Reviews
Review: Newsweek.com - February 19, 2009
“Sometimes it takes an SOB to get anything accomplished, especially against steep odds, and the battle to protect children from lead was especially uphill… A new book by journalist Lydia Denworth called Toxic Truth, reaching bookstores next week, manages to do something else that has steep odds against it: make the process of scientific research riveting. She chronicles the fight to prove that lead in the environment was poisoning children’s developing brains, and then the fight to reduce lead exposure. While the latter struggle still goes on, the former was won in the 1970s thanks to [Clair] Patterson and [Herbert] Needleman. It’s sort of a dual biography, tracing the two men’s scientific careers and discoveries, and recounting the political skirmishes and controversies that embroiled them.”