David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz discuss how the chemical industry and its powerful lobbies prevail in blocking efforts to reform outdated laws, leaving the public afloat in a soup of toxins.

Diagnosed with bladder cancer in her twenties while her mother was living with metastasized breast cancer, author and biologist Sandra Steingraber is the subject of tonight’s film, Living Downstream, directed by our guest Chanda Chevannes. Sandra cannot help but notice a cancer cluster in both her family and in her hometown, including an aunt who died of the same type of cancer she had. But here’s the rub: Sandra is adopted, so the genetic cause is ruled out, leaving her to conclude that environmental pollution is at the root.