Asbestos workers declined by life insurers since 1918

Author David Michaels shows that the same techniques used to successfully delay legislation and regulatory action on cigarettes have since been used on any number of other public-health problems, including today’s major global warming concerns. A growing trend disingenuously demands proof over precaution, always disputing conclusions that might support regulation because industry has learned that debating the science is much easier and more effective than debating the policy. It also avoids being simply branded as ‘anti-environmental,’ etc.
 
Michaels material shows instances proving the hazards of working with some chemicals was well known long before lawsuits arose. For example, as early as 1918 life insurers declined asbestos workers. Certain dye components were found to cause 100% of bladder cancer in the original DuPont workers back in 1947 – again, before major suits. Reducing lead in paint and gasoline was accomplished relatively easily, despite industry efforts – thanks mainly to the EPA and the effect lead had on catalytic converters, adding auto-makers to those demanding lead’s elimination from gasoline.
 
Industry obstructionists (often led by the public relations firm Hill and Knowlton) repeatedly use a strategy of insisting on proof – hard to accomplish because one rarely finds 100% affliction from toxins, even cigarette smoke. The author instead recommends a ‘Sarbanes-Oxley’ approach to science and toxins.

1) Require full disclosure of any sponsor involvement in scientific studies.

2) Manufacturers must disclose what they know regarding the toxicity of their products and the chemicals used.

3) Rigged data reanalysis should be stopped – creates false findings.

4) Hold people accountable.

5) Protect the independence of federal scientists and science advisory committees – eg. stop asking applicants who they voted for, using panel members with conflicts of interest.

6) Embrace ‘as low as reasonably achievable’ standards instead of becoming embroiled in endless debates over safe levels.
 
Bottom Line: Doubt Is Their Product: How Industry’s Assault on Science Threatens Your Health (Oxford University Press/ 2008) provides good documentation of industry’s non-stop reactionary foot-dragging to any profit impediment versus public health. However, that scientists can be bought (‘fake science’) is hardly news to anyone who has followed the global warming debate. Thus, Michaels should have made his book considerably shorter.

David Michaels is a scientist and former government regulator. During the Clinton Administration, he served as Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environment, Safety and Health, responsible for protecting the health and safety of the workers, neighboring communities, and the environment surrounding the nation’s nuclear weapons factories. He currently directs the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy at The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. In 2006, he received the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award for his work on behalf of nuclear weapons workers and for advocacy for scientific integrity.

Causes of Cancer Have Been Known for 100 Years

Article originally appeared on Author & Book Views On a Healthy Life! (http://www.basilandspice.com/). –Loyd Eskildson