- Hardcover: 360 pages
- Publisher: The University of Michigan Press (Dec 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0472111078
- ISBN-13: 978-0472111077
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.7 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,910,391 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Synopsis
Dr Alice Stewart is a British epidemiologist who has revolutionised the concept of radiation risk. This book tells the story of the woman who has proved a thorn in the side of the nuclear industry.'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An inspiring book about an inspiring woman, Alice Stewart,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation (Hardcover)
This book is about a wonderful woman who even in her nineties continues to be an inspiration to many, even though there are many who are unaware of her existence. She is the woman who first identified the risks of carrying out X-rays on pregnant women because of the impact on the developing foetus. In the 1950's it was quite common to Xray to check the position of the unborn baby, and it was her unusual research methods which identified that this was the cause of cancer and leukaemia in young children. I wonder if her speculation about ultra sound examinations being similarly dangerous will come to fruition one day too? I share her concerns.Her unusual research methods? She asked the mothers! And in doing so she has amassed an enormous amount of data, much of which has already proven very useful, and may yet prove to be even more so. Anyone with an interest in health, nuclear issues, the effects of radiation, feminism and reading about an amazing woman should read this book!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
An important biography but with a few disturbing inaccuracies.,
By
This review is from: The Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation (Paperback)
Pioneering epidemiologist Alice Stewart MD FRCP merits a first rate biography. She was an admirable woman, deeply passionate about her research and its relevance, but there are occasional errors in this account of her life that let it down. For example, it is claimed (see pages 59-60) that soon after the 1939-45 War she took charge of establishing a Pneumoconiosis Research Unit for the British Medical Research Council (MRC) in South Wales and there undertook major studies of this prevalent disease of Welsh coal miners. But official records show that she arrived at the MRC Pneumoconiosis Research Unit nine months after it opened, as a temporary assistant to its founding director, Dr Charles Fletcher, and that she remained on his staff for only about a year(1946-47). She did assist Fletcher with an early survey by the Unit, but was never in charge of one.
It is this kind of inaccuracy that undermines the strengths of the work. Alice Stewart was a highly controversial epidemiologist and her story merits the tightest telling.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews) 18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Courage and Integrity in Science: A Precious Rarety,
By Rudi H. Nussbaum "fellow survivor" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation (Hardcover)
Courage and Integrity in Science: A Precious RaretyThe Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation by Gayle Greene. Dr. Stewart is a British physician and epidemiologist (born in 1906 into a large family of physicians) who revolutionized the concept of radiation risk. In the 1950s, while surveying childhood mortalities in the British Isles, she finds that then quite common X-ray examinations during pregnancy doubled the risk for childhood cancer. Fueled by the wrath of radiologists, her work has been viciously derided among the medical establishment for more than two decades. In the 1970s, she finds that some workers at nuclear weapons production sites, such as Hanford, WA or Oakridge, TN are dying of radiation induced cancers, showing that presumed "safe" levels of occupational exposures put these workers at a twenty times higher risk than officially admitted. With that finding she places herself on the "enemy list" of an immensely powerful nuclear weapons establishment, including its scientific elite, and at the center of an international controversy over radiation risks. Stewart's fascinating story, a collaborative memoir told by herself and Greene with verve and humor, is one of a woman scientist's ingenuity, independence, perseverance, compassion, and integrity, a fascinating tale in the checkered history of a mostly male-dominated science. Rudi H. Nussbaum, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Physics and Environmental Science. 13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Have your children, your daughters must, read this book.,
By H. W. Cummins - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation (Hardcover)
As Research Director of the Hanford Veterans Cancer Mortality Study I have worked closely with Dr. Alice Stewart. I have learned from her, laughed with her and admired her as the most extraordinary human being I have ever known. But, I never knew her well enough. You must read this book! It will give you a new understanding of the meaning of courage and integrity. More importantly - have your children, especially your daughters, read this book. Thank goodness Gayle Greene has written this eminently readable biography of Alice. It allows us to understand where her drive comes from and how Dr. Stewart can suffer the slings and arrows of the federal scientific pygmies who attack her work. The heart of the story, and a key to Dr. Stewart's personality, can be found in the juxtaposition of the the ending words of Chapter 13 where Professor Greene says "Alice is called in by...radiation victims, her investigations turn up cancer in excess ... the studies are handed over to official bodies...the official studies invoke the A-bomb data to discredit her finds....Time passes." `It's a long, slow business,' she (Dr. Stewart) says." Compare this with one of Dr. Stewart's favorite quotations, "truth is the daughter of time." She has waited, we will wait; but Dr. Helen Caldicott is right "her work may (I say `will') receive the recognition and thanks of the future." When one finishes reading this marvelous book one cannot help but think of George Sand saying "humanity is outraged in me and with me. We must not dissimulate nor try to forget this indignation; which is one of the most passionate forms of love." Thank the Good Lord for this stunning creature called Alice Stewart. And thank Gayle Greene for helping us to know her just a bit better.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating insight into the history of radiation & medicine,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation (Hardcover)
The book spans the lifetimes of Dr. Stewart and her parents. It offers a fascinating description of medicine in Britain in the late 19th century, the entry of women into the medical field, and the institutional resistance in the second half of the 20th century to the fact that low levels of radiation are dangerous. Given the recent announcements by the US Government concerning health risks in the nuclear arms industry, this is a timely and fascinating book. Well written and researched.
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