|
|
|
Book Review
| Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution. By Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2002. 408 pp. Illustrations. $34.95 hardcover; $19.95 paperback.
|
| This book is an impressive historical expose of the lengths to which the lead paint, automobile, and petrochemical industries went to prevent their workers, the consumers of their products, and the public as a whole from learning about and taking action to protect themselves from the toxic chemicals in their products. It focuses on industry efforts to cover up the health risks associated with lead in paints and "anti-knock" gasoline and the vinyl chloride used in many plastics. These toxins found their way into the homes and lives of Americans through automobile exhaust, plumbing, house paint, toys, wine bottles, and even the aerosols used in hair spray and room deodorant. Markowitz and Rosner describe how corporations and industry organizations used their public relations skills, lobbying might, and ability to fund scientific research to conceal their products' hazardous impacts, to sow controversy when independent research documenting the risks to women and children as well as factory workers finally began to reach the popular press, and to thwart efforts to regulate their pollution emissions, get the lead and vinyl chloride out of their products, and stop them from constructing new factories in low-income, minority neighborhoods. |
1
|
|
Historians interested in business and the environment should read this well-written, well-researched, and disturbing study. It is based on the authors' research into internal corporate documents and trade association records (made available by law firms involved in litigation relating to the hazards of lead paint and the manufacture of polyvinyl chloride plastics), as well as published and unpublished scientific studies, advertisements, government documents, union records, newspaper reports, and interviews. These materials enable them to provide a surprisingly detailed insider's perspective on industry machinations over toxic chemicals. All who study industrial pollution in twentieth-century American will need to take their findings into account. |
2
|
|
The book's most serious weakness is that it is written entirely from the perspective of the plaintiffs in the litigation over toxics. It depicts all the companies involved in the manufacture of leaded and vinyl chloride goods as unethical conspirators who deliberately acted in lockstep to hide the truth about their products in order to avoid having to take action to protect their workers and the public. The authors provide compelling support for much of this indictment. However, in their effort to fit everything into a sweeping condemnation of industry, they miss opportunities to explore more subtle and ambiguous aspects of their story. For example, I would have liked them to delve more deeply into the internal dynamics and broader significance of the disagreements they observed within the petrochemical industry regarding the abatement of the dangers associated with vinyl chloride. Examples include Dow's unsuccessful effort in the early 1960s to get the Manufacturing Chemists Association (MCA) to recognize the toxicity of the chemical and lower factory exposure limits to 50 ppm from the 500 ppm standard adopted in 1954 and evidence that by 1974 most companies were meeting the lower standard voluntarily, even as the MCA continued to fight it. Similar industry disagreements over the labelling of lead paint are hinted at but left hanging. Such weaknesses do not detract from the book's overall contribution, however. Instead, they provide food for thought and future research. |
3
|
|
Reviewed by Christine Meisner Rosen, University of California, Berkeley. |
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|