Subject: The WorkBook and Toxic Deception

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 19:19:19 EST

Jack,

Today's mail brought the latest copy of "The Workbook" in which a 1996 book,
Toxic Deception, is reviewed.

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Checks payable to Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC), P. O. Box
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Toxic Deception, How the Chemical Industry Manipulates Science, Bends the Law
and Endangers Your Health, Dan Fagin, Marianne Lavelle and the Center for
Public Integrity, Secaucus NJ USA, Birch Land Press, 1996, 294 pps., USD 24.95
cloth.
Order from Carol Publishing Group, 120 Enterprise Ave., Secaucus NJ 07-94 USA.

If you question the apparent legality of harmful toxic exposures and the
essential failure of our disappearing regulatory system, such as it may have
been, to protect us; Toxic Deception provides some insights. Our system can be
and is endlessly manipulated by the corporations whose survival and profits as
well as growth depend on these chemicals. The book is a virtual roadmap on how
they do.

The book focuses on four chemicals - the herbicides atrazine and alachlor, the
solvent percholoroethylene and the nearly ubiquitous formaldehyde. For each
chemical, the scientific basis of its hazard is laid out against a backdrop of
individual case histories of exposure. Woven through this are the stories of
how industry has systematically managed to thwart most efforts to reduce the
use or to limit exposures, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of harm.

There are examples of outright fraud, the largest US toxiology laboratory,
Bio-Test, has been discovered to falsify data. The list of the corporate
giants who have broken laws is as long as the names of the corporations
producing chemicals. More odorous, if possible, are the streams of public
relations outpourings and calculated mis-information and dis-information. 

"The EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency) and otehr federal agencies . . .
have thousands of employees -- scientists, lawyers and others -- who are
responsible for administering complicated regulations under FIFRA, the Toxic
Substances Control Act, and other laws that require elaborate testing to sniff
out the dangers of synthetic chemicals. But those same laws also require that
the tests be conducted by or for the parties that have the least reason to be
objective: the chemical manufacturers."

Also reviewed in this issue of "The Workbook" are:

Simple Things Won't Save the Earth, J. Robert Hunter, Austin, University of
Texas Press, 1997, 201 pps, USD15.95 paper. University of Texas Press, P. O.
Box 7819, Austin TX 78713-7819.

Actuality in terms of complexities and misconceptions associated with "saving"
our environment. Abject denial of the actuality that we cannot continue as we
have and have a planet forever runs rampant. Lisa gross says this book ". . .
feuled my anger toward those in position to make a difference who instead
choose to dismiss warnings as gross exaggerations or paranoia or who call
themselves 'enviromentally friendly' without researching the issues or knowing
what should actually be done to earn such a title."

The More Your Watch, the Less You Now, New Wars/(sub)Merged Hopes/Media
Adventures, Danny Schechter, Neew York, Seven Stories Press, 1997, 480 pps,
USD 26.95, cloth. Seven Stories Press, 632 Broadway, 7th fl. NYC, NY 10012 USA

Jeff Schmidt reviews this book. "Beyond his criticism of the mainstream media,
Schechter also questions the motives of such media institutions as PBS."
Actuality is that Americans are information starved and media saturated.

And a reminder. Lois Gibbs won her spurs in the Love Canal fight (anybody
remember that one still). Her organization, Citizens' Clearinghouse for
Hazardous Waste, still exists and deserves your support also.

Milo Clark
Berkeley CA USA