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              Πώς τα χρήματα βιομηχανίας προστατεύουν τις χημικές ουσίες δολοφόνων
Τρίτη, 9η Σεπτεμβρίου 2008 Συμβαίνει σχεδόν κάθε φορά. Όταν μια μελέτη δημοσιεύεται συνδεόμενος μια χημική ουσία εργασιακών χώρων με τη σοβαρή ασθένεια, ένας επιστήμονας που εργάζεται για τη βιομηχανία αμφισβητεί τα συμπεράσματα. Δαβίδ Michaels, ο συντάκτης της αμφιβολίας `είναι το προϊόν τους», εκθέτει την επικίνδυνη τακτική της βιομηχανίας για να προστατεύσει τις τοξικές συμπάθειές του. Από Δαβίδ Michaels | Αυτή η στρατηγική «της επιστημονικής αβεβαιότητας κατασκευής» προέρχεται άμεσα από της βιομηχανίας καπνών playbook. Στην πραγματικότητα, πολλοί από τους ίδιους επιστήμονες που κατασκεύασαν την αμφιβολία για τις επιχειρήσεις τσιγάρων εκτελούν τώρα εκείνο τον ίδιο στόχο για ένα ευρύ φάσμα άλλων βιομηχανιών. Πώς πήραμε εδώ; Στη δεκαετία του '50, όταν έδειξαν αρχικά οι επιστήμονες ότι οι καπνιστές είχαν αυξήσει σημαντικά τον κίνδυνο καρκίνου πνευμόνων, οι επιχειρήσεις τσιγάρων έτρεξαν περίπλοκες δημόσιες σχέσεις κάνουν εκστρατεία να εκφράσουν τις αμφιβολίες για τα όλο και περισσότερο οριστικά επιστημονικά στοιχεία. Οι επιχειρήσεις συνειδητοποίησαν ότι εάν θα μπορούσατε να υποστηρίξετε για την επιστήμη, κατόπιν θα μπορούσατε να αποφύγετε να πρέπει να εξετάσετε τις λύσεις: πώς να βοηθήσει το κάπνισμα στάσεων ανθρώπων. Αλλά ακόμα και όταν δεν ελειτούργησε αυτός, ο μεγάλος καπνός θα μπορούσε πάντα να αφορήσει πίσω το επιχείρημα ότι το κάπνισμα ήταν μια επιλογή - οποιοσδήποτε ο κίνδυνος, καπνιστές έκανε την επιλογή οι ίδιοι, και ότι ήταν το δικαίωμά τους να κάνουν έτσι. Το αποτέλεσμα ήταν η δημιουργία μιας βιομηχανίας των επιστημονικών συμβούλων που ειδικεύονται στη «υπεράσπιση προϊόντων,» και την αναγνώριση από τους εταιρικούς εμπειρογνώμονες περιστροφής που εργασίες αμφιβολίας κατασκευής - το κάνετε καλά και μπορείτε να σταματήσετε τους κυβερνητικούς ρυθμιστές, ή να τους επιβραδύνετε τουλάχιστον κάτω για χρόνια. Το 1969 ένας ανώτερος υπάλληλος σε καφετή & Williamson, ένας κατασκευαστής τσιγάρων που είναι κύριος τώρα από RJ Ρέυνολντς Tobacco Company, απερίσκεπτα δεσμευμένη να επενδύσει το τέλειο σύνθημα για την εκστρατεία παραπληροφόρησης της βιομηχανίας του με ταπετσαρία: «Η αμφιβολία είναι το προϊόν μας δεδομένου ότι είναι ο καλύτερος τρόπος με το σώμα `του γεγονότος» που υπάρχει στο μυαλό του ευρέος κοινού.» Ο μεγάλος καπνός έχει χάσει όλη το σεβασμό και την αξιοπιστία, αλλά τις πρακτικές που τελειοποίησε έχει πολλαπλασιαστεί. Μια αυξανόμενη τάση που απαιτεί υποκριτικά την απόδειξη πέρα από την προφύλαξη στη σφαίρα της δημόσιας υγείας. Υπεράσπιση προϊόντων Στον τομέα μετά από τον τομέα, χρόνο με το χρόνο, συμπεράσματα ότι ο κανονισμός υποστήριξης δυνάμεων είναι πάντα συζητημένος. Animal data are deemed not relevant, human data not representative, and exposure data not reliable. Whatever the story — workplace chemicals that cause cancer, diesel exhaust, global warming, sugar and obesity, secondhand smoke, plastics chemicals that may disrupt endocrine function — scientists in the “product defence industry” will manufacture uncertainty about it. The “debate” over global warming is perhaps the most pernicious outgrowth of tobacco’s strategy. We can expect to see the scientists who last year claimed uncertainty about humans’ role in climate change now asserting that there is so much uncertainty about the public health impacts, or the technology required to reduce carbon emissions that we must undertake more research before setting new policy. I call it Denying Climate Change 2.0. While much of the media has learned to be sceptical about manufactured uncertainty in the climate debate, less public attention is trained on the pervasive use of doubt-for-hire in other industries whose products threaten the health of workers and consumers. In Doubt is their product: How industry’s assault on science threatens your health I dissect industry’s campaigns to manufacture doubt about a series of important workplace hazards, including asbestos, benzene lead, aromatic amines (dyes and rubber chemicals that cause bladder cancer), beryllium, chromium 6, diacetyl (the artificial butter flavor component that has killed or damaged the lungs of dozens of workers – Hazards 101) and ergonomic hazards. I focus largely on the US, because this country dominates the worldwide standard-setting process. When our regulators allow manufactured uncertainty to weaken or delay protections, workers across the world suffer the repercussions. Standard response I have had the opportunity to witness at close range the process of manufacturing scientific doubt. In the Clinton administration, I served as US Assistant Secretary for Environment, Safety, and Health in the Department of Energy (DOE), the chief safety officer for the nation’s nuclear weapons facilities. I ran the process through which we issued a strong new rule to reduce exposure to beryllium, a metal vital in nuclear weapons and now used in consumer products like golf clubs. Beryllium causes lung disease at extremely low exposure levels, and it causes lung cancer. After leaving the government, I was able to obtain a collection of secret documents which showed that the beryllium industry has run a 30 year campaign industry attacking any study that questioned the old, out-of-date OSHA standard. Chromium 6 is another industrial chemical featured in Doubt is Their Product. For more than five decades, we have known chromium 6 is a powerful lung carcinogen. But in the US, it has never been regulated as cancer-causing. Secret minutes of the Chrome Coalition [1], the chromium employers’ trade association, reveal that when the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was finally considering a new workplace exposure standard, the chromium industry brought in some of the nation’s top product defense scientists, to design a sophisticated counter attack. The chromium manufacturers also sponsored an important study which showed that chromium 6 caused lung cancer at levels far below the OSHA standard in effect at the time [2], but those results were never revealed until I discovered them. Deadly tactic These examples are not exceptional. I report on corporate efforts to manufacture uncertainty about asbestos, lead, vinyl chloride, diacetyl, and a host of other chemicals. Doubt is their product is filled with never before published documents, like the never-published letter from the medical director of DuPont stating that 100 per cent of the men who made beta-naphthylamine (BNA) at one factory developed bladder cancer [3]. DuPont also produced other bladder carcinogens in that same factory; at least 450 workers at the plant developed work-related bladder cancer [4]. One of the chemicals closely related to BNA made at that plant was ortho-toluidine (OT). Through a series of DuPont letters, reports and papers, the book demonstrates that DuPont managers witnessed this development and growth of this tragic epidemic, yet refused to acknowledge that OT could also cause bladder cancer, shipping the chemical out without proper warnings. As a result, dozens of workers exposed to OT in a plant in Niagara Falls New York, USA, have developed bladder cancer. For many years, DuPont and other manufacturers have disputed the link between OT and human bladder cancer. Earlier this year, the International Agency for Research on Cancer evaluated OT and reached the same conclusion I did, too late for the Niagara Falls workers: OT is a human bladder carcinogen. In researching this book, I uncovered a many documents like the DuPont bladder cancer ones. Some of these documents are shocking. To ensure they can be used by activists, public health practitioners and regulators, I have posted every reference in the book, with links to all of the “smoking guns,” at DefendingScience.org. Doubt is their product powerfully demonstrates that conflicted science is not good science. If a scientist is paid by a polluter or a manufacturer of dangerous products, her or his judgment is inevitably clouded by that financial relationship; this is true even for scientists who have great integrity and who try to be honest. As a result, we cannot rely on the judgment of these scientists when considering how to best protect workers from toxic exposures. Activists, unions and scientists need to demand that our government agencies rely on independent studies conducted by independent scientists, not ones bought and paid for by the producers of the hazards. The mission of health and safety activists, as well as public health and environmental agencies, is to reduce hazards before people get sick or the environment is irreparably damaged. We don’t need certainty to act. It is time to return to first principles: use the best science available, but do not demand certainty where it does not exist. References: 1. Secret minutes of the Chrome Coalition. [pdf1] [pdf2] [pdf3] 2. Collaborative cohort mortality study of four chromate production facilities, 1958-1998, September 2002 [pdf] 3. June 18 1947 letter from the manager at DuPont’s Chambers plant [pdf] 4. 25 October 1991 email from Robert Weiss MD [pdf] This article was first published in Hazards Magazine, 103, August 2008 Have Your Say: How industry money protects killer chemicals Please read our posting guidelines before posting. Alternatively you can discuss this report here. 3 Responses to “How industry money protects killer chemicals”
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In 1977, “Building 6: The Tragedy at Bridesburg,” by Willard S. Randall and Stephen D. Solomon, documented how the Rohm & Haas company (possibly best known for “Plexiglas”) managed to hide the carcinogenicity of bis-chloromethyl ether for decades.
“Manufacturing scientific uncertainty” exists in other venues, such as the never-ending war by fundamentalist religious creationists against evolution - see, for instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dover_trial. The creators of “intelligent design” creationism have no science to contribute to the discussion, but they work very hard to sow the seeds of doubt against evolution, which is the cornerstone of modern biology.