The Suffering Gene: Environmental Threats to our Health.

The Suffering Gene: Environmental Threats to our Health

Roy Burdon. 2003. Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 0-7735-2655-2 (cloth) Cdn $75.00; 0-7735 2656-0 (paper) Cdn $27.95. 227 pp.

In The Suffering Gene, Roy Burdon promotes awareness of the potential consequences of having our genes altered by environmental hazards. The book is an updated, layman's version of Burdon's undergraduate textbook Genes and the Environment (1999). The book is purposefully short, but extensive in the topics it covers. It admirably captures the multi-disciplinary nature of studying environment-gene relationships. The book's early chapters familiarize the reader with fundamental concepts in gene biology, human toxicology, and risk assessment. Burdon discusses the structure and function of genes, the nature of known genotoxic hazards (e.g. nuclear radiation, sunlight, synthetic chemicals, and natural toxins), our mechanisms of defense and DNA repair, and the complex pathways of insult. He focuses on cancer as a pivotal outcome but other effects like cell mutation, endocrine disruption, developmental alterations, and aging are also treated. Subsequent chapters describe the technological and biomedical advances that could one day protect us from environmental stressors though the future applications of gene therapy, genetic diagnostic advances, and genetic engineering. The book concludes by promoting the concepts of precaution, biodiversity, and environmental stewardship as means to preserve genetic integrity.

I appreciated the lack of rhetoric in this book. Environmental health issues are a prominent topic of concern in the public sphere. Objective works about them are important resources with which one forms personal opinions about the risks encountered in every day life. Since few environmental hazards have yet been proven human carcinogens, the emphasis on determining what is in fact hazardous to our genes is especially salient. For this, Burdon addresses equivocal but potential hazards, like cell phones, high-tension power lines, and food irradiation. The nature of scientific uncertainties and the difficulties in establishing cause-effect relationships are particularly well articulated. The author adds interesting anecdotes to set topics in their historical and social context like the high incidence of testicular cancer in English chimney sweeps from coal dust. His treatment of issues is comprehensive and concise. For lay readers, the frequent references to passages from other chapters, the repetition of some important concepts, and the key points found at the end of each chapter should ease comprehension of the more specialized issues.

While treating so much however, the logical structure of information is somewhat neglected within and between the chapters and it affects the book's readability. Some weaknesses in knowledge surface as factual errors and misinterpretations. One prominent error is found on the back cover: "Cancer kills one in two men and one in three women in industrialized countries." This frequently quoted public health statistic refers not to death but to cancer diagnosis (Greenlee et al. 2001). Furthermore, considering the purposefully objective tone of the book, it was surprising to come across a few minor instances where information was found to be more subjective than empirical. In this context, the lay reader may interpret some of the author's precautionary views, on exposure to plastic food packaging for example, as soundly founded when in fact, expert- or evidence-based support is poor at present. What I did find most unfortunate in this book was the absence of any substantial discussion of the regulatory aspects of environmental hazards. The public knows very little about how regulatory agencies manage environmental threats yet regulatory bodies have important public roles in preventing potentially harmful public exposures through monitoring, research and evaluation, policy implementation, and risk communication. Despite these issues and some narrowly-defined concepts, such as "environment" and "risk", the book does effectively capture current knowledge and prevailing expert views. Overall, The Suffering Gene offers a broad audience an excellent introduction to genotoxicity and a good overview of the current environmental and technological issues impacting genetic integrity.

References

Burdon, R. H. 1999. Genes and the Environment. Taylor and Francis, London, England.

Greenlee, R. T., Hill-Harmon, M. B., Murray, T., and M. Thun 2001. Cancer Statistics, 2001. Cancer Journal for Clinicians, 51:15-36.

Reviewed by Genevieve Moreau, School of Geography and Geology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4K1.