In When Smoke Ran Like Water , the world-renowned epidemiologist Devra Davis confronts the public triumphs and private failures of her lifelong battle against environmental pollution. She documents the shocking toll of a public-health disaster-300,000 deaths a year in the U.S. and Europe from the effects of pollution-and asks why we remain silent. For Davis, the issue is Pollution is what killed many in her family and forced some of the others, survivors of the 1948 smog emergency in Donora, Pennsylvania, to live out their lives with impaired health. She describes that episode and also makes startling revelations about how the deaths from the London smog of 1952 were falsely attributed to influenza; how the oil companies and auto manufacturers fought for decades to keep lead in gasoline, while knowing it caused brain damage; and many other battles. When Smoke Ran Like Water makes a devastating case for change.
Devra Davis is an American epidemiologist and writer. Her book When Smoke Ran Like Water, which begins with the tale of the Donora Smog of 1948, was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2002. Davis's second book, The Secret History of the War on Cancer, was published by Basic Books in October 2007.
She is currently the director of the Center for Environmental Oncology of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute; the multidisciplinary center includes experts in medicine, basic research, engineering and public policy, who will develop cutting-edge studies to identify the causes of cancer and propose policies to reduce the risks of the disease. Davis is also a Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and Visiting Professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz School. A former Scholar in Residence at the National Academy of Sciences, she completed her Ph.D. in science studies at the University of Chicago as a Danforth Fellow, and an M.P.H. at Johns Hopkins University as a National Cancer Institute post-doctoral fellow. Davis received a B.S. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1967.
She was born June 7, 1946, in Washington, DC, the daughter of Harry B. and Jean Langer Davis, and was raised in Donora, Pennsylvania and in Pittsburgh, where she graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School.
From 1970-76 she was assistant professor of sociology at Queens College of the City University of New York. Beginning in 1982 she was a faculty associate at Johns Hopkins University, Department of Health Policy and Management, School of Hygiene and Public Health. She served as a visiting professor at University of Missouri in 1983; Municipal Institute, Barcelona, Spain, in 1985; Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, NY, Department of Community Medicine, Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, in 1988; and Hebrew University, School of Public Health, Unit of Occupational and Environmental Medicine in 1989.
A member of both the American Colleges of Toxicology and of Epidemiology, Dr. Davis is also a Visiting Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York City. In addition, she is a Visiting Scientist of the Strang Cornell Cancer Prevention Center of the Rockefeller University and Scientific Advisor to the Women's Environment and Development Organization. Davis founded the International Breast Cancer Prevention Collaborative Research Group, an organization dedicated to exploring the causes of breast cancer. She currently serves on the Board of the Climate Institute, and the Coalition of Organizations on the Environment and Jewish Life, and the Earthfire Institute.
Davis married Richard D. Morgenstern on October 19, 1975; their children are Aaron and Lea.