Deborah Blum Quotes

United States, Journalist
October 19, 1954

Deborah Blum is an American journalist and the director of the Knight Science Journalism program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is author of books including The Poisoner's Handbook (2010) and The Poison Squad (2018), and has been a columnist for The New York Times and a blogger for Wired.

Also known as Director

In a best-selling book, 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs (reprinted nine times by 1935), a pair of consumer-advocate authors complained that American citizens had become test animals for chemical industries that were indifferent to their customers' well-being. The government, they added bitterly, was complicit.

Deborah Blum
- Book
- Government
- Animals
I don't think we can understand who we are without illuminating the steps that led us here. And I like to remind people we have a really good knowledge base if we would just pay attention to what's already there - it keeps us from being too arrogant.

Deborah Blum

Beyond the Einsteins and Darwins, most scientists don't have chroniclers. Einstein and Darwin were geniuses - that helps. Many scientists do amazing stuff, but it just disappears into footnotes and dusty medical journals. If I were masochistic enough, I could spend the rest of my life rescuing scientists. Most of them aren't natural self-promoters.

Deborah Blum