Law and litigation for more than 28 years. Hes a former chair of the cincinnati bar associations environmental olaw committee and graduate of the new college of the ba at Ohio State University of law. Jd cum laude. Rob received the International Livelihood award commonly known as the nobel prize for his years of work on pfo a. Please give a warm savanna welcome to rob billott. [applause] good morning. Thank you so much for inviting me here. With t to thank everyone the book festival. This is really an amazing event and im honored to be here. Its moving for me to be part of this group and looking through all the otherfolks that are here you are wondering this guy is a lawyer. Whats going onhere . And thats what i want to talk about today is why i ended up writing this oobook exposure and whats the story about and why i believe its an important story forall of us. You know, i think most of the people in this room have probably heard of flint michigan and the lead crisis, right . Im curio
You. This years festival is full of great events and we dont want you to miss any of them. If you havent downloaded new savannah book festival, you can now and you will get to know everything you want to know about the festival. If you need more information downloading the app, you can find it in the back of your program. Before we get started id like to have id like to remind of a housekeeping notes, first of all, we would like you to please remove your hats, you are in a church, we would like you to re move your hats. Dont miss out. If your plan is for next author, please move forward to fill seat s as the venue empties, the ushers need to count seats that are available and allow easy ces , please take a moment to turn off your cell phone now so it doesnt disrupt the presentation, ive done mine and please do yours. We ask you to not use flash photography. You will see fellow with buckets and they will be accepting doe flaicions, donations, but if youre saving your cash for treats at
Rob blot. [applause] [applause] good morning. Good morning. Thank you so much for inviting me here. I want to thank everyone with the book festival, this is an amazing event and im honored to be here, you know, its really moving for me to be part of this group, im looking through all of the other folks that are here , and youre wondering, this guy is a lawyer. You know whats going on here. And thats what i want to talk about today, is why i ended up writing this book, exposure and whats the story about and why i believe its an important story for all of us. Most of the people in the room have probably heard of flint, michigan and the lead crisis, right . Im curious how many people heard of substances . Some, good. You know, i think most of us realized that we turn on the television, we are watching the news, we saw nonstop coverage of the flint, michigan lead crisis for a good reason, we had contaminated water, children drinking contaminated water, all National News networks, 24 7 cove
You can watch dismiss other programs online at book theredoering booktv. Org. The gagersburg book festival continues on book testify. Science magazine recorder Meredith Wadman talks about the race to create vaccinations. Hi, everybody. Walk to the gaithersburg become festival. I am Sarah Jackson and im a proud resident and an epidemiologist the university of maryland. Gaithersburg is a city that proudly support this arts and humanities. Were pleaed to bring you this fabulous event, thanks in part to the generous support of our sponsors and volunteers when when you see them, say thank you. I have a few announcements. Please silence all of your guise device. Youre on social media, use the hash tag gbf. Your feedback is valuable. Surveys are available here the tone and on the web site. By submit think survey you will be entered two a drawing for a 100 vase gift card. Dr. Meredith wadman will be signing books after the talk. A quick word about buying books. This is a free event but it does
Right now, harlem right now, and find many, many people shooting up or using pills who are not white, who are not lower middle class people. This is an epidemic that affects all income groups, ages, races, demographics and thats largely looked past in the media, the in part because its easier for reporters to most reporters are white. Im white, im a report. And im speaking from experience. Most newsrooms most reporters are white, and i think white reporters feel more comfortable going to white neighborhoods to write about white drug addicts. Thats been my experience. I think if you saw more people of color in newsrooms you would see this aspect of the epidemic represented more fairly in the press. I wanted to cover that. That aspect of it. So im going to talk about an area in baltimore called oxyalley, a place i spent a lot of time writing about the addicts there and a place where many some of the drugs and many other drugs ended up. They dahl it oxial. Looks like any other blighted st