“If we can stop cancer before it begins, why don’t we?”

This question motivated a deep-dive inquiry into cancer prevention for award-winning journalist Kristina Marusic. Her exploration uncovered an often invisible community of creative, talented individuals who dedicate their careers to identifying and challenging environmental drivers of cancer.

Marusic shares the stories of some of these changemakers in her recently released book A New War on Cancer: The Unlikely Heroes Revolutionizing Prevention. 

“In searching for answers, she met remarkable doctors, scientists, and advocates who are upending our understanding of cancer and how to fight it. They recognize that we will never reduce cancer rates without ridding our lives of the chemicals that increasingly trigger this deadly disease.”

In this CHE Café conversation, Marusic will share highlights from her book including current cancer trends, and the latest scientific evidence linking cancer with exposure to chemicals found in consumer products and our food, water and air.

She’ll then be joined by one of the heroes profiled in the book — Children’s Environmental Health Network Executive Director Nsedu Obot Witherspoon — as well as renowned biologist, author, activist, and cancer survivor, Dr. Sandra Steingraber. The group will explore the power of storytelling as a tool for communicating complex scientific issues, and reaching people in ways that motivate action for change.

This CHE Café conversation will be co-hosted by The New School at Commonweal, and moderated by CHE Director Kristin Schafer.

“The war on cancer is winnable — if we revolutionize how we fight.” - Kristina Marusic

Featured Speakers

Kristina Marusic is an author and journalist who covers issues related to environmental health and justice for Environmental Health News. A New War on Cancer: The Unlikely Heroes Revolutionizing Prevention is her first book. She's received recognition or awards from the Society of Environmental Journalists, the Association of Health Care Journalists, the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Institute of Health Care Management, the Group Against Smog and Pollution, and the Carnegie Science Center for reporting on environmental health and justice. Marusic is also the co-founder of the Pittsburgh chapter of the National Association of LGBTQ Journalists (a.k.a. NLGJA), and previously worked as a freelance journalist covering LGBT equality, feminism, social and environmental justice, activism, and politics with bylines at CNN, Slate, Vice, Women's Health, the Washington Post, MTV News, The Advocate, Logo TV's NewNowNext, and Bustle, among others. She believes true, well-told stories have the power to change the world for good.

Sandra Steingraber, PhD, a Senior Scientist with the Science and Environmental Health Network, is the author of a trilogy of award-winning books on environmental health: Living Downstream: An Ecologist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment (adapted as a documentary film in 2010); Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood; and Raising Elijah: Protecting Our Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis. Steingraber’s honors for her work as researcher and science writer include the Rachel Carson Leadership Award, the American Ethical Union’s Elliot-Black Award, and, in 2011, the Heinz Award. By donating the Heinz cash prize to the anti-fracking movement, she became, in 2012, co-founder of New Yorkers Against Fracking, a statewide coalition of hundreds of grassroots organizations that helped win a statewide ban on fracking in 2015. The 2018 documentary film Unfractured told the story of New York State’s fracking ban, featuring Steingraber as its subject. Steingraber was a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York from 2003-2021.

Nsedu Obot Witherspoon, MPH is the Executive Director for the Children’s Environmental Health Network (CEHN) and a key spokesperson for children’s vulnerabilities and the need for their protection. She holds leadership roles in many spaces, including the External Science Board for the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes at NIH, the Health/Science initiative of the Cancer Free Economy Network and the National Environmental Health Partnership Council. Witherspoon is also member of the Board for Pesticide Action Network North America and the Environmental Integrity Project, and serves on the Maryland Children’s Environmental Health Advisory Council. One of CEHN’s leadership awards, the Nsedu Obot Witherspoon (NOW) Youth Leadership Award, is named in her honor. She is also a recent recipient of the William R. Reilly Award in Environmental Leadership from the Center for Environmental Policy at American University and the Snowy Egret Award from the Eastern Queens Alliance. Witherspoon is a proud mom to four children.

Biography: Stephen Buchmann, a pollination ecologist specializing in bees, is the author of the new book, What a Bee Knows: Exploring the Thoughts, Memories, and Personalities of Bees (Island Press, 2023). This book is a lively journey into a bee’s mind reminds us that the world is more complex than our senses can tell us.

Buchmann is also an adjunct professor with the departments of Entomology and of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona. A Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, he has published over 150 peer-reviewed scientific papers and eleven books, including The Forgotten Pollinators with Gary Nabhan (Island Press, 1996) and The Reason for Flowers: Their History, Culture, Biology, and How They Change Our Lives (Scribner, 2015).

Buchmann is a frequent guest on many public media venues including NPR’s All Things Considered, and Science Friday. Reviews of his books have appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time and Discover magazines and other national publications. He is an engaging public speaker on topics of flowers, pollinators, and the natural world. His many awards include the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award, and an NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Book.

This virtual event is free and open to the public.

Can't attend, but have a question for them? Email emeyer4@ucmerced.edu the question.