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Karl Tupper

Karl Tupper

Like “Food, Inc.” for environmental health

On my way back from the Stockholm Convention meeting in Geneva, I stopped for a few days in Illinois to attend the Peoria and Springfield screenings of the documentary film Living Downstream. PAN was a co-sponsor of the five-city screening tour, and I had the honor of moderating the post-film Q&A sessions with filmmaker Chanda Chevannes and Sandra Steingraber, the author of the book that the documentary is based on.

I gotta say: I can't wait until the movie is widely available! For now, it's making the rounds of film festivals and events sponsored by non-profits. Check out this link to see where it's headed. And eventually it'll be available on DVD. But I really hope that gets a wider cinematic release, because it has the potential to do for the environmental health movement what Food, Inc. did for the food movement.

Like the book it's based on, Living Downstream weaves a powerful argument for abolishing our society's dependence on carcinogenic chemicals out of Sandra's personal story of cancer survival and skillful explanations of the state of cancer science. The film itself is as visually stunning as Sandra's prose are poetic. And the film has special focus on atrazine, Syngenta's corn herbicide which pervades water resources throughout the Midwest.  (Annie Spiegelman recently wrote a great post on Sandra, the film, and atrazine in the Huffington Post. Check it out here.)

If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, you've got the chance to see Sandra speak this Thursday at 7:30 at Jewish Community Center. PAN, EcoBirth, and whole slew of great groups are co-sponsoring the event. See this flyer for details, and if you attend please stop by our table and say hello! PAN Campaign Coordinator Medha Chandra and I will be there to chat about our work.

Karl Tupper

Karl Tupper

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