Dan Fagin (1) (1962–)

Tom's River is a masterpiece. I can't imagine a better book on the topic of environmentally caused residential cancer clusters and the science of epidemiology. That is a mouthful, but if you ever wondered if something in the water supply can cause cancer, Tom's River is a case history horror story. And it goes beyond Tom's River, as the NYT review notes, Fagin "chose to weave entire tapestries of gorgeous subplot, among them a short history of the European dye industry, a longer exploration show more of industrial waste management, a detailed review of the molecular basis of cancer, and a careful history of occupational health." All of it fascinating and made accessible through 100s of characters and novelistic techniques. Curiously the day I finished the book there was news about another town in New Jersey (Paulsboro) that discovered industrial chemicals in its water supply, it's the same Tom's River story - outraged residents, officials who knew for a long time but kept quiet, a company that acknowledges it but denies wrong doing. Like plastics, Tom's River is the future.

Video: A Town Fights Back: The Toms River Story (17m) show less

When I was younger, we visited friends of my parents who lived in Toms River. After the visit, we went either to my grandmother’s sister in Absecon or to my grandfather’s brother in Jersey City or to his summer home in Sea Girt. At about the time my Uncle Dave retired and my aunt’s husband died, necessitating her move to a retirement community, we no longer went to Toms River. However the time of the visits coincided with the beginning of Dan Fagin’s story in Toms River : a story of show more science and salvation. Although I have never gone back to Toms River, it still holds a special place in my childhood.

The book tells the story of one town, an industrial complex, politics and pollution of water and air. When Ciba began its plant in the early 1950’s and began their dye business, there was available land and a nearby river emptying into the ocean into which wastes could be placed without the state being concerned. The town drew its drinking water from municipal wells although some did have their own well supply of water. The population grew and so did the plant, even transferring workers from other locations. Within its boundaries, they had lots of land. What they didn’t dump into the river, they buried in their land. At the same time, a local farm allowed another chemical company’s waste to be buried on the site. Fast forward and factory workers were getting ill. But even more alarming, the incidence of childhood cancers was well above the averages for the rest of the state.

Fagin weaves together the narrative of the town and factory, the politicians and sick children, the investigators and the regulators with a history of chemistry and of cancer research, especially epidemiology. It’s not a pretty story but it needed to be told, if only to warn the world that this cancer clustering is happening again, especially in places like China and other developing countries with lax regulations for hazardous chemicals.

The book is meticulously footnoted although there is no separate bibliography. (There is also supplemental material in the endnote section which is more technical in nature than the main text and can be disregarded for the casual reader.) There is a map of Toms River, needed to see the proximity of the plant and the Reich farm to the water supply of the town. I most missed the index which will be available in the final copy of the book. I found that I wanted to check back on some facts and had to flip though the book to find the sections I wanted to re-read. Finally there is a list of all the people who were interviewed for the book, an impressive list. With a degree in chemistry, I have read many popular books on the topic and this is one of the better ones.

Fagin, a professor of journalism, has done his research on this book and backs up all statements with documentation. This book could have been a dry, scholarly volume, read only by persons in interested in cancer research and in the history of industrial chemistry. Instead it is a gripping story, well written and more fantastic than any novel, and it should be widely read. show less

Corporations will cut corners and will try to get away with as much polluting as they can in order to maximize profit. Families will stop at nothing to get answers regarding the illnesses their children have suffered.

The intersection of these tendencies is well exemplified by Dan Fagin in Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation.

In its pages, the author masterfully traces the history of Toms River, New Jersey, its Ciba plant, the history of tracing the effects of chemicals upon human show more health, dumping of Union Carbide waste products, and the elaborate investigations of a spate of childhood cancers in Toms River in the 1990s and early 2000s.

It’s a compelling story, and another indicator of the dangers of how we have decided, as a culture and society, to treat “advancements” in technology and science: as opposed to making sure chemicals are safe enough to allow in our environment or our bodies before giving them the green light, corporations will do whatever they want until there is some kind of effect on people and/or the environment. The corporations will then almost invariably work hard to deny or suppress the problem until it can no longer be contained, and then far more corporate and taxpayer monies are spent to try to clean up the problem than was ever generated by the profits made from the products themselves.

What have we learned? Absolutely nothing, apparently. Only God knows how much long-term environmental and economic damage is being done in the name of short-term profit. And the science regarding the effects is always well behind the science of those wishing to make money on new chemical products. show less

“The very big idea that would transform Toms River and reshape the global economy was born in 1856 in the attic laboratory of a precocious eighteen-year-old chemistry student named William Henry Perkin...” who was occupying a school break with experiments suggested by his mentor, August Wilhelm von Hoffman. The focus of his attention was coal tar, a waste product of coal converted into coal gas and coke. The hope was to synthesize quinine, an amine. The result was a bright purple residue show more that stuck to the test tube and transferred to a cotton wipe. This was not to be idly dismissed as a failure. In a world of expensive dyes made from snails or insects or lichens, aniline dyes made from industrial waste were phenomenal. Within six months, he had dropped out of school to build a factory near London.

In Basel Switzerland, on the Rhine river, three dye manufacturers (Ciba, Geigy, Sandoz) took advantage of lax patent laws and extended the idea to other coal tar constituents and a rainbow of colors. In 1920, these three formed a partnership and entered the US market by purchasing a factory in Cincinnati OH, on the Ohio River. As in Switzerland, waste was discharged into the river, and as in Switzerland, there were rumors about cancer and complaints about pollution and gestures of governmental concern. ”The Swiss could see what was coming, and they reacted in time-honored fashion: They made plans to skip town.” In 1952, they skipped to a rural area without a formal name, which became known as Toms River NJ. Cincinnati Chemical Works became Toms River Chemical Company.

The factory was built on sand and gravel. The company initially expected that separation of wells for water and lagoons for waste would be sufficient, but the ground was absorbent and the waste corroded the liners, in part because the company crushed waste drums for efficient use of space. By the mid 1950s, employees were complaining about the smell of drinking fountain water in company buildings. The company shifted waste containers to the river, where wells two miles downstream supplied water to the town. By the mid 1960s, employees who were also customers of Toms River Water Company recognized the smell of tap water at home. Neither company wanted to invite investigation, so the chemical company began piping waste to the ocean, and the water company closed the worst of the wells and added chlorine to the others. In 1972, the Clean Water Act established standards and a permit process, requiring waste treatment at an off-site facility, but the chemical company saved substantial money by not complying. This came to light in 1984, when a road buckled, and the ground underneath was found to be saturated with black liquid, traced to a wastepipe leak. A reporter published the list of chemicals from the permit application, and residents petitioned the EPA to refuse renewal.

Meanwhile, cancer. Here the book has bits of overlap with The Emperor of All Maladies in a history of cancer research and The Ghost Map in a history of epidemiology and mapping, and a thorough explanation of why a “cancer cluster” is so difficult to determine: everything clusters by chance, cancer is more ubiquitous than most people realize, cancer is not a single disease. Left to mere statistical analysis, things would have gone nowhere. Instead, a number of intensely persistent people got involved. Linda Gillick’s son was diagnosed with neuroblastoma; when he was 10 and had survived beyond expectations, she founded Oceans of Love and became “the hub of information about childhood cancer in Ocean County”. Lisa Boornazian was a nurse on a cancer ward in Philadelphia; she noticed a disproportionate number of cases from Toms River and mentioned this to her sister-in-law, an EPA hazardous waste specialist, who contacted an acquaintance at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, who requested a formal investigation by the New Jersey Department of Health, which sent a letter to local physicians, among them a friend of Linda Gillick. Loop closed, she contacted Jan Schlichtmann of A Civil Action. Behind the scenes, a chemist ran tests and read studies to determine exactly what the problem was with the water.

This book was a page turner from the start, weaving history and science and law and drama in impressive and fascinating detail. Sooo much more to it than I have briefly outlined. I bogged down somewhat in the court case at the end, but this is because the law aspect is not so much my thing, and the science by then was mostly done. Highly recommended.

(read 15 Mar 2013) show less