"Sandra Steingraber, 66, began when, as a student, she was diagnosed with bladder cancer. It was the same disease that had claimed her aunt. However, as an adopted child, she knew it wasn't genetics that had caused their shared misfortune. And so, she wondered: perhaps it was because they shared the same environment? Her search for an answer led to a seminal book, Living Downstream (1997), in which she combined her scientific knowledge with cancer registries and toxic waste inventories."
"Since then, the Illinois-born Steingraber has balanced science and activism. For the past 15 years of her career, she has focused on studying and raising awareness about the health and environmental damage caused by hydraulic fracturing, popularly known as fracking. This consists of a series of hydrocarbon extraction techniques which use a mixture of millions of liters of water with sand and chemical additives to break up rocks containing natural gas and oil."
Sandra Steingraber's activism began after a personal bladder cancer diagnosis that matched her aunt's, prompting investigation of shared environmental causes rather than genetics. She combined scientific training with cancer registries and toxic-waste inventories and documented a community cancer cluster linked to contaminated well water. For fifteen years she has studied and raised awareness about health and environmental damage from hydraulic fracturing, a technique that injects millions of liters of water, sand, and chemical additives to fracture rock and release oil and gas. She joined Mexican environmental groups seeking legislation to ban fracking as the government considers resuming the practice and warns about widespread export of the technology.
Read at english.elpais.com
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