Academics sticking their heads above the parapet and raising health concerns about work hazards have always risked a career wrecking run-in with the mighty US business lobby. But in a new twist, it is not just the whistleblowers that should be fearful. The Chronicle of Higher Education has revealed a case where chemical companies are also going after the peer reviewers of critical academic publications. Lawyers representing more than 20 chemical companies, including many household names, have taken the unusual step of issuing subpoenas to five peer reviewers of a scholarly book as part of litigation over the alleged health risks of vinyl chloride, a widely used cancer-causing industrial chemical. At issue in the subpoenas to the publishers and reviewers is the book Deceit and denial: The deadly politics of industrial pollution, which was published in 2002 by the University of California Press and the Milbank Memorial Fund, a foundation dedicated to research on health policy.

Deceit and denial website. Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner, Deceit and denial, the deadly politics of industrial pollution, University of California Press, 2002. ISBN13: 9780520240636 (also see updated 2013 epilogue).

The non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) wrote to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in February 2002 “to express our concern regarding the current meeting of the IARC Monographs Working Group on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans, Vol. 82: Some traditional herbal medicines, some mycotoxins, naphthalene and styrene, in Lyon on February 12-19, 2002.” The letter from NRDC’s Jennifer Sass and Linda Greer added: “Our concerns stem from the evident conflict of interest surrounding the toxicologists who will provide opinion on styrene. The three toxicologists, James A. Bond, Gary P. Carlson, and George Cruzan each have financial relationships with groups representing the interests of the styrene manufacturers.” The letter concluded: “NRDC requests that IARC, in the interests of preserving the credibility and scientific integrity of the premiere international body of cancer assessment, remove from its Working Group any members with a financial conflict of interest. We appeal to the IARC as scientists, as persons of integrity, and as protectors of public health.”

Reform Needed at the International Agency for Research on Cancer: Letter to Paul Kleihues, Director, IARC, from Jennifer Sass and Linda Greer, NRDC, 12 February 2002.

The UK national union federation TUC and the grassroots Hazards Campaign teamed up in 2002 to launch an ‘Asbestos: No hiding place’ campaign. This included a joint guide for workplace safety reps, published in Hazards magazine, in anticipation of new asbestos regulations due out later in the 2002 that would impose new duties on employers and building owners to safely manage asbestos in an estimated 2 million building. TUC said its research showed the death toll from the “modern plague” of asbestos disease had been growing for a decade and was killing significantly more people each year than deaths on the roads.

Asbestos: No hiding place, TUC/Hazards Campaign, 2002. Also see: Hazards, number 77, January-March 2002.

A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation study found elevated rates of four cancers among workers and former employees at National Semiconductor’s plant in Scotland’s Silicon Glen. HSE undertook the study after pressure from a group of women workers who linked their cancers to the Greenock factory. A year previously, it had been revealed that the company had spied on the group, known as Phase 2, and had used company ringers and a dirty tricks campaign in an attempt to discredit them. The controversy continued for many years. After a follow up study in 2010, the HSE published this note on is website: “A study of cancer among the current and former employees of NSUK was published in 2010. This updated a previous study published in 2001 and did not support earlier concerns about a link between working at NSUK and developing cancer.” This statement was criticised publicly by unions as “bogus”. The STUC said the updated report infact “clearly states that incidences for some types of cancer were higher than they had anticipated.”

Cancer among current a former workers at National Semiconductor (UK) Ltd, Greenock: results of an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive, HSE, December 2001.

A heavyweight European Environmental Agency report notes that numerous reports have warned that failure to act promptly on early warnings has in the past led to entirely avoidable epidemics of occupational disease, including workplace asbestos, benzene and radiation cancers.

Late lessons from early warnings: The precautionary principle 1896-2000, European Environment Agency, Environmental issue report number 22, 2001.

After hearing reports that women workers at the National Semiconductor microchip factory in Greenock were suffering cancers, fertility problems, reproductive illnesses and

miscarriages, local advice worker Jim McCourt set up Phase 2 – People for Health and Safety in Electronics – a group representing sick employees. Here, he describes the company’s response to his concerns – a dirty tricks campaign that included spying on McCourt and the sick and dying women who worked at the company. In a report in Hazards magazine, the campaigner noted: “The whole episode has had a profound effect on my family, so much so that I have resigned from my job. After I finish in my current post I intend to expose fully all those complicit in the communications plan, make them accountable to me.”

Production lies: Revealed! US chips firm’s secret PR strategy to undermine Silicon Glen health campaigners, Hazards, number 76, October-December 2001.

This 2001 paper in The Lancet notes: “Primary prevention is a public health concern and should be reflected in all public health policies and strategies. Yet ‘real’ prevention – stopping disease before it starts – is not prioritised by the government. Clearly, government strategies need to be ‘joined-up’, and protecting health and the environment should be the over-riding priority.” It adds: “Current health strategies focus on decreasing death rates, rather than reducing incidence.”

Jane Stephenson, Michael S Katz, Tatiana Tcherednichenko, Qing Wu, Helen Lynn, Diana Ward and Paul Ellis. Cancer care: What are the priorities? The Lancet, volume 2, number 10, pages 636–641, October 2001.

Two independent US studies published in October 2001 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute concluded that sleep interruption, especially in women working the graveyard shift, is associated in an increased risk of breast cancer. Working the graveyard shift increased the risk of breast cancer by 60 per cent, Dr Scott Davis and colleagues found, adding that the risks increased with increasing years and weekly hours working these shifts.  In the second study, Dr Eva S Schernhammer and colleagues found an 8 per cent increase in breast cancer risk among nurses working rotating night shifts for up to 29 years. The women who had worked these shifts for more than 30 years had a 36 per cent increase in breast cancer risk. In a related editorial, Dr Johnni Hansen – whose later work, particularly papers published in 2010, would have a serious impact on the recognition of shift related breast cancer – noted that work at night was an increasing phenomenon, more commonplace than any other exposure to a known or potential cancer-cause. Over a decade after the 2001 studies, the UK safety regulator HSE was still facing criticism for a failure to act what became an established cancer risk factor.

Davis S and others. Night shift work, light at night, and risk of cancer, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, volume 93, number 20, pages 1557-62, 2001.
Schernhammer ES and others. Rotating shifts and risk of breast cancer in women participating in the Nurses’ Health Study, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, volume 93, number 20, pages 1563-8, 2001.
Hansen J. Editorial: Light at night, shiftwork, and breast cancer risk, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, volume 93, number 20, pages 1513-5, 2001.

The author identified elevated stomach cancer risks in those workers in the regulated plant exposed to the fluid in precision grinding. Malignant and non-malignant liver disease mortality was elevated in assembly/testing and precision grinding.

Robert Park. Mortality at an automotive engine foundry and machining complex, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, volume 43(5), pages 483-493, May 2001.

In May 2001, the UK union GMB launched a campaign targeting catering establishments where workers were exposed to carcinogenic fumes. The union demanded that all kitchens and catering establishments fit adequate ventilation and air purifying systems. The union pointed to a Health and Safety Executive study that found 65 per cent of commercial kitchens were insufficiently ventilated, and workers could be inhaling potentially deadly fumes.

Stop cooking up cancer, GMB, 2001 [not available online].