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From the early 1980s, the U.S. environmental breast cancer movement has championed the goal of eradicating the disease by emphasizing the importance of reducing—even eliminating exposure to chemicals and toxins. From Pink to Green chronicles the movement's disease prevention philosophy from the beginning. Challenging the broader cultural milieu of pink ribbon symbolism and breast cancer "awareness" campaigns, this movement has grown from a handful of community-based organizations into a national entity, shaping the cultural, political, and public health landscape. Much of the activists' everyday work revolves around describing how the so called "cancer industry" downplays possible environmental links to protect their political and economic interests and they demand that the public play a role in scientific, policy, and public health decision-making to build a new framework of breast cancer prevention. From Pink to Green successfully explores the intersection between breast cancer activism and the environmental health sciences, incorporating public and scientific debates as well as policy implications to public health and environmental agendas

Given that trust plays a key role in the communication of scientific information about the environment to the public, this study examines what explains trust in specific sources of such information. In doing so, it analyzes whether—and, if so, how—political ideology, support for environmental regulation, religiosity, trust in people, and trust in government predict trust in scientists, the Environmental Protection Agency, environmental organizations, news media, and science media. It also examines whether trust in scientists is associated with trust in the other sources in light of how each of the latter draws on the credibility of the former.

The controversy surrounding the potential health effects of bisphenol A (BPA) has recently spread from the scientific arena to mass mediated public debate. This study presents a theoretical account of low-information rationality to explain why media use (including newspaper use and online health information use) and confidence in key actors (including business, the Food and Drug Administration, and scientists) may predict public responses to BPA. It then analyzes survey data to examine how these factors are related to familiarity with BPA, concern about it, support for a ban on it, and behaviors to reduce exposure to it.

A number of public controversies have emerged around forensic DNA testing backlogs at crime laboratories in the United States. This study provides a first look at public responses to such backlogs, using a controversy in the state of Wisconsin as a case study. First, it builds on research about public understandings of DNA and the " CSI effect" to develop a theoretical framework. Next, it explores news coverage of the Wisconsin backlog. It then uses survey data to show that public understandings of DNA, media use, and demographic factors were related to how closely respondents followed the story about the backlog and/or how much they supported increased spending on DNA testing at the crime lab. Self-reported understanding of DNA predicted following the backlog, whereas perceived reliability of DNA evidence predicted both following the backlog and support. Total television viewing was not related to either following the backlog or support, but watching crime television predicted following the backlog. Reading a newspaper and watching local TV news each predicted following the backlog; reading a newspaper also predicted support. These results suggest a number of theoretical insights into how members of the public may reason about and draw on media messages regarding DNA and DNA testing in responding to forensic DNA testing backlogs.

This article, based on a collaborative research project on genetic knowledge production, examines the relations between on- and off-line field sites related to three heritable diseases: epidermolysis bullosa, chondrodysplasia, and Marfan syndrome. Field sites include the Web sites, listservs, and chat rooms run by lay health advocacy groups and biomedical professionals as well laboratories, clinics, and support groups meetings. The analysis uses the notion of location work, and the concept of the node that links different elements in a network, in describing a relational approach to multisited ethnography. The article presents three case studies that examine shifting locations between online and face-to-face relations, hyperlinks as a metaphor for interactive knowledge production, and the process of negotiating a networked ethics.