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Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health [NOOK Book]
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Despite the overwhelming evidence that tobacco use causes lung cancer and other forms of the disease, the American tobacco industry vigorously denied for decades any cancer link, hiding the facts and attempting to discredit the growing body of medical and scientific evidence. Michaels, a scientist and former government regulator, identifies many other harmful industries in the nation that are using similar tactics. He points to the chrome-plating, lead, and rubber industries, which in many instances knowingly expose workers to toxic substances and produce harmful products. These businesses, like the tobacco industry, continue to deny and attack the findings that show their harm. They label such findings as "junk science," and they hire product-defense consultants to shape and skew the scientific literature, create uncertainty, and influence policy decisions in their favor. To protect against such tactics, Michaels discusses a number of ways to strengthen the nation's court system and regulatory agencies. This insightful, well-written, and well-researched book is an essential read for anyone interested in occupational health and safety and public health.
—Ross Mullner
Introduction: "Sound Science" or "Sounds Like Science"? ix
The Manufacture of Doubt 3
Workplace Cancer before OSHA: Waiting for the Body Count 12
America Demands Protection 29
Why Our Children Are Smarter Than We Are 38
The Enronization of Science 45
Tricks of the Trade: How Mercenary Scientists Mislead You 60
Defending Secondhand Smoke 79
Still Waiting for the Body Count 91
Chrome-Plated Mischief 97
Popcorn Lung: OSHA Gives Up 110
Defending the Taxicab Standard 124
The Country Has a Drug Problem 142
Daubert: The Most Influential Supreme Court Ruling You've Never Heard Of 161
The Institutionalization of Uncertainty 176
The Bush Administration's Political Science 192
Making Peace with the Past 212
Four Ways to Make the Courts Count 232
Sarbanes-Oxley for Science: A Dozen Ways to Improve Our Regulatory System 241
Acknowledgments 267
Abbreviations and Acronyms 271
References 275
Index 357
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Overview
"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...