Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health Hardcover – April 23, 2008
Author: Visit Amazon's David Michaels Page | Language: English | ISBN: 019530067X | Format: PDF, EPUB
Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health – April 23, 2008
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David Michaels is a scientist, former government regulator, and the current appointed head of OSHA. 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.
Books with free ebook downloads available Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health – April 23, 2008
Download electronic versions of selected books Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health Hardcover – April 23, 2008 from with Mediafire Link Download Link
Review
...a powerful, thorough endictment of the way big business has ignored, suppressed or distored vital scientific evidence to the detriment of the public's health. Nature
About the Author
David Michaels is a scientist, former government regulator, and the current appointed head of OSHA. 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.
Books with free ebook downloads available Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health – April 23, 2008
- Hardcover: 384 pages
- Publisher: Oxford University Press; 1 edition (April 23, 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 019530067X
- ISBN-13: 978-0195300673
- Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #327,617 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #31 in Books > Textbooks > Medicine & Health Sciences > Administration & Policy > Health Risk Assessment
- #42 in Books > Medical Books > Administration & Medicine Economics > Health Risk Assessment
- #46 in Books > Textbooks > Medicine & Health Sciences > Medicine > Basic Sciences > Toxicology
If we believe David Michaels, industry charlatans all learned from the tobacco industry 50 years ago. The industries that rely on doubt have been blossoming ever since: beryllium (did you know that there was a beryllium industry? I did not), asbestos, and popcorn, among others.
Yes, popcorn. Were you aware that there is a condition called "popcorn lung" (officially bronchiolitis obliterans)? I was not. It's called that because one of the main ways to contract it is by working in a factory that manufactures one of the ingredients -- namely diacetyl -- for the butter flavoring in popcorn. Every time you open a steaming bag of butter-flavored microwave popcorn, you are inhaling a bit of this chemical. The more of it you eat, the more likely you are to contract a devastating lung ailment. (And this isn't the sort of disease that you'd only get by eating an implausibly large quantity of popcorn. Real popcorn consumers have actually acquired it.)
The agency responsible for protecting workers from this sort of hazard is OSHA. The one responsible for protecting food consumers is the FDA. This division of labor comes in for some well-deserved scorn in Doubt Is Their Product; it has left the government fairly impotent to respond to threats against the public health. This book could be read alongside Marion Nestle's Food Politics and What To Eat as a single thread about the assault on helpful government regulation.
In their nonstop fight against that sort of regulation, companies have pulled out all the stops to inject systematic doubt into the public discussion. The most pernicious of these, it seems to me, is the creation of sham peer-reviewed journals.
Conflicts of interest among members of EPA review panels have weakened governmental safety standards on toxic chemicals in the environment and in everyday consumer products. Outrage over long-standing reliance on "science for hire" by the chemical industry has prompted Congress to investigate EPA's procedures for reviewing toxic chemicals, including PBDE flame retardants and bisphenol A. These examples are just a small window into how great the tampering and influence of the chemical industry has been over EPA regulation of toxic chemicals. A new book by David Michaels, an epidemiologist and the director of the Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy at The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, documents a seemingly endless list of examples of mercenary scientists misleading the general public and the regulatory community about the true dangers of chemical exposures, starting from lead, asbestos, and tobacco, and continuing to chromium, berillium, perchlorate, benzene, plastics chemicals, and various other environmental and occupational health hazards.
The book is a must-read for anyone who cares about the best application of science in the interests of promoting public health. For a great review, readers can also go to the article by Newsweek's Sharon Begley, "Whitewashing Toxic Chemicals."
One stunning quote from the book describes the tricks of the trade that industry lobby and product defense firms use to derail the regulatory process: "They profit by helping corporations minimize public health and environmental protection and fight claims of injury and illness. In field after field, year after year, this same handful of individuals and companies comes up again and again...
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