Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health | 
| Author: David Michaels
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 3492
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 019530067X
Dewey Decimal Number: 615.902
EAN: 9780195300673
ASIN: 019530067X
Publication Date: April 23, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
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Product Description
"Doubt is our product," a cigarette executive once observed, "since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy."
In this eye-opening expose, David Michaels reveals how the tobacco industry's duplicitous tactics spawned a multimillion dollar industry that is dismantling public health safeguards. Product defense consultants, he argues, have increasingly skewed the scientific literature, manufactured and
magnified scientific uncertainty, and influenced policy decisions to the advantage of polluters and the manufacturers of dangerous products. To keep the public confused about the hazards posed by global warming, second-hand smoke, asbestos, lead, plastics, and many other toxic materials, industry
executives have hired unscrupulous scientists and lobbyists to dispute scientific evidence about health risks. In doing so, they have not only delayed action on specific hazards, but they have constructed barriers to make it harder for lawmakers, government agencies, and courts to respond to future
threats. The Orwellian strategy of dismissing research conducted by the scientific community as "junk science" and elevating science conducted by product defense specialists to "sound science" status also creates confusion about the very nature of scientific inquiry and undermines the public's
confidence in science's ability to address public health and environmental concerns Such reckless practices have long existed, but Michaels argues that the Bush administration deepened the dysfunction by virtually handing over regulatory agencies to the very corporate powers whose products and
behavior they are charged with overseeing.
In Doubt Is Their Product Michaels proves, beyond a doubt, that our regulatory system has been broken. He offers concrete, workable suggestions for how it can be restored by taking the politics out of science and ensuring that concern for public safety, rather than private profits, guides our
regulatory policy.
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| Customer Reviews:
How industry shanghaied science May 9, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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... They have on their payrolls (or can bring in on a moment's notice) toxicologists, epidemiologists, biostatisticians, risk assessors, and any other professionally trained, media-savvy experts deemed necessary. They and the larger, wealthier industries for which they work go through the motions we expect of the scientific enterprise, salting the literature with their questionable reports and studies. Nevertheless, it is all a charade. The work has one overriding motivation: advocacy for the sponsor's position in civil court, the court of public opinion, and the regulatory arena [where these studies benefit their sponsors] not because they are good work that the regulatory agencies have to take seriously but because they clog the machinery and slow down the process. Public health interests are beside the point. Follow the science wherever it leads? Not quite. This is science for hire, period, and it is extremely lucrative."
Only by discovering the facts behind the scene and by bringing to light the true motivation of profit-driven public relations campaigns can we promote and defend the health of the environment and the safety of consumer products. For a veteran in the subject who may have participated in some of the struggles described in Defending Science, or for a new member of the environmental and occupational health community, this book is a great introduction to the state of the field - and the battles ahead that still need to be fought.
Decades of Deception May 7, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Do we ever really know anything for certain? And if not, how can we move forward and protect the public health? This important book chronicles how the industry "manufactures uncertainty" about the dangers of their products, delaying or killing new regulations, and how the health of workers, the public and the environment suffer as a result. This "product defense industry" has grown very sophisticated and is well funded. Michaels offers numerous solutions in the final chapters to reset the Nation's regulatory apparatus and keep it from listing more and more towards protecting industry's profits rather then health. This book will make you angry, but it will also motivate you. The hope is that a new Administration will put us on a path towards a fairer and safer world.
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