It happens almost every time. When a study is published linking a workplace chemical to serious disease, a scientist working for the industry disputes the findings. David Michaels, author of ‘Doubt is their product’, exposes industry’s dangerous tactics to protect its toxic favourites. Case histories in a Hazards magazine feature include benzene, beryllium and manganese. He points to workplaces where bladder cancer wiped out the whole workforce. Michaels notes: “The mission of health and safety activists, as well as public health and environmental agencies, is to reduce hazards before people get sick or the environment is irreparably damaged. We don’t need certainty to act. It is time to return to first principles: use the best science available, but do not demand certainty where it does not exist.”

Hazards 103, July-September 2008.