The Deadly Politics Of Industrial Pollution - 1604 Words

Nowadays it is common to hear on the news about recent health and environmental scares especially with the increasing research done about the causes and effects of global warming. However, life just a century ago was very different. During the early twentieth century, people trusted industries. Therefore, they did not fight for government regulation of industries or the need for it to inform them about possible harmful practices done by industries. It took the deaths and emergence of illnesses of many workers and citizens for the public to start worrying. Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner discussed this time period with a focus on the lead and chemical industries in their book Deceit and Denial: the Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution.†¦show more content†¦To please the public the industry also said they would conduct research about the effects of lead, but the research was funded by the lead industry so they skewed the presentation of the results to the public. Soon the re were also cases reported of lead poisoning in children from their habit of biting lead-painted toys. This time the lead industry tried to distract the public by increasing their advertisements highlighting the benefits of lead using the mascot of the Dutch Boy Painter and slogans, such as â€Å"ethyl is to gasoline what vitamins are to food.† However, by the 1970’s with the introduction of safer elements and the decrease in public support, the lead industry lost its importance in the world. The second section of the book focused on the chemical industry, specifically vinyl chloride, where it was explained there was little known about the effects of chemicals. Because of this, there was the question of whether â€Å"a product was to be considered safe until proven dangerous† or vice versa where a product was considered dangerous until proven safe. This time the public showed greater opposition to the use of vinyl chloride, as environmentalists and labor unions united to reveal the harmful effects of it. Similar to the lead industry, the chemical industry also fought back reasoning to the government that only high levels of chemical exposure was harmful to people and the government