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Whenever I speak about health and the environment, I do so as both a biologist and a cancer activist. My diagnosis with bladder cancer at age 20 gives an urgency to my scientific research. Conversely, my Ph.D. in ecology informs my understanding of how and why I became a cancer patient in the first place: Bladder cancer is considered a quintessential environmental disease. But in writing about the effects of toxic materials on future generations, I add yet another identity––that of a mother.

After giving birth in September 1998 to my daughter and first child, I quickly learned what most parents learn about a kind of love that’s a deep physical craving like hunger or thirst. It’s the realization that you would lay down your life for this eight-pound person without a second thought. I say this to remind us all what is at stake. If we would die or kill for our children, wouldn’t we do anything within our power to keep toxics out of their food supply? Especially if we knew that, in fact, there were safe alternatives?