Doubt Is Their Product new book by Dr. s

[Guest guest]

Forwarded to me from Healthy Building News:

" Doubt Is Their Product concludes with a chapter offering " a

dozen ways to improve our regulatory system. " Many of these

could be adapted by green building policy makers such as

the LEEDâ„¢ Steering Committee, or by anyone interested in

testing whether an industry stakeholder is interested in

establishing the facts, or just establishing a perpetual

controversy.[13] It will most certainly cast a new light on

the arguments being advanced today by the chemical,

plastics and timber industries to water down green building

policies like LEEDâ„¢.[14] "

AN INSIDE LOOK AT EMERGING MARKET AND POLITICAL TRENDS

Healthy Building News

Read This Book

Doubt Is Their Product,

s

By Bill Walsh, Executive Director

Healthy Building Network

May 7, 2008

" … manufacturers of dangerous products tout " sound

science " . . . . Only the truly naive (if there are any of

these folks left) will be surprised to learn that the sound

science movement was the brainchild of Big Tobacco. " --

DOUBT IS THEIR PRODUCT, s, Oxford University

Press

" … how pervasive, effective and stealthy this science-for-

hire is-as masterfully documented by s-will

shock anyone . . . . " --Newsweek, May 12, 2008 issue

For nearly a decade, the chemical, plastics and timber

industries have been attacking efforts by the US Green

Building Council to establish LEEDâ„¢ credits that would

discourage the use of materials such as vinyl and

unsustainably harvested timber. If you think this is

because there are strong scientific arguments in support of

their positions, a new book will change your perspective on

these enduring controversies.

In Doubt Is Their Product, Dr. s, a former

Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environment, Safety and

Health under President Clinton, exhaustively documents the

rise of the " product defense industry " and its strategy of

using scientific discipline to establish controversies

(i.e., starting something that is intended to continue or

be permanent[1]), rather than establish facts (i.e.,

investigating something to confirm its truth or validity

[2]) as a means of frustrating efforts to address public

health risks from asbestos, benzene, aspirin (Reye's

syndrome in children), global warming and, of course, vinyl.

" Doubt is our product, " wrote a Brown and on[3]

executive in 1969, three years after the iconic warning

label first appeared on cigarette packs, " 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. " [4]

The business of establishing controversies in the 1960's

and 70's fathered the contemporary " sound science "

movement, which was born on December 13, 1993, according to

an ignoble birth certificate s locates among the

infamous " tobacco papers, " Document No. 2046988980/8982.

It's a press release from The Advancement of Sound Science

Coalition (TASSC) dedicating itself " to ensuring the use of

sound science in public policy decisions " and according to

s, the " the first entity to carry the

official 'sound science' flag. " [5] The TASSC was actually a

tobacco industry front group.[6]

The success of TASSC[7], now defunct, spawned a network[8]

of " specialty boutiques run by scientists " that " go through

the motions we expect of the scientific enterprise "

and " play by the rules of the discipline, " but whose " work

has one overriding motivation: advocacy for the sponsor's

position. . . . " [9] An essential part of these operations

are deceptively named " public policy " think tanks and peer-

review journals which sound neutral, e.g., the Journal of

Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, but which are

dependent upon industry funding and routinely salt the

scientific literature with controversial industry-funded

studies.[11]

s concentrates his reporting on his considerable

first-hand experiences where, he writes, " I had the

opportunity to witness what is going on at close

range. " [11] He bears witness for 256 pages and backs up his

observations with an additional 119 pages of endnotes, many

of these referencing original documents that can be

accessed through his website, www.defendingscience.org.

One of his first-hand experiences involves polyvinyl

chloride plastic, also known as PVC or vinyl. The story of

the vinyl industry's cover-up of rare cancers among its

workers in the mid-1970's has been well documented elsewhere

[12], including the documentary Blue Vinyl and the PBS

investigative report Trade Secrets. s connects the

dots, documenting how, in 1974, the same public relations

firm that created the " selling doubt " strategy for the

tobacco industry would " establish uncertainty " about the

risks of vinyl chloride for the PVC industry. They're still

at it.

Doubt Is Their Product concludes with a chapter offering " a

dozen ways to improve our regulatory system. " Many of these

could be adapted by green building policy makers such as

the LEEDâ„¢ Steering Committee, or by anyone interested in

testing whether an industry stakeholder is interested in

establishing the facts, or just establishing a perpetual

controversy.[13] It will most certainly cast a new light on

the arguments being advanced today by the chemical,

plastics and timber industries to water down green building

policies like LEEDâ„¢.[14]

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