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Doubt is their Product
How Industry’s Assault on
Science Threatens your
Health
David Michaels, Oxford University Press, 2008 (372 p.)
D. Michaels is an epidemiologist
and currently director
of the Project on Scientific
Knowledge at the George
Washington University.
During the Clinton administration
he served as Assistant
Secretary of Energy for Environment,
Safety and Health.
He has therefore not only a
broad scientific knowledge,
but had the opportunity to
witness how things are happening
at the political level.
D. Michaels summarises in this thrilling book very many
examples of how leading industries were able to block
legislations, which would have outlawed or at least significantly
reduced carcinogenics either in the work process
or in the general environment. Of course he starts
with the two best known examples: tobacco and asbestos.
The second one is very revealing. Currently it is responsible
for 100’000 deaths a year worldwide. Although
first hints to the health consequences of export of asbestos
were voiced already in 1898 and although already from
1918 many American and Canadian life insurance companies
declined generally to insure asbestos workers, industry
was able to cover up the scientific evidence until the
70’s-80’s of last century (see also Schweizer Krebsbulletin
2/2008, Die Asbestlüge, Geschichte und Gegenwart einer
Industriekatastrophe, M. Roselli, 166 p.).
The same tactic was applied in the case of tobacco when
Michaels speaks of the «most infamous example». He
is quoting one cigarette executive who once observed
«doubt is our product, 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 other words: industry has learned that debating
the science is much easier and more effective than
debating the policy. Someone could say: this has just been
the case in the past. But you need just to open the newspapers
today and to watch news on TV and you will see
that what is happening today with global warming is exactly
what has happened many years ago with asbestos or
tobacco. The waste majority of climate scientists believe
there is adequate evidence to justify immediate intervention.
Opponents of action, lead by the fossil fuels industry,
are delaying this policy debate simply by challenging the
science with a classic doubt campaign.
The tactic has always been the same: just to say, yes there
are data, but they are as yet not conclusive. We need more
studies in order to be sure. To achieve that, you need just
to find a couple of mercenary scientists, who will be certifying
that it would be somewhat better to have a few
more data….
To keep the public confused about the hazards caused by
global warming, secondhand smoke, asbestos, lead, plastics
and many other toxic materials (described in detail in
the book by D. Michaels), industry executives have hired
unscrupulous scientists and lobbyists to dispute the scientific
evidence that would alert the public to this dangers.
Their goal is the manufacture of doubt.
This is a fascinating book which should be read by all
physicians who are interested in improving the health of
the population.
Michaels offers concrete proposals to improve the regulatory
system, by taking the politics out of science and ensuring
that concern for public health and safety guides the
regulatory policy and not the corporate interest.
Franco Cavalli
Schweizer Krebsbulletin • Nr. 3/2010 289