- In 'Trade Secrets: A Moyers Report' correspondent Bill
Moyers and producer Sherry Jones uncover how our health and safety have
been put at risk and why powerful forces don't want the truth to be known.
-
- This investigative report to be broadcast Monday, March
26, accompanied by a PBS.org Web site, is based on a massive archive of
secret industry documents as shocking as the "tobacco papers."
-
- "Almost 80 percent of Americans think that the government
tests chemicals for safety, which is untrue. Aside from chemicals directly
added to food or drugs, there are no health and safety studies required
before a chemical is manufactured, sold or used in commercial or retail
products. The same is true for cosmetic products and the chemicals in them."
-
-
- The Chemical Papers: Secrets of the Chemical
Industry Exposed
-
- By Don Hazen, AlterNet 3-24-1
-
- Bill Moyers TV special to reveal how the public was kept
in the dark about the dangers of toxic chemicals.
-
- Every powerful story about fighting for truth and justice
has its heroes. This story, a tale of the secrets and lies behind America's
chemical industry, is no exception.
-
- Like Erin Brockovich, the paralegal-turned-movie icon
who fought against toxic polluters in California, Elaine Ross was determined
to uncover the truth. Ross wanted to know what had killed her husband,
a chemical plant worker in the bayous of Louisiana, at the untimely age
of 46. She teamed up with crusading lawyer William "Billy" Baggett,
Jr, the son of a famous Southern litigator, and together they have become
central figures in a David-and-Goliath battle to protect the health of
all Americans, especially workers.
-
- Now, in the latest chapter of the story, a team led by
Bill Moyers has created a PBS special report called "Trade Secrets"
that will air on Monday evening, March 26. The special, based on a secret
archive of chemical industry documents, explores the industry pattern of
obfuscating, denying and hiding the dangerous effects of chemicals on unsuspecting
workers and consumers.
-
- At its core, the Moyers show asks a deeply troubling
question: With more than 75,000 synthetic chemicals having been released
into the environment, what happens as our bodies absorb them, and how can
we protect ourselves? As part of the report, Moyers took tests designed
to measure the synthetic chemcials in his body -- a measurement known as
"chemcial body burden." Moyers learned that his body contained
31 diffferent types of PCBs, 13 different toxins and pesticides such as
malathion and DDT.
-
- When it hits the air, the Moyers special is expected
to re-energize veteran health activists and medical professionals in their
fight against a growing problem -- unregulated and untested chemicals flooding
the commercial market place. This public heat, coupled with a burgeoning
grassroots resistance to chemical producers, may set the industry on the
defensive like never before ... but that's getting ahead of the story.
-
- Legal Battle in the Bayou
-
- Elaine Ross's husband, Dan, spent 23 years working at
the Conoco (later Vista) chemical plant in Lake Charles, Louisiana. After
being diagnosed with brain cancer, according to Jim Morris of the Houston
Chronicle, "Dan Ross came to believe that he had struck a terrible
bargain, forfeiting perhaps 30 years of his life through his willingness
to work with vinyl chloride, used to make one of the world's most common
plastics." "Just before he died [in 1990] he said, 'Mama, they
killed me,'" recalled Elaine. "I promised him I would never let
Vista or the chemical industry forget who he was."
-
- And she hasn't. She teamed up with Billy Baggett to file
a wrongful death suit against Vista. Baggett won a multimillion-dollar
settlement for Ross in 1994, but she wasn't satisfied with just the money.
She knew that her husband's death wasn't an isolated incident -- that many
other chemical plant workers were dead, dying or sick because their employers
weren't telling them about potential health hazards. And Vista certainly
wasn't the only culprit.
-
- So Ross told Baggett to take the fight to the next level.
Baggett did, suing 30 companies and trade associations including the Chemical
Manufacturers Association (now called the American Chemistry Council) for
conspiracy, alleging that they hid and suppressed evidence of vinyl chloride-related
deaths and diseases.
-
- As a result of the litigation brought on Ross's behalf,
Baggett has been able to obtain what he says is more than a million previously
secret industry documents over the past decade. These "Chemical Papers,"
as they are becoming known, chronicled virtually the entire history of
the chemical industry, much of it related to vinyl chloride -- minutes
of board meetings, minutes of committee meetings, consultant reports, and
on and on.
-
- According to Jim Morris of the Chronicle, the documents
suggested that major chemical manufacturers closed ranks in the late 1950s
to contain and counteract evidence of vinyl chloride's toxic effects. "They
depict a framework of dubious science and painstaking public relations,
coordinated by the industry's main trade association with two dominant
themes: Avoid disclosure and deny liability." The chemical companies
were hiding the fact that they had "subjected at least two generations
of workers to excessive levels of a potent carcinogen that targets the
liver, brain, lungs and blood-forming organs."
-
- "Even though they (the chemical companies) may be
competitive in some spheres, in others they aren't," Baggett told
Morris. "They have a mutual interest in their own employees not knowing
(about health effects), in their customers not knowing, in the government
not knowing."
-
- "There was a concerted effort to hide this material,"
said Dr. David Rosner, a professor of public health and history at Columbia
University who has reviewed many of the documents as part of a research
project. "It's clear there was chicanery."
-
- And while the documents show that the industry freely
shared health information among themselves, "the companies were evasive
with their own employees and the government," wrote Morris. "They
were unwilling to disrupt the growing market for polyvinyl chloride (PVC)
plastic, used in everything from pipe to garden hoses." The whole
case and others like it "accentuate the problem of occupational cancer,
which, by some estimates, takes more lives (50,000) each year than AIDS,
homicide or suicide, but receives far less attention."
-
- "What I hope to achieve, through Billy, is that
every man who works in a chemical plant is told the truth and tested on
a regular basis in the proper manner," Elaine Ross told the Chronicle.
"I want the chemical companies to be accountable for every little
detail that they don't tell these men."
-
- In a prepared statement, the Chemical Manufacturers Association
called such charges "irresponsible." The group said that it promotes
a policy of openness among its members.
-
- From Courtroom to Television Set
-
- Award-winning TV producer Sherry Jones, who got access
to the treasure trove of chemical company archives, started deeply probing
the industry and its secret ways. She brought her findings to Bill Moyers,
with whom she had previously worked.
-
- Moyers agreed that the story needed to be told. The result
of their collaboration is "Trade Secrets," the 90 minute special
that will be followed by a 30 minute roundtable discussion among industry
representatives and advocates for public health and environmental justice.
Coming as it does on Monday night, March 26 -- the night after the Academy
Awards, where Julia Roberts may very well receive an Oscar for her portrayal
of Erin Brockovich -- this one-two punch of mass audience attention could
deal the chemical industry quite a blow. Meanwhile, the U.S. Center for
Disease Control has released its "National Report on Human Exposure
to Environmental Chemicals" (available at www.cdc.gov/nceh/dls/report).
The report, based on new technology that measures chemcials directly in
blood and urine, has found a wide range of dangerous chemcials present
in most humans.
-
- Citizen activists and health experts have been fighting
for decades to protect their families from untested and unsafe synthetic
chemicals. It has been a difficult battle, due in part to public misconceptions.
Almost 80 percent of Americans think that the government tests chemicals
for safety, which is untrue. Aside from chemicals directly added to food
or drugs, there are no health and safety studies required before a chemical
is manufactured, sold or used in commercial or retail products. The same
is true for cosmetic products and the chemicals in them.
-
- So if the government isn't regulating chemical safety,
who is? Unfortunately, the chemical industry itself.
-
- As health advocates have long complained, this self-regulation
simply isn't enough. "For the most part, we rely on chemical companies
to vouch for the safety of their products," says public health advocate
Charlotte Brody, a former nurse. "That's like relying on the tobacco
industry to assess the risk of tobacco." Take the case of Dursban,
Dow Chemical's indoor insecticide product. Even after 276 people filed
lawsuits claiming that they were poisoned by Dursban, Dow didn't reveal
information about the product that proved its toxicity. When the truth
finally came out in 1996, the company was fined a miniscule $740,000 by
the Feds for withholding information from public officials.
-
- Critics have long said that strong government regulations
would have prevented such fiascoes, and with "Trade Secrets"
and the Chemical Papers as ammunition, they may be closer to getting their
wish than ever before.
-
- Taking the Chemical Industry to Task
-
- Using the Moyers special as a rallying point, a coalition
of grassroots groups called "Coming Clean" has bonded together
to oppose the chemical industry. In early March, dozens of national leaders
-- health professionals, scientists, activists and media experts -- gathered
for a weekend retreat in Northern Virginia to plan the elements of this
long-term assault. Charlotte Brody, currently Coming Clean's head organizer,
expressed the anger and outrage behind the meeting.
-
- "For decades, chemical companies kept secret the
hazards of chemicals they produce," Brody said. "These chemicals
are in our food, our water, the air we breathe. Now, they're in all of
us. Every child on earth is born with these synthetic chemicals in their
bodies, and only a small percentage of these chemicals have been adequately
tested."
-
- Dr. Mark Mitchell, a physician from Hartford, Connecticut
and one of the leaders of the national effort, insisted that to protect
ourselves and our children from the harm of toxic chemicals, "We must
phase out all dangerous chemicals over the next 10 years, beginning with
those for which there are safer alternatives. And we must stop making the
same mistakes, by prohibiting the introduction of any new chemicals that
pose a threat to our health and our children's health. There also needs
to be government action to insure the right to know about toxic chemicals,
production, use and test results."
-
- As a first step, Coming Clean plans to engage the public
with the message of "Trade Secrets." All across the country,
thousands of events and viewing parties are being organized, timed to coincide
with the Moyers show. The events harken back to the campaign surrounding
the 1980s nuclear holocaust film, "The Day After," which galvanized
a vanguard of anti-nuke activists to oppose the arms race.
-
- "The local viewing parties will give people a chance
to talk about the film after they see it," says Stacy Malkan, Coming
Clean's media coordinator. "Rather than going to bed angry, they can
discuss the issues with other concerned neighbors, and then channel their
outrage and ideas into powerful grassroots coalitions."
-
- Momentum around the Moyers special seems to be picking
up. The Whole Foods supermarket chain has agreed to carry Coming Clean's
flyers in every one of their stores, and many email listservs, chat rooms
and message boards are buzzing about the March 26 show. While most viewings
will happen in private homes, activists in dozens of cities -- from Anchorage
to Austin to Biddeford, Maine -- are holding public viewing events. In
Ann Arbor, for example, a public viewing will be held in an organic brew
pub. In Buffalo, New York, environmental and labor leaders will stage a
public showing, and will use it as an opportunity to recognize three local
whistle blowers battling pollution and environmental injustice. And in
San Francisco, where breast cancer rates are among the highest in the country,
Mayor Willie Brown, Representative Nancy Pelosi and Senator Barbara Boxer
will all watch the show at the public library.
-
- Eventually, the coalition hopes to harness the public
outcry to push for government regulations and class action suits against
the chemical giants. Some organizers are hoping that Congress finally wakes
up and focuses a spotlight on the chemical industry, while others are calling
for corporate accountability.
-
- "The American people deserve to know what chemical
executives knew and when they knew it," said Gary Cohen, a leader
of the Boston-based Environmental Health Fund and co-coordinator of the
group Health Care Without Harm.
-
- The Chemical Industry Backlash
-
- In all likelihood, the chemical industry will trudge
out familiar responses to "Trade Secrets." They will bring in
experts to argue the scientific validity of chemical poisoning. They will
say, for example, that doses are so low that animals would have to drink
50,000 bathtubs of contaminated water to suffer any harm. But health professionals
counter that small doses can have measurable impact in humans, and that
people are often more sensitive to toxic substances than test animals.
Furthermore, no tests have been done on the cumulative, long term effects
of small doses.
-
- The industry also likes to tell the public that it has
changed since the 50's, 60's and '70s, when chemical companies stonewalled
every request for information or hint of danger. Of course, major incidents
like the debacle over Dursban undermine that claim. Thus, despite millions
of dollars of effort over the years, the public ranks the industry next
to last in terms of public confidence (trailing only the tobacco industry).
-
- So the chemical industry has essentially abandoned it's
efforts to change public opinion. As in most industries with health and
safety issues, the chemical giants focus instead directly on Congress,
where lobbying and campaign contributions are often more effective ways
to wage their battle. Their goal is a simple one: to make sure that no
laws would ever require them to perform health and safety testing for the
compounds they produce.
-
- Needless to say, they have been totally successful thus
far. But the time may be ripe for change. Polls show public sentiment is
increasingly anti-corporate. According to a recent Business Week poll,
82 percent of the public feels that corporations wield too much power.
According to a recent Roper poll, half the population feels that environmental
regulations haven't gone far enough. With the chemical industry at the
bottom of the public's "good corporate citizen" list, a critical
mass of citizens may soon come together to fight back.
-
- MainPage
http://www.rense.com
-
-
-
- This
Site Served by TheHostPros
|