Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Environmentalists Exposed, May 1, 2001
An outstanding expose. Efron reveals the agenda of environmentalists: the destruction of industry, and with it human civilization. Efron demolishes the "one molecule theory" approach to chemical regulation. This approach holds that, since we cannot know precisely how much of a given chemical is likely to cause cancer, we should ban any chemical that test show to be a "potential carcinogen". Many "experts" testifying before Congress advocated just such an approach. The problem is that chemicals are not just by-products of industry. They are found naturally, in plants, water, the air, soil, etc. Efron demonstrates the prevalence of some of the chemicals on the EPA's list of "potentials" in nature. Efron also exposes the fraud behind the determination that a given chemical is a "potential" carcinogen. The EPA largely relies on high-dose animal tests. In some cases, the doses were so high that the animals died from poisoning, not cancer. Furthermore, with numerous examples, Efron details how some chemicals cause cancer in some animals, but not in others, and that there seems to be no real pattern. Nor does there seem to be any animal that is a good proxy for humans. Overall, this is an outstanding book for anyone who wants to understand the politics of environmentalism, and how public policy is shaped. While it was written in 1984, the same scenarios described in the book are played out today, with new names and new scares. Unfortunately, it is out of print, but perhaps it can someday be revived.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Uncertainty and Lies about Cancer causes, January 15, 2009
"The Apocalyptics" has a complex title page. The main title is followed by
"Cancer and the Big Lie", "by Edith Efron", and "How Environmental Politics
Controls What We Know About Cancer". That is a brief and fair summary of the
book.
There are so many lies that this brief review can not even list them, let alone
summarize the evidence against them. Efron documents them in detail, using only
published, peer-reviewed sources and government sources, but illustrates the
spreading of the lies by popular magazines, newspapers, and network news.
The villain in the story is industry, in general. At first it was only the
industry based on organic chemicals developed during and after WWII. But it
expanded to all chemicals, all process industries, all industry, and capitalism.
Efron takes all the scientific reports at face value. She admits she is not
qualified to judge the science, and she believes her readers are similarly
limited. But she points out other scientific reports that report contrary
results.
What is cancer? There is no official definition, and agencies have resisted
efforts to establish one. The determination is usually done by examining
tissues under a microscope. A typical study creates, indexes, and saves about
50,000 slides. Different examiners of the slides often produce substantially
different results.
What is a non-carcinogen? Again, no definition, but there is no such thing.
Everything is in one of two categories. It causes cancer or it has not yet
been evaluated fully. One sloppy study that indicates cancer is proof of
cancer, but ten careful and thorough studies of the same substance that find
no sign of cancer is proof of a need for more studies.
Where are the cancers? They happen all over the human body, but there is no
way to identify with certainty the cause of a cancer. There are about a
dozen materials that are known to cause cancer. Most of the cancers are in
mice and other test animals. Only one animal is enough to make the material
guilty. Many attempts to replicate the demonstration on another species
fail. Most experiments use the maximum tolerated dose, any more and the
animal dies before it has time to develop a cancer. Some studies used more
than was produced in a year. Toxicologists say the poison is in the dose and
give many, many examples. The official rule is one molecule is enough,
and instruments get more sensitive each year. We should ignore the disconnect
between one molecule and maximum tolerated dose.
We have many chemicals accused, but many other materials and processes are
not attacked. There are hundreds of common materials that have been identified
as causing cancer in at least one study. These studies are as good, or as bad,
as the ones that get lots of notice. Most manufacturing processes, all
cooking methods, fuels, fabrics, are documented as accused in peer reviewed
scientific studies.
So civilization is the problem? Another long chapter documents most foods,
cooked or raw, as equally guilty. Cancer is found in bones that are thousands
of years old, and in isolated tribes. Patterns of cancer vary from place
to place, and there are genetic, including racial patterns. Blacks and whites
in America have similar but not identical patterns. Blacks are much closer
to American whites than to African blacks. Japanese immigrants have American
patterns, not Japanese patterns. Clearly there are environmental effects,
but very little effort to identify them.
There is lots more, but this review is already rather long.
The research for the book is very thorough, but publication happened in 1984.
I hope someone can do an update. As far as this reviewer can tell, the
problems reported then are still present, and perhaps larger.
Efron demonstrates many cases of false information from government agencies,
mostly giving only one side of an issue and fraudulent statistics.
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4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Important expose, April 30, 2002
I'll second everything written in the previous review. Efron also exposes the fact that the 1970s laws explicitly favored any study that might blame a chemical for cancer over any study that might exonerate it--EVEN IF THE FIRST STUDY WAS DEEPLY FLAWED. In the cases of red dye #2, the study that "proved" the chemical's guilt was one in which the researchers abandoned the rats in their cages and came back later to find many of them starved and dead. With evidence rules like that, you could probably find that water causes cancer.But the even more important finding in this book is the presence in our culture of an astonishing belief system, "an apocalyptic movement" as Efron calls it. It predicts the ending of the world as we know it (extreme predictions of a cancer epidemic) unless we all immediately and drastically change our ways. When you put a bright light on this belief system, it sounds downright medieval. Efron focuses exclusively on the issue of cancer, but it's impossible to ignore the apocalyptic overtones of modern environmentalism as a whole. I've read this book cover to cover twice and would love to see it updated. But even if that never happens, it stands as an important cultural document.
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by Amity Shlaes
