Dr. Sandra Steingraber asks the audience to visualize breast cancer rates stretching back from the 1940’s to 2000 as a small girl walking along a scenic rural road. As the years pass, the girl matures and the flat road gradually begins to incline. The incline represents the increase in breast cancer rates, by the time the girl is in her late 30s she is practically climbing vertically.
Steingraber presents breast cancer as a human rights issue in her book “Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment.” She cautions against despair asking anyone in the audience to stand if they are a breast cancer survivor. Half the room stands. Steingraber says “when you were diagnosed you didn’t say that’s ok I’ll skip the chemo resign myself to die.”
Steingraber is hopeful and wide eyed and the room erupts in a standing ovation.
