Deceit and Denial

I’m reading “Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution”, by Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner, published by the University of California Press in 2002. The theme of the book is how U.S. industries attempted to conceal information about adverse health effects from the public and workers, and obstruct or influence actions by the federal government to regulate exposures to toxic substances. They focus on lead and vinyl chloride as case studies. Clearly, their sympathies lie with labor and citizen activists on this issue, but I’ve found it to be fairly well-researched and generally free of the outrage that environmentalists often engage in.

It appears to have gotten under the skin of the chemical industry. From Confined Space, we hear that the Chronicle of Higher Education notes that lawyers representing more than 20 chemical companies have taken the unusual step of issuing subpoenas to the peer reviewers as part of litigation over the alleged health risks of a widely used chemical compound. The civil case involves a former chemical worker who now suffers from cancer against the companies including Dow, Goodrich, Goodyear, Monsanto and Uniroyal. The case is scheduled to go to trial in February in the U.S. District Court in Jackson, MS.

In the book, Markowitz and Rosner present evidence that in the late 1960s and early '70s, chemical-industry leaders failed to inform the government about the results of animal bioassays indicating a relationship between excess incidence of cancers and exposure to vinyl chloride monomer. Mr. Markowitz has agreed to serve as an expert witness for the plaintiffs in several cases against the chemical companies. In the Mississippi case, he was questioned by the defendants' lawyers for five days in a pretrial deposition. The companies’ attorneys argue that the book doesn’t constitute real research and doesn’t speak to the issues of the case. In an attempt to strengthen that assertion, the companies’ attorneys have taken the unusual step of issuing subpoenas to the peer reviewers of the book.

The authors express their shock and dismay at the attacks on their credibility and professionalism, and at the time they need to invest to respond to these attacks. It would seem surprising that they are only now learning the lesson that lawyers can play hardball much better than academics or technologists. However, this one seems to be a new twist in the game between expert witnesses and attorneys.