Science Foundation Project on In-Service Training Institute, 1973-75; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, faculty associate, Department of Health Policy and Management, School of Hygiene and Public Health, 1982—; University of Madrid, Spain, visiting professor of environmental medicine, 1983; Municipal Institute, Barcelona, Spain, visiting professor, 1985; Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, NY, visiting professor, Department of Community Medicine, Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, beginning 1988; Hebrew University, School of Public Health, visiting scholar, Unit of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 1989; Strang-Cornell Cancer Prevention Center, New York, NY, senior scientist, beginning 1994; Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University, New York, NY, Gotteman Distinguished Professor, 1996-97; Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, visiting professor, Heinz School of Public Policy and Management, 2000—; Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH, visiting professor, Department of Environmental Studies, 2001; School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, England, honorary professor, 2002—; University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, Graduate School of Public Health, visiting professor in the Department of Epidemiology, 2004—; University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, director of the Center for Environmental Oncology, 2004—. Also U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, senior health policy advisor, 1977-79; Environmental Law Institute, director, Toxic Substances Program, 1979-82, science policy director, 1982-83; National Toxicology Program Board of Scientific Counselors, 1982-85; National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council, director, Board on Environmental Health Hazards, 1983-85, director, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, 1985-89, scholar in residence, 1989-93; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control, Washing- ton, DC, Lead Poisoning Prevention Advisory Committee, 1983-84; U.S. Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control/U.S. Environmental Protection Agency/New York State Department of Health, member, Advisory Group on the Habitability Criteria for Love Canal, 1984-86; National Institute of Building Sciences, Lead-Based Paint Advisory Group, 1987-89; Bundesgesundheitsamtes, Berlin, Germany, program consultant in Toxicology and Epidemiology, 1988-89; National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, expert advisor to director, 1991-93; Canadian Health and Welfare Ministry, Ottawa, Canada, expert advisor, 1991-93; World Bank on Environment and Health, consultant on report Investing in Health, 1992-93; White House Working Group on the Future of the Presidio, Subcommittee on Environmental Health, chair, 1993-94; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, senior advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Health, 1993-95; Department of Defense Integration Panel for Breast Cancer Research Program, steering committee member, 1993-95; National Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, presidential appointee, 1994-99; Central Brain Tumor Registry of the United States, member, advisory board, 1994—; Mickey Leland Air Toxics Research Center, member, board of directors, 1995—; Massachusetts Department of Health, advisor, Bureau of Environmental Health Assessment, 1995—; Working Group on Chemicals, Hormones and Breast Cancer, chair, Secretary's National Action Plan on Breast Cancer, 1995—; World Resources Institute, Washington, DC, director, senior scientist, Health, Environment and Development Program, 1995-2001; Wellness Discoveries, scientific advisory board, 2000—; World Health Organization, senior advisor, 2001—; Canfei Nesharim, member, scientific advisory board, 2005—; Children's Health and Environmental Coalition, scientific advisor, 2005—; Collaborative on Health and the Environment, senior advisor, 2005—; Healthy House Institute (HHI), member, advisory board, 2007—; Newsweek magazine, global environmental advisor, 2007—; and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, member, Environmental Steering Committee, 2007—. Distinguished lecturer at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; University of California—Davis; Michigan Medical Society; Smithsonian Institution; University of Texas; Macalester College; St. Mary's College; and Chatham College.

MEMBER:

International Society for Environmental Epidemiology, International Society for Pharmaco-Epidemiology, Society of Toxicology, Society of Neuro-Oncology, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American College of Epidemiology (fellow; member of Certification Committee, 1985), American College of Toxicology, American Public Health Association, Climate Institute (member, board of directors, 1997—), Society of Occupational and Environmental Health (governing council member, 1981-89), Society of Occupational and Environmental Health (vice president, 1987), Collegium Ramazzini (fellow, 1988), Breast Cancer Prevention Collaborative Research Group (founding member, 1991), Kirstie Alley Foundation (member, board of directors, 1992), Coalition of Organizations on the Environment and Jewish Life (member, board of directors, 1999—), Health Advisory Committee and Committee on the Future of the American Jewish Woman, Hadassah, 1996—, Na'amat (life member), Women's Environment and Development Organization, (scientific advisor, 1995—), Breast Cancer Fund (member, board of directors, 1996-99), New York Academy of Sciences.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Bristol Meyers Squibb Keynote Lecture, Danish Society for Cancer Research, Copenhagen, 1990; Woman of Distinction Award, Conservative Women's League, 1992; Dr. A. Clement and Hilda Freeman Silverman Memorial Lecturer, State University of New York, 1992; Noreen Holland Foundation Award for Excellence in Breast Cancer Research, 1994; Betty Ford Cancer Center/American Cancer Society Award for Outstanding Contribution to Breast Cancer, 1994; Mayor's Breast Cancer Hero Award, San Francisco, 1996; Global Guru, GLOBE, Organization of European Parliament, and Official Environmental Parliamentarians, 1998; Dean's Symposium on the Environment, Harvard School of Public Health, 2000; nominee for National Book Award for nonfiction for When Smoke Ran Like Water, 2002. Also recipient of numerous grants at World Resources Institute, where she founded the program on Health, Environment, and Development in 1995; recipient of undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral grants and fellowships.

WRITINGS:

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.

The Secret History of the War on Cancer, Basic Books (New York, NY), 2007.

Lead author on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Technology Assessment Group 3. Contributor to books, including Systems Thinking and the Quality of Life, edited by C.K. Blong, Society for General Systems Research, 1975; Queens, New York City, Community and Privacy, edited by Aristide H. Esser, Plenum Press; 1978; Methods for Assessing Exposure of Human and Non-human Biota, edited by R.G Tardiff and B. Goldstein, Scope, John Wiley & Sons, 1991; Handbook of Hazardous Wastes, edited by Morton Corn, Academic Press, 1993; Occupational Cancer in Textbook of Clinical Occupational and Environmental Medicine, edited by L. Rosenstock and M Cullen, W.B. Saunders Co., 1994; Textbook of Clinical Occupational and Environmental Medicine, edited by L. Rosenstock and M. Cullen, W.B. Saunders Co., 1994; China's Health and the Environment: World Resources Report, Oxford University Press, 1998; Breast Cancer and the Environment: World Resources Report, Oxford University Press, 1998; and Geology and Health: Closing the Gap; New York, edited by C.W. Skinner and A.R. Berger, Oxford University Press, 2003. Contributor to professional journals, including Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association, Toxic Substances Journal, and Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, and to periodicals, including Scientific American, New York Times, and Los Angeles Times. Reviewer for periodicals, including American Journal of Industrial Medicine, Environmental Research, American Journal of Public Health, Journal of the American Medical Association, Lancet, British Medical Journal, and Environmental Research, 1989—. Member of editorial board, Theory & Society, 1974-76, Toxicology and Industrial Health, 1986—, Risk Analysis, 1987-91, and Cancer Prevention International, 1994—.

SIDELIGHTS:

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 prolific researcher, writer, lecturer, and advisor to presidents as well as to many environmental and cancer research groups, Davis has earned a reputation as a strong and outspoken advocate of research into the effects of environmental pollution on cancer, heart disease, asthma, reproductive failure, and other ailments increasingly plaguing citizens of industrial nations. Her book When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle against Pollution, nominated for the 2002 National Book Award for nonfiction, has been compared to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) as a definitive work on the environment.

When Smoke Ran Like Water begins with the telling of the Donora story and continues with the story of the Great Killer Smog of December 1952, in which an inversion settled over London, trapping smoke from residential coal-burning stoves and resulting in some 12,000 deaths. Davis writes, "Smoke ran like tap water from a million chimneys." From these catastrophic events Davis moves on to her research, which indicates the long-term serious health effects of smaller amounts of air pollution, chemical contaminants, pesticides, and other products of our environment. She delves into such topics as breast cancer and pesticides, falling sperm counts in men, birth defects, and global warming. And she explains why the poor, especially poor children in cities, bear the brunt of environmental pollution, along with their burden of poverty and poor nutrition.

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."

However, Davis is not without critics. As Karen Wright revealed in her 1991 article for the New York Times Magazine, Davis's scrutiny of cancer research has alienated her from some top cancer statistics experts. Davis also hits hard on the question of cancer and profits. "When you treat cancer, profits are made through drugs or surgery," she is quoted by Wright. "But when cancer is prevented, nobody makes any money."

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 Publishers Weekly contributor called When Smoke Ran Like Water "an enlightening, engrossing read" that "sounds the warning bell loud and clear." A contributor to Science News found it "a far-reaching survey of risks" of living with industrial pollutants and how to manage them.

Bert Brunekreef, in the British Medical Journal, wrote that he found "an alarming number of errors" in the sections on air pollution, but he added that Davis is at her best when "describing how commercial interests have harassed well known environmental health scientists" to downplay their studies on pollution. A contributor to Better Nutrition praised the book as "a passionate exposé of industry's long history of deception and denial." Miranda Van Gelder, of OnEarth, described the book as a chronicle of "pollution's hazy history" and called Davis "an epidemiological Agatha Christie of sorts—although … the authorities don't always nab the culprit, even when the evidence is right under their noses."

Fred Guterl of Newsweek International remarked, "Davis's family history gives her moral capital that scientists seldom dare to draw on." Gilbert Taylor of Booklist called the book "a balanced treatment of the personal, scientific, and political elements of environmental research." And writing in Library Journal, Irwin Weintraub dubbed the book "an exposé on how industrial polluters deceived the public" and weakened regulations by influencing government agencies.

In her 2007 book, The Secret History of the War on Cancer, Davis presents her case that the "war against cancer" has been misdirected for decades, ever since it was first proposed by President Richard Nixon as a new goal for the nation following the moon landing in 1969. According to the author, efforts have focused on battling cancer while mostly ignoring the variety of environmental factors that actually cause cancer, from tobacco and alcohol to workplace toxins and numerous environmental hazards. Writing in Discover, Pamela Weintraub called The Secret History of the War on Cancer "a wake-up call for all those who have accepted the poisons of our age of plenty without a blink."

Although the author is primarily concerned with the last few decades of cancer research and the environmental factors that can cause cancer, she notes in her book that environmental causes of cancer are not new, pointing to scrotal cancers in chimney sweeps in England and cancers caused by the radiation emitted by X-rays. She also notes that the Germans, who pioneered the field of epidemiology, or the study of populations, linked cigarette smoking with cancer by World War II and Nazi scientists warned the German populace that they should not smoke. In the modern war against cancer, the author laments that the war has been run primarily by people involved with many of the industries that create numerous products that have been linked to or proven to cause cancer, leading them to often suppress or overlook findings. She further notes that actually curing cancer is not profitable, while treating it with drugs remains a phenomenally lucrative business. Davis also maintains in her book that more than ten million people have died unnecessarily over the past thirty years due to a war that many were not fighting to win. According to Davis, prevention, not treatment, is the key to winning the fight.

Calling the book "startling, original, [and] enormously disturbing," Spectator contributor Jervoise Andreyev noted that the author "shows from a range of industrial and environmental toxins—asbestos, benzene, coal tar, DDT, dioxins, ethylene oxide, heavy metals, vinyl chloride and x-rays, to name but a few—how industry, politicians, scientists, the judiciary and doctors (yes, doctors) colluded to mask the significance of many industrial processes for health." Kathy Arsenault, writing in the Library Journal, noted that "Davis presents a powerful call to action."

Davies told CA: "As a young child, I loved listening to stories from the nuns at St. Charles Convent and tales from the Torah from Rabbbi Crohn of Donora's small synagogue. Connecting the stories of my life with those from many different traditions struck me as a splendid thing to attempt. From an early age, I was thrilled with language and its power to transport and transform.

"The injunction of the Jewish faith—when there is no one there, you be the one—provides a strong sense that we are morally obligated to make the world a better place—tikkun olam."

When asked to describe her writing process, Davis responded: "A conversation starts sometimes with my husband sometimes with myself and ends up moving from the brain to the fingers, as I have always typed rather fast."

Davis commented that she hopes her writing will "make people think about the things they take for granted and change their lives in ways that make themselves and their communities healthier, safer and happy."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Davis, Devra Lee, When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle against Pollution, Basic Books (New York, NY), 2002.

PERIODICALS

Better Nutrition, March, 2003, review of When Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle against Pollution, p. 32.

Booklist, November 15, 2002, Gilbert Taylor, review of When Smoke Ran Like Water, p. 556; September 15, 2007, Donna Chavez, review of The Secret History of the War on Cancer, p. 8.

British Medical Journal, February 22, 2003, Bert Brunekreef, review of When Smoke Ran Like Water, p. 452.

Choice, May, 2003, L.S. Vaccari, review of When Smoke Ran Like Water, p. 1581.

Discover, November 1, 2007, Pamela Weintraub, "What's Really Causing Cancer? A New Book Charges That the War on Cancer Has Been Sabotaged for Private Gain," review of The Secret History of the War on Cancer, p. 76.

Health (San Francisco, CA), October, 1995, Amanda Spake, "Is the Modern World Giving Us Cancer? Maverick Scientist Devra Lee Davis Is Afraid She Knows the Answer," pp. 53-56.

Journal of Clinical Investigation, June, 2008, Raymond N. DuBois, review of The Secret History of the War on Cancer, p. 1978.

Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2007, review of The Secret History of the War on Cancer.

Library Journal, November 1, 2002, Irwin Weintraub, review of When Smoke Ran Like Water, p. 124; September 15, 2007, Kathy Arsenault, review of The Secret History of the War on Cancer, p. 79.

Newsweek International, December 9, 2002, Fred Guterl, "The Truth about Smog," p. 58.

New York Times Magazine, December 15, 1991, Karen Wright, "Going by the Numbers: Armed with Facts, Figures and a Sharp Tongue, Devra Lee Davis Is Riling the Cancer Establishment with Her Argument That It Is Waging Its War on the Wrong Front," pp. 58-60, 77, 79.

OnEarth, winter, 2003, Miranda Van Gelder, review of When Smoke Ran Like Water, p. 39.

Publishers Weekly, October 14, 2002, review of When Smoke Ran Like Water, p. 77.

Science News, February 8, 2003, review of When Smoke Ran Like Water, p. 95.

Scientific American, April, 2003, review of When Smoke Ran Like Water, p. 98.

Spectator, February 2, 2008, Jervoise Andreyev, "A Very Vicious Circle," review of The Secret History of the War on Cancer, p. 35.

Times Higher Education Supplement, January 2, 2004, Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, review of When Smoke Ran Like Water, p. 28.

ONLINE

Breast Cancer Action Montreal, http://www.bcam.qc.ca/ (March 31, 2003), Janine O'Leary Cobb, review of When Smoke Ran Like Water.

Currents, http://www.sierraclub.org/currents/ (December 8, 2002), review of When Smoke Ran Like Water and "An Interview with Devra Davis."

Devra Lee Davis Charitable Foundation Web site, http://www.devraleedavischaritablefoundation.org; http://www.devradavis.com (July 24, 2008), includes profile of author and author's CV.

H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University, http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/ (March 31, 2003), "Devra Lee Davis."

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Online, http://www.post-gazette.com/ (March 16, 2003), Kirk W. Junker, "Donora's Killer Pollution among Many Unheeded Warnings."

University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute Web site, http://www.upci.upmc.edu/ (July 24, 2008), brief profile of author.

When Smoke Ran Like Water Web site, http://www.whensmokeranlikewater.com (March 31, 2003), includes author's CV.

OTHER

New York Times Biographical Service, Volume 22, numbers 1-12, University Microfilms International (Ann Arbor, MI), 1991.