Library's review
To explain the issues involved, Fagin moves back and forth across the centuries to trace the evolution both of the study of what causes disease and the discovery and development of man-made dyes extracted from coal tar and other noxious substances, all of which required copious amounts of extremely dangerous chemicals to separate the gooey sludge into its component elements that could then be processed into dyes and plastics. From the standpoint of the 21st century it is horrifying to read how cavalierly these early chemical manufacturers treated the toxic waste that their manufacturing processes produced, generally dumping it into the nearest river or pouring it out on the ground. The problem, of course, was that no one knew the health hazards of exposure to these chemicals and even fewer people cared. And as the science improved, and the toxic implications became more clear, the drive for profits invariably triumphed over hazard mitigation.
I went into this book expecting to learn more about a big bad evildoer. But what I learned is that there was no one big evil entity in Toms River; rather, there were a whole lot of smaller evils working together to protect their own interests at a tragic cost to the citizens of Toms River. Sure, the two chemical companies who dumped most of the hazardous waste were to blame, but so was the local water utility, who conspired with the polluters to cover up proven contamination of the town's water supply because they worried about being able to meet the city's demands for water if they shut down the affected wells. And the local, state, and federal regulatory agencies who were meant to ensure that industry complied with safe disposal requirements were unwilling and unable to enforce their own rules, generally choosing to impose token fines or no punishment at all even when a company was caught polluting red-handed. And the people of Toms River bear some responsibility themselves: There were signs of potential problems with pollution but city officials looked the other way. They and the workers themselves were unwilling to risk angering the area's largest private employer, where blue-collar jobs were plentiful and paid good wages.
In the end, the catalyst to force local and state regulators to take seriously the existence of a cluster of childhood cancers caused by environmental pollution was a woman whose son was born with brain cancer (I honestly had no idea such a thing was even possible, and I found it a horrifying thing to contemplate). She gradually became convinced that her son and many other children had been hurt by contaminated water, and she gathered together the parents of other cancer-stricken children to demand answers.
Unfortunately, even once the forces of epidemiology were unleashed, answers were thin on the ground. Even after years and years and millions of dollars spent on water testing, case studies, and testing of potential carcinogens in animal studies, science ultimately could not prove that contaminated water caused the cluster of childhood cancers in Toms River. It was a frustrating conclusion, but Fagin did an excellent job of showing just how limited the science is into what causes cancer, and how hard it is to detect clusters of cancer in residential areas, even now in the 2010s. Fagin is careful to present the research results without bias, which makes it clear that while there was almost certainly a correlation between exposure to the tainted water supply and childhood cancer, no test or study was ever able to create a definitive causal link.
Fagin covers a lot of ground in this book, and sometimes the science and jumping back and forth in time got a bit mind-boggling, but overall I found it clearly presented and well-written for non-expert readers like me. I learned a lot, very little of it reassuring in terms of the state of our understanding of the dangers of chemical contamination or our ability to prevent the next pollution-caused health hazard.
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History. Science. Sociology. Nonfiction. HTML:WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • Winner of The New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award • “A new classic of science reporting.”—The New York Times The riveting true story of a small town ravaged by industrial pollution, Toms River melds hard-hitting investigative reporting, a fascinating scientific detective story, and an unforgettable cast of characters into a sweeping narrative in the tradition of A Civil Action, The Emperor of All Maladies, and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. One of New Jersey’s seemingly innumerable quiet seaside towns, Toms River became the unlikely setting for a decades-long drama that culminated in 2001 with one of the largest legal settlements in the annals of toxic dumping. A town that would rather have been known for its Little League World Series champions ended up making history for an entirely different reason: a notorious cluster of childhood cancers scientifically linked to local air and water pollution. For years, large chemical companies had been using Toms River as their private dumping ground, burying tens of thousands of leaky drums in open pits and discharging billions of gallons of acid-laced wastewater into the town’s namesake river. In an astonishing feat of investigative reporting, prize-winning journalist Dan Fagin recounts the sixty-year saga of rampant pollution and inadequate oversight that made Toms River a cautionary example for fast-growing industrial towns from South Jersey to South China. He tells the stories of the pioneering scientists and physicians who first identified pollutants as a cause of cancer, and brings to life the everyday heroes in Toms River who struggled for justice: a young boy whose cherubic smile belied the fast-growing tumors that had decimated his body from birth; a nurse who fought to bring the alarming incidence of childhood cancers to the attention of authorities who didn’t want to listen; and a mother whose love for her stricken child transformed her into a tenacious advocate for change. A gripping human drama rooted in a centuries-old scientific quest, Toms River is a tale of dumpers at midnight and deceptions in broad daylight, of corporate avarice and government neglect, and of a few brave individuals who refused to keep silent until the truth was exposed. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND KIRKUS REVIEWS “A thrilling journey full of twists and turns, Toms River is essential reading for our times. Dan Fagin handles topics of great complexity with the dexterity of a scholar, the honesty of a journalist, and the dramatic skill of a novelist.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, M.D., author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Emperor of All Maladies “A complex tale of powerful industry, local politics, water rights, epidemiology, public health and cancer in a gripping, page-turning environmental thriller.”—NPR “Unstoppable reading.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer “Meticulously researched and compellingly recounted . . . It’s every bit as important—and as well-written—as A Civil Action and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.”—The Star-Ledger “Fascinating . . . a gripping environmental thriller.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “An honest, thoroughly researched, intelligently written...… (more)