Customer Reviews

Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution (California/Milbank Books on Health and the Public)

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Whether we know it or not, we all cherish a Whiggish view of history - mankind emerging from dank darkness and ignorance of the past into the sunny destiny of modern civilisation. Such is the stuff of fairy tales, and the child within us will not let us accept any other.

Basing themselves on historical documentation unearthed in litigation to which the US chemical industry has been submitted over the recent decades, the authors - historians both - have portrayed two grim tales of deceit and denial. The first involves lead, whose poisonous character was known since time immemorial, and yet was used indiscriminately in paint, and then in gasoline. The second is the history of vinyl chloride, the mainstay of the petrochemical industry, whose cancer-causing character was long denied.

Lead was defeated by technology. Other minerals made better paint bases, and lead in gasoline was banned when catalytic converters were added to the petrol engine. The current gasoline additives are just as cancerous - but that's a story still to be written.

Caught out in lies and deceit in the `70s about the cancerous effects of vinyl chloride, the petrochemical industry reeled, und knuckled under. It did not even cost them that much. As indicated at pg. 223, the industry paid $ 270 million dollars for doing a job that it had estimated would cost $90 billion - and the government thought it might cost $ 1 billion.

But the industry learned its lesson. It would not submit again to the checks and balances of a democratic society. Politicians were bought, courts intimidated - and heck, science needs research money. A successful campaign against `big government' was launched, and `deregulation' mania swept the land - self-regulation is to solve all problems. Now the governor from the dirtiest state of the Union - and proud of it - is in the White House.

The end of the book is a distressing description of the rearguard battles fought by the citizens of Louisiana to avoid that `cancer lane' - as the region between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is dubbed - become upgraded to `cancer super-highway'.
The list of the participants in this story of denial and deceit are not the `dirty back-yard tinkerers', the scum of the chemical earth. The best of the finest of the sector are involved, individually, and in Associations. Past errors or malfeasance is no object.

We do not learn from past mistakes. Except better to cover up our misdeeds.

This is a well written, well documented and absolutely amazing account of pollution politics in the U.S. From the authors' case studies of lead and PVC we can learn how to interpret the "facts," and what to look for, in similar pollution issues of today. We need more "gutsy" accounts like this from academics and their publishers.

Michael Meuser,
Editor and Publisher

I really enjoyed -- if that is a word you can use when describing the satanic greed of corporations -- this work. The two authors present an exhausting history behind the lead and vinyl chloride industries and their penchant for trying to buy science and keep the public and government misinformed, decade after decade, about the toxicity of their products.

One aspect of the ongoing struggle with corporate giants that the authors point out is that these industries often enjoy immense tax relief, especially in states like Louisiana, as the following excerpt indicates:

". . . "For example, IMC-Agrico, which received $15 million in property tax relief between 1988 and 1997, was a major polluter in Louisiana, releasing 12.8 million pounds of toxic chemicals in the manufacturer of fertilizers and other chemical products; Rubicon, Inc., a chemical company in Geismar, released 8.4 million pounds of chemicals and was exempted from $9 million in property taxes; Monsanto released 7.7 million pounds of toxic chemicals, but Lousiana 'excused Monsanto from payment of $45 million in property taxes over the past decade.'" [page 275]

One can easily see the inversion of the idea of corporate responsiblity in the above excerpt. Rather than government(s) charging more to companies that spew their toxins everywhere, they charge less! It is as if the national policy could thus be expressed as "Help and show compassion to those who hate you and lie to you, and whose chemical waste products may kill you. This is the established and true way!"

Yet, as the book points out, so called "libertarian" organizations like the Cato Institute usually argue on the side of the corporations. This holds true not only in terms of human rights in general, but also in simple economics. It is the corporations who violate most egregiously the principle of a flat, equitable, and level tax (or equitable anything). I've also seen this penchant for defending corporations repeatedly in the Reason Foundation's writings. This is depressing for me, as I not only favor a libertarian philosophy, but for years voted libertarian and was a member of both the state and national parties. One is suckered into the libertarian culture by the rationality and commonsense against such atrocious policies as the drug war, and then one is confronted with the opposite of intelligence in other matters, much as democrats have suckered folks into the idea that they don't aid foreign despots (they do!), or that Republicans are for limited government (ha!).

(Fortunately, I voted for Ralph Nader in the last election).

But regardless of ones politcal sympathies and/or affiliation, this book is a masterpiece, and should be consumed by we "consumers" like the way marathon runners guzzle liquids to prevent dehydration. Enjoy!

Two respected historians of environmental health weigh in on two of the twentieth century's biggest sources of industrial pollution--lead and plastics. Equipped with an incredible bounty of inside-the-industry documents gleaned from major toxic tort law suits, the authors uncover more smoking guns than you're likely to find in a Sam Peckinpah film. You'll never look at the Dutch Boy the same way again.

Deceit and Denial is an exceptionally well researched book that lays bare the astounding extent of American corporate and political malfeasance with regard to industrial pollution in the 20th century, specifically focusing on the lead, chemical, and plastics industries. The authors' use of hitherto unseen primary source documents from corporate archives to make their case adds tremendous weight to the argument that industrial pollution damages not only people's physical health and the environment in which they live but that it also undermines our country's social and democratic institutions.

Deceit and Denial eloquently and thoroughly expounds on the proposition that corporate self-regulation is dangerous and that "when it comes to public health, the society has a right to insist that the community's interests come before the shareholders' profits." The reader is also reminded of a notion that has fallen by the wayside in post-9/11 America: it is "absolutely essential to have as much openness and free access to information as possible."

These ideas may not be new but you would be mistaken in thinking that this book is the product of a radical left-wing or environmentalist agenda. This is scholarly research of the first order. Deceit and Denial succeeds in being not only a damning indictment of past corporate machinations and political complicity but a lucid exposition of the critical issues that industry and our nation currently face in the 21st century.

This is an extraordinary book. Unlike other books that address the corruption of industry, this book has the documents and information that you really need. Few stories of environmental duplicity ever provide this kind of detail and data.

But most importantly, it reads like a detective story, which, in fact, it is! Bill Moyers is absolutely correct in his cover blurb! What a joy to read.

Very well written, information not readily available elsewhere, eye opening. Makes one wonder about today's business influence in government. Where did all the questioning and the openess of the sixties go.

I read this book about 2 years ago after my manager gave it to me. It is an excellent, non-sensationalized, review of historical actions of large corporations which compromised the public health of our citizens. It is well supported by cited references. A must read for occupational health professionals who are working to protect employees against little known hazards.

This is an extraordinary book. Unlike other books that address the corruption of industry, this book has the documents and information that you really need. Few stories of environmental duplicity ever provide this kind of detail and data.

But most importantly, it read like a detective story, which, in fact, it is! Bill Moyers is absolutely correct in his cover blurb! What a joy to read.

As a work of scholarship whose purpose is to provide an understanding of the the "...politics of industrial pollution", this book is nearly useless. The main problems are: 1) undocumented assertions are made in every chapter, 2) terms which are critical to the book, such as "toxic" and "high cancer death rate", are never defined, and 3) the treatment is anachronistic throughout. It is difficult to believe that authors who make the statement, "...new classes of disease and damage to the body that are too subtle to even measure" (p. 296) actually know anything about the subject.