Pulitzer Prize-winning “Toms River”, an environmental precautionary tale you need to know about

Toms River, by a friend, Dan Fagin, came out a year ago, to deservedly great reviews. It’s an epic piece of science journalism and a powerful human story, intelligently woven into a compelling narrative. It offers powerful lessons about environmental risks and risk perception, our fear of industrial chemicals, our mistrust of chemical companies, and the frustrating limits of science to answer important questions about public and environmental health.

            It has just won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, and anyone who knows Dan is thrilled for him. Anyone devoted to helping the public understand environmental issues, as Dan and I do, and who wants greater awareness of the psychology of risk perception specifically, as this blog does, is delighted.

            I wrote about Toms River when it came out, less of a review per se and more about the issues it raises, which I reported on back in my days as an environmental journalist for a TV station in Boston.

            Please check out that post, Toms River, Woburn, and the sad lack of clean answers about ‘Cancer Clusters’ and certainly get and read Dan’s wonderful and important book.