Along with the play, venues can book a speaker on a related topic who is an expert in their particular field.  This can take place before or after the performance. 

These speakers are available to be booked through Trish Wickstead at info@rachelcarson.co.uk or they can be contacted directly for a talk without the performance.

Speaker Biographies:

Laura Potts will lead sessions on, or around, the following themes:

• What are the environmental causes of breast cancer?

• How should we go about preventing breast cancer?

• Campaigning around breast cancer: which groups do what, nationally and internationally? And what makes a difference?

Laura has been a lecturer in higher education for twenty years, working in health studies, community studies and women's studies; she is a lively and practised teacher and facilitator, with a wide range of relevant experience. Her research work has focused on the environmental risks of breast cancer; she has published extensively around this subject, given papers at national and international conferences, and talks to local groups about how they can get involved. She has been involved in several campaigning groups, as an activist, as well as being involved in debates about health protection policies. She also has a practical interest in organic food growing - and loves good food!

Laura Potts is Reader in Public Health and the Environment at York St John University.

Sue Pembrey is an experienced nurse who worked both clinically and nationally to influence professional and government policy.

She is interested in natural choices in health and this interest has been heightened by her own experience of breast cancer which has led her more deeply into women's health and healing. Sue, who is a Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing, supports an integrated approach to health which combines the wisdom of nature with the best of orthodox medicine and complimentary and alternative therapies. She believes that women have choices regarding their reproductive health particularly more natural alternatives to synthetic drugs. She regularly runs workshops for women.

To contact her for further information call 01865 514988

Georgina Downs runs the UK Pesticides Campaign to highlight the adverse health and environmental effects of pesticides. She has lived next to regularly sprayed fields for 22 years and has long-standing health problems. Georgina was the first to identify serious fundamental flaws regarding the bystander risk assessment and for the last five years has presented a case to the UK Government and the European Commission for a change in the regulations and legislation governing crop spraying. She has produced two videos, "Pesticide Exposures for People in Agricultural Areas - Part 1, Pesticides in the Air; Part 2 The Hidden Costs," to illustrate chemical exposure and the effects on people in rural areas. She has called for an immediate ban on crop-spraying and the use of pesticides near people's homes, schools, workplaces and any other places of human habitation, and for direct public access to the information on the chemicals sprayed on crops.

Ms. Downs has a database of approximately 900 people, compiled since early 2001. The acute ill-health effects that are commonly reported to Ms. Downs by people in agricultural areas include sore throats, burning eyes, nose, skin, blisters, headaches, dizziness, nausea, flu-type illnesses, amongst other things. The most common chronic long-term illnesses and diseases reported include clusters of various cancers, leukaemia, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, neurological conditions, including Parkinson's disease and ME, asthma, allergies, along with many other medical conditions.

Georgina has recently won the prestigious Andrew Lees Memorial Award at the British Environment Media Awards 2006, and was a nominee for Campaigner of the Year in the Observer Ethical Awards 2006. She is also nominated in the campaigning category of the Great Britons Awards 06 and in the Heroine Category of the Cosmoplitan Fun Fearless Female Awards 2006. The Farmers Weekly included Georgina in their list of the Top 20 power players in UK farming, following the impact of her campaign.

 Georgina can be contacted via Tel: 01243 773846; Mobile: 07906 898 915 georgedownsuk@yahoo.co.uk. For more information on Georgina's campaign visit the UK Pesticides Campaign website at www.pesticidescampaign.co.uk

Dr. Philippa Darbre, Senior Lecturer in Oncology, The University of Reading.

Philippa will lead sessions on how Oestrogen is known to drive the growth of many breast cancers and stopping oestrogen action in the body remains the basis for the successful use of endocrine therapy as a treatment for breast cancer. She will also explore the links between oestrogen and environmental factors such as the contamination of food, water and air.

This workshop will review evidence for a functional role of the combined actions of environmental oestrogens in the rising incidence of breast cancer

Philippa trained as a scientist and have been studying the role of oestrogen in breast cancer cell growth for over 25 years. Her research began at the Molecular Medicine Institute at the University of Oxford where she held the first Nuffield Medical Research Fellowship of the University of Oxford and a Junior Research Fellowship at St Hugh's College. In 1981, she moved to the Imperial Cancer Research Fund laboratories in central London (now Cancer Research UK ) to be Head of the Cellular Endocrinology Laboratory. In 1991, Philippa moved to the University of Reading , initially as a Lecturer and now as a Senior Lecturer.

Venues booking Philippa will need to provide powerpoint facilities with appropriate blackout.