The Poisoning of an American High School
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
If it can happen in Beverly Hills, it can happen anywhere.
The Poisoning of an American High School is a feat of investigative reportage and the product of four years of research by award-winning journalist Joy Horowitz.
Making lucid the tangled issues of public health, regulation, and the political power of industry, it tells a riveting tale ripped from newspaper headlines--a cancer cluster affecting graduates of one of America's most affluent schools, Beverly Hills High. The Poisoning of an American High School presents the behind-the-scenes saga of the 2003 landmark toxic tort suit, in which more than one thousand plaintiffs, with the sensational Erin Brockovich as their champion, claimed their illnesses could be traced to exposure to the oil derricks just yards from school grounds.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Commingling fame and wealth, Beverly Hills embodies the modern version of the American dream, but journalist Horowitz (Tessie and Pearlie) argues that it's also a modern American nightmare. Her tale of corporate neglect, petty politics, endless legal wrangling and our love-hate relationship with petroleum centers on Beverly Hills High School and its illustrious alumni, oil derricks and alarming number of cancer victims. Initially skeptical of the idea that the profitable oil pumps adjacent to the school have led to an array of horrible diseases among its graduates, especially with celebrity advocate Erin Brockovich poking around the case, Horowitz quickly found herself pulled into a story that raises fundamental questions about how we assess risk and balance our desire for justice with scientific and legal ambiguities about establishing causes and assigning blame. Horowitz is better at raising such questions than answering them, largely because in her case the truth does not come out, the public and even people involved in the litigation begin to lose interest, and no lawsuits have come to trial, let alone been resolved. That doesn't make for very satisfying reading, but it's faithful to a time in which, as Horowitz says, even our will to do right by our communities has been contaminated by competing desires.
