When Smoke Ran Like Water. (newsbites).(Book Review)

On October 26, 1948, a fog suddenly blanketed a small town in Pennsylvania. Within hours, the lungs of some residents of tiny Donora had turned to bloody pulp. Eighteen people living downwind died within three days. And after the fog of sulfur and fluoride gases had lifted a week later, another 50 people had died. Hundreds more suffered permanently damaged lungs and hearts. Yet local political and business pressures kept the story quiet.

Then, four years later, smog descended on London, England--killing 7,000. Another half century passed before the whole truth about these and other industrial pollution disasters began to make public health history.

Epidemiologist Devra Davis grew up in Donora--and her explosive new book, When Smoke Ran Like Water, is a passionate expose of industry's long history of deception and denial.

From her insider's view, ...