Poisoned Profits: The Toxic Assault on Our Children
*Starred Review* There is a country in which nearly one in three children suffers from some type of chronic disease and whose childhood cancer rates have risen some 67 percent in the last 50 years. What is this country doing wrong to cause so many of its children such suffering? The country is the U.S., and the Shabecoffs, nationally known journalists, believe they know exactly what is causing our children so much illness. Sure, they say, lifestyle choices (bad diet, secondhand smoke, etc.) can account for a certain amount of ill health. The real malefactor, however, is greedy American industry, aided and abetted by a shortsighted economic system and a government that turns a blind eye when faced with damning scientific evidence of true crime—the crime of knowingly poisoning children, beginning when they are the most vulnerable: in utero. In the spirit of popular CSI TV shows, the Shabecoffs lay out enough substantial incriminating data to indict, if not convict, a fair number of the usual suspects, from GE to Union Carbide to Monsanto to the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency to even higher. With questions asked and answered, the Shabecoffs’ compelling case decides in favor of looking out for the defenseless. --Donna Chavez