Contributed photo Sandra Steingraber, 51, a biologist originally from the central Illinois city of Pekin has written a book titled “Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment.”It probably would come as a surprise to most Americans to learn that it is legal for industry and agriculture to use chemicals that have been linked to cancer and release them into the environment: the air, water and soil.
But such is the case in America today, according to Sandra Steingraber, 51, a biologist originally from the central Illinois city of Pekin who has written a book titled "Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment."
Steingraber, who developed bladder cancer between her sophomore and junior years of college, has spent much of her life researching - and working to break what she says is the silence about - the link between cancer and chemicals that have seeped into the environment.
Her book has been made into a 55-minute documentary that will be shown Saturday, March 19, during the Environmental Film Fest at Augustana College in Rock Island, which is sponsored by the Quad-City chapter of the Sierra Club.
It is one of five feature-length films to be shown, and one that especially excites Sierra Club member Kathryn Allen because "it is about a place close to home ... and is so well-told." It also seeks to inspire viewers to action.
The film has two threads. One is Steingraber's personal battle with cancer, something that is never entirely behind her, and the other is the scientific side in which she interviews researchers in their laboratories.
In one scene, the researcher looks at breast cancer cells in animals caused by atrazine, one of the most commonly used herbicides in the world, with very heavy use in Iowa and Illinois, including by Steingraber's cousin John, who still farms in the Pekin area near Peoria.
(Elsewhere in Illinois, the city of Greenville has proposed to lead a federal class-action lawsuit over alleged water contamination in Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and other states against Syngenta Crop Protection and Syngenta AG, its Swiss parent company, the maker of atrazine.
Greenville alleges that atrazine runs off farm fields and contaminates drinking water supplies.
Syngenta has said that years of research have shown that atrazine, which has been on the market since 1958, is safe.)
Steingraber's own cancer may have links to perchloroethylene, a chemical used in dry-cleaning that is found in Pekin's drinking water.
"I will never know for certain if mine was caused by perchloroethylene, but what we can say is that somebody somewhere is going to get cancer because of it," Steingraber said in a telephone interview from her home in upstate New York, where she is a scholar-in-residence at Ithaca College.
"If not me, somebody else. And I think that is wrong.
"The disconnect between what we in the scientific community know about carcinogens and what cancer patients are told is huge."
Why doesn't everyone get cancer?
"Living Downstream," first published in 1997, was updated in 2010 with new, stronger information about the chemical-cancer link. The update also addresses the question of why everyone who is exposed to certain chemicals does not, in fact, get cancer.
The reason, Steingraber explained, is that to get cancer, one has to have a certain genetic makeup as well as exposure.
"What we didn't know the first time is that certain chemicals silence certain genes," she said. "They attach themselves to the genes and silence them, or turn them off, so they can't do their job. If one of their jobs is to stop runaway cell growth (which is what cancer is), then you get cancer. It is like a car that's lost its brakes."
Despite the stronger link, there still are no laws banning many cancer-causing chemicals, "and there are probably lots of other ones (chemicals) that we never tested," she said.
In telling her personal story, the camera follows Steingraber to her doctor's office, where she hears troubling news of abnormal lab results - bladder cancer is the most likely cancer to recur - and undergoes an examination. Viewers can see the inside of her bladder on the screen.
At present, Steingraber's health is good, but "it is never entirely behind you," she said of the disease. "There is the dread factor that you live with. It's miserable and it's lifelong."
‘We're all musicians in a great orchestra'
Despite that, Steingraber sees the film as hopeful. "It is not a grim documentary of death and destruction," she said.
It makes the connection between the health of our bodies and of our planet and challenges everyone to do his or her own part.
"Look, we're all musicians in a great orchestra, and it's time to play ‘Save the World,' " Steingraber said. "You don't have to do it alone, but you have to know what instrument you hold."
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EXCERPTS FROM ‘LIVING DOWNSTREAM’
IF YOU GO
What: Sixth annual Environmental Film Fest, with five documentaries. In addition to "Living Downstream," the films look at plastics, the privatization of water, truck farming and green energy.
When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, March 19
Where: Olin Auditorium, Augustana College, 733 35th St., Rock Island
How much: Free. Healthy snacks and beverages will be sold.
Sponsors: Eagle View Group Sierra Club, Augustana College and Radish Magazine
For more information: About the Sierra Club, go to: http://illinois.sierraclub.org/eagleview.About the films and directions to Olin Auditorium, go to:www.augustana.edu/x12049.xml or contact Kathryn Allen at kasavelie@aol.com.
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