By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.

Chemical Industry Seeks to Hide Behind Spin Doctor

Whatever separates you from the Truth,
throw it away, it will vanish anyhow.
-- Yumus Emre

The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. He is not seeking power. He has no desire for office and does not gather votes. He does not attempt to charm the public, he offers nothing and promises nothing. He can offer, if anything, only his own skin - and he offers it solely because he has no other way of affirming the truth he stands for. His actions simply articulate his dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost.
-- Vaclav Havel

Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.
-- Aldous Huxley

A half truth is a whole lie.
-- Yiddish Proverb

As the seasons change, even people who are otherwise quite disconnected from the natural world find themselves contemplating the effects that the changing weather will have on their lives. Whether it is someone in the Northern Hemisphere who is thinking about winterizing her car or home or someone living in the Southern Hemisphere who is preparing for summer, most of us are just a little more aware of the dramatic connections we have with the Earth.

Unfortunately, that awareness is fleeting, and, all too quickly, most people turn back to the comfort of the assumptions that rule our lives. We will continue to assume that no matter what we do to the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, and land, the government will always come to our rescue. Most people also brush off the calls to action of citizens concerned with environmental abuse. They, once again, assume that the government wouldn’t possibly let the harmful things those folks keep talking about happen.

The blissful ignorance that allows so many of us to get through our day is rapidly becoming a deadly liability.

Chemicals in laboratory glassware (Photo by Warren Gretz courtesy NREL)

Well, fasten your seat belts, because that is exactly what the system allows. And it is about to get worse.

The idea of proving chemicals safe before they reach the marketplace is known as the precautionary principle. This has never been the policy in the United States. Ever.

The chemical industry, however, is worried that people like you and me may be getting tired of hearing about all the chemical poisoning stories, about playgrounds with wood treated with arsenic, and about all the tens of thousands of cases of cancers that have been associated with the exposure to or ingestion of one chemical or another. So they are going to do something about it.

The American Chemistry Council (ACC), an industry lobbying and support organization, plans to conduct a covert campaign attacking the growing movement, particularly in California, for more chemical safety testing. The ACC’s plans include the creation of phony front groups and spying on activists, according to an internal memo obtained by Environmental Working Group (EWG).

On October 1, 2002, Greg Lebedev was elected president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council, which represents the interests of the $1.7 trillion global chemical and plastics industry. (Photo courtesy ACC)

First introduced 30 years ago, chemical flame retardants are now widely used despite minimal health testing and after all that time, they have accumulated inside our bodies at relatively high levels. The testing that has been done so far indicates that brominated flame retardants are harmful to mental and physical development and the levels found in some mothers and fetuses are rapidly approaching the levels shown to impair learning and behavior in laboratory experiments.

And it will come as no surprise to most readers that even though two-thirds of the American public believes that such protections are in place already, the Bush administration has opposed their implementation here in the U.S.

The leaked memo recommends that ACC members pay $120,000 a year to Nichols-Dezenhall, a Washington based firm that hires former FBI and CIA agents, to conduct “selective intelligence gathering ... about the plans, motivations and allies of opposition activists... Focus on the PP 'movement leadership' in the U.S., and in particular, California,” the memo says.

This is consistent with the ACC’s track record of attempts to hide the chemical industry’s real face from consumers. In October 2003, they recommended that the chemical industry commit to spending $250 million over the next decade on advertising, to shift people's attention away from issues of safety and security.

Scientist works at a high performance liquid chromatograph used for separating and analyzing the chemical substances present in a gas stream. (Photo courtesy Jim Yost Photography)

Probably the most deceptive list is the Generally Recognized as Safe or GRAS list. The name alone should make you suspicious.

Created in 1958 by the Food and Drug Administration as part of the revised Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938, the GRAS list started out with about 700 chemicals ranging from food additives to preservatives. This legislation required that the FDA approve all food additives before they are used in food.

But there are two fatal flaws in the way this legislation is implemented. First, the manufacturer of the proposed substance provides safety information to the FDA. In most cases, unless there has been evidence that the substance has been causing problems, the FDA does not conduct any tests of its own. Under current procedures, a manufacturer may simply say that use of a food substance is "generally recognized as safe."

Chemicals are not required to be proven safe before they are allowed on the market. A manufacturer simply has to say it is safe.

The second flaw in the legislation is that it exempts substances that were in use prior to 1958 from testing requirements. Thousands of substances have never undergone testing programs.

Assuming that our government protects us from harm is but one of many assumptions that need challenging in the coming new year. Use the change of seasons to “winterize” or “summerize” not only your home, car or wardrobe, but your thinking as well. Get rid of the insulation that surrounds your ideas and your common sense. Expose yourself to alternative information sources and don’t be afraid to learn the truth. Accept that the consequence of putting economics first means that some children, women, men, and ecosystems must die.

What if 2004 became known in history as the year people rose up and said, “Enough is enough,” and “profit cannot come before health and safety, especially of children?”

Now that would be something to celebrate.

RESOURCES

1. See a commentary I wrote a couple of years ago about called, “Still Lazy After All These Years: The Myth of Product Safety,” at: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2000/2000-05-02g.asp

2. Read about the issue of toxic chemical flame retardants at: http://www.environmentcalifornia.org/envirocaliftoxics.asp?id2=9719

3. See the story about the chemical industry’s plan to divert the public’s attention from health and safety issues at: http://www.ewg.org/news/story.php?id=2065

4. Read about the ACC’s plan to fight the precautionary principle and download a copy of the leaked memo about it at: http://www.ewg.org/briefings/acc/

5. Write to Greg Lebedev, president and CEO, American Chemistry Council, 1300 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 800, Arlington, VA 22209. Tell him it is time to stop misleading and lying to the public and time to own up to their responsibilities.

6. Find out who your elected representatives are and contact them. Tell them we must hold chemical companies, and our own government agencies, accountable to the public. Tell them that it is time to place public health as a top priority, not an expendable consequence of doing business. You can find them at: http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.asp

7. Keep track of worldwide anti-war protests at: http://www.protest.net/iraq_action_digest_dec_3.asp

8. 20/20 Vision will help keep you informed of issues at: http://www.2020vision.org/

9. Learn what to buy and what not to buy through the Boycott Action News at: http://www.coopamerica.org/boycotts/index.asp

10. For international activism information, visit: http://flag.blackened.net/agony/links.asp for a listing of worldwide sites.

{Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. is a writer and teacher in Seattle and the author of ""Healing Our World", A Journey from the Darkness Into the Light," available at: http://www.xlibris.com/HealingOurWorld.asp or your local bookstore. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at: jackie@healingourworld.com and visit his website at: http://www.healingourworld.com}