A Brief and Recent Environmental Health History – Essay

By Stephenie Hendricks

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Note: These stories are by no means comprehensive, but rather reflect the author’s experiences, as well as her memories of those whose work has made significant advances in environmental health and environmental justice protections. This Environmental Humanities course uses a Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) subjective methodology, meaning stories are used as data. With SPN, stories are anchored to larger themes and other scholarly research. The stories here are about some individuals who I have worked with or whose work I have known who have discovered emerging science and knowledge about environmental health. Check out the “About” tab for more details on how I got involved in the realm of environmental health and environmental justice, and the reasons I have dedicated my professional life to this area. In the meantime, let’s talk about some context that may make environmental health and environmental justice personal for you, too.

These are my perceptions, with acknowledgement that former colleagues may recollect something that might be quite different. I encourage any former colleagues to contact me if you feel that what I am remembering differs from your memory and could in any way cause harm to you or your work.

A Brief and Recent Environmental Health History

It’s About You

Have you ever found yourself feeling unwell after being exposed to something in your environment? Maybe you get a headache or nausea that you cannot explain otherwise. Or you’re overcome with sleepiness, lethargy, and generally not feeling well. You may be one of 261 million people worldwide who suffer from asthma or other respiratory distress. You could be one of two billion people globally who struggle with obesity or thyroid problems. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 200 million people have thyroid disease which can interfere with ovulation; an estimated 140 million people are challenged by infertility. WHO reports that worldwide, 244 million newborns die each year from birth defects (“Congenital Disorders”). Zeidan et al. say that one out of every one hundred people have neurological divergence including autism and learning disabilities – that’s about 80 million people (778). Still others say that cancer among people under fifty could be a global epidemic (Ugai et al. 656). Almost all discussions about the rise in these conditions typically look at genetics and “lifestyle choices,” such as smoking or other harmful behaviours, as being the root causes (Anand 2098). However, there are scientists and health researchers who are identifying another factor that is growing day by day. Increasingly, evidence for links to these potential health impacts points to the rise in ubiquitous toxic chemical and radiation exposures in our environment from under-regulated or non-regulated toxic sources (Birnbaum 323). For example, an examination of cord blood from infants revealed more than 230 toxic man-made chemicals in newborns (“Body Burden”). This is a story about a growing phenomenon of invisible – but detrimental – harm. In this module, you’ll meet a few of the dedicated people who have uncovered facts and discovered science that identify links to illness from toxic exposures, along with others who work hard to stop the harm. They research; they document; they discover; they raise awareness. Often, and unsurprisingly, they face tremendous opposition from the industries that are creating these toxic exposures. These advocates identify how toxic exposures are impacting us, and they work on finding out ways to protect us all. We call this work the realm of “environmental health.”

How Did It Get This Way? Early Pioneers Working to Protect Environmental Health

“Rachel Carson? Who is she?” I anxiously ask my 10^th grade Speech class teacher this question after learning I’d been chosen to host a new cable TV show about the environment aimed at teenagers. The local Ecology Center was producing the program, and they wanted a student to review Silent Spring, a book that had come out about 6 years before containing Carson’s research on birds dying after aerial spraying of a pesticide called DDT. I’ve never heard of Carson or DDT. As I prepare for the TV show, I have to figure out how to make sure the dark panty line of my pantyhose won’t show when I sit down on the set in my dress. We aren’t allowed to wear pants to our public school, let alone for being on a TV show. 

            Many decades since that moment of hearing Rachel Caron’s name for the first time, I have learned about her and so much more. It may not make the high school history books, but it is important to know that man-made toxic chemicals began to be produced at a higher rate after World War Two when chemical weapons were adapted for the pesticide market (Daniel Kindle Location 52). Epidemics such as typhus and malaria were met with a deluge of pesticide spraying. Some point to a notable typhus epidemic that occurred in Italy during the end of the war, when almost two thousand cases were reported in Naples and other areas (Wheeler 128) that made the organochlorine pesticide DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) popular. The typhus was being transmitted by lice when many people crowded into air raid shelters (Wheeler 121). The U.S. responded with DDT in powder form to dust the population. The toxic powder reportedly ended the epidemic after about three weeks (Bouwman et al. 241).

Back in the U.S., DDT was sprayed overhead from airplanes and in the streets from trucks (Ibid. 246).  The focus was singular: wipe out insects. Few people considered that what kills insects might also harm humans and other life forms. Caught up in the post war enthusiasm for new chemicals, DDT proliferated. After an aerial spraying of DDT in the U.S. in the late 1950s to combat Dutch Elm disease, millions of birds began to die, yet few people questioned DDT’s safety (“DDT and Birds”). 

The Impact of Rachel Carson

Amid this enthusiasm for modern chemicals, one of the few people who came forward to challenge the use of toxic manmade chemicals, which were untested for impacts on the health of humans or other life forms, was Rachel Carson. 

Responding to requests that she investigate the bird deaths after that aerial spraying of DDT in the late 1950s, Carson documented, for the first time, hazards from manmade toxic chemical pesticides. Filled with scientific evidence that has been substantiated in modern times (Epstein & Briggs 10180, Nagendra 1489, Yang 10026), demonstrating harm, Carson’s 1962 book, Silent Spring (Harper Collins), rocked the post-war industrial chemical world. No one had ever before written about toxic chemical hazards in a style accessible to non-science audiences. The public paid attention.

            Initial responses to Silent Spring from some entomologists and chemical industry executives were disbelief and anger that Carson would condemn pesticides as dangerous to human health and the environment. Not surprisingly, some of her loudest critics at the time were working with the government and the chemical industry to develop pesticides for mass usage (Hecht 149, Lear 28). Silent Spring rattled people in various corners of the pesticide industry. Economic entomologists, who concentrated solely on pest control, were outraged (Lear 29). There was much more focus at the time on eradicating insects, supported by ample resources from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and trifling attention given to impacts upon ecological systems (Lear, ibid.). Silent Spring challenged the very core of this paradigm. 

Early adversaries argued against Carson by touting the benefits of pesticides (Hecht 151). Some argued that the agricultural industry had become dependent on pesticides, and that American progress would not – could not – continue without them (Mart Pesticides 67). Some opposition to Silent Spring discounted the work based on Carson’s gender; Carson was accused of being an “emotional alarmist” (ibid.) who overstated the science (Mart “Rhetoric” 34). In 1963, an industry scientist disparaged her work in a “CBS Reports” documentary. Carson’s response was laser sharp:

Industry scientist: ‘Carson maintains that the balance of nature is a major force in the survival of man. Whereas, the modern chemist, the modern biologist, the modern scientist, believes that man is steadily controlling nature.’

Rachel Carson: ‘Now, to these people, apparently the balance of nature was something that was repealed as soon as man came on the scene. Well, you might just as well assume that you could repeal the law of gravity. The balance of nature is built of a series of interrelationships between living things and between living things and their environment. You can’t just step in with some brute force and change one thing without changing that many others. Now, this doesn’t mean of course, that we must never interfere, that we must not attempt to tilt that balance of nature in our favor. But unless we do bring these chemicals under better control, we are certainly headed for disaster.’ (McMullen)

I love watching Rachel Carson respond in her calm, measured tone, to the arrogant jibes from the industry scientist. Keep in mind, in 1963, women wearing pants was frowned upon. “Women’s lib” was derided. Misogyny ran deeply within the fabric of society, including the field of science (Conefrey 170). Yet here was a female scientist standing up to an industry she presciently saw as putting products in the public sphere without adequate testing for their impacts on human health and the environment. I am grateful to CBS for allowing me to use the audio in the companion podcast in this module so that you can hear the actual voices of the industry scientist and Carson. As you listen, remember the historic 1963 era in which this conversation took place.

Despite efforts to discredit the book, Silent Spring made history in other ways. Carson’s work influenced the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, created on December 2, 1970 (“Origins of EPA”). Six months later, Canada created Environment Canada (“Chemical Substances.”). Many other countries followed suit. The policy impacts from Carson’s work reached around the world.

The 1990s and EDCs

In the 1990s, another scientist documenting harm from manmade toxic chemicals made startling discoveries. Theo Colborn noticed disturbances in the fish and wildlife populations in the Great Lakes. Through her book Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening our Fertility, Intelligence, and Survival: A Scientific Detective Story (Penguin Random House), Theo Colburn and her co-authors drew attention to endocrine disrupting chemicals or EDCs. Endocrine systems govern our hormones and metabolism, and when they are disrupted, health impacts include obesity, failure to reproduce, cancer and other problems (Colborn et al. 62). Theo worked with a biologist named Pete Myers, who you can hear in the podcast for this module. In 1996, they teamed up with Boston Globe reporter Diane Dumanoski to write Our Stolen Future. In the Foreword to Colb0rn’s book, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore declared it the sequel to Silent Spring (Colborn 2). As with Carson’s findings, few were considering this problem when Colborn was writing about it. Because she pulled together ground-breaking research on pesticides and other chemicals and their impacts on our endocrine systems, Theo Colborn may have been the closest successor to Rachel Carson (Colborn et al. vii). You can hear Theo describe her concerns posthumously from a recording she left behind when you listen to the podcast for this module. The emotion in her voice is profound and deep. Dr. Colborn was not a woman prone to tears, yet when she made this “time capsule,” you can hear the anguish she is feeling as she nears the end of her life and sees what lies ahead for future generations. 

2013    

“Hi Carol, what’s up?” Theo Colborn’s colleague, Carol Kwiatowski, had emailed me asking for me to call her as soon as was convenient. As a communications director for a large collaborative of NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) working on environmental health issues, I often receive requests for communications assistance – but this call turned out to be a first for me. 

“We need help writing Theo’s obituary.”

My heart sank. 

“Did she pass?” I am so choked up, I’d almost whispered the question. I knew Theo had been ill, but she was so full of life, so strong and determined.  I’ll be honest: Theo’s frustration with the lethargy in government and with the public to install protections for environmental health had made her grumpy, even, some might say, cantankerous. It seemed that the enormity of her sheer frustration guaranteed that she would live forever. Emotion wells up inside of me.

“Oh no,” Carol says gently,” she just wants to be prepared and wants to be in control about exactly what is said about her after she’s gone.”

I realize I’ve been holding my breath, as I am prone to do when receiving shocking news. Exhaling with a tenuous relief, I realize that this shouldn’t have been a surprise at all.  

“I see. Well, I think it would be good to enlist a great writer, which I am not. How about Lizzie Grossman?” Elizabeth Grossman was a stalwart in the Society of Environmental Journalists and an excellent writer. Lizzie and Theo tussled over the project and eventually Theo prevailed. You can read the result here. Little did we know that Lizzie herself would pass away three years after Dr. Colborn in 2017 from the very disease they both sought to lessen through environmental health protections – cancer. 

In 1991, Theo Colborn and Pete Myers convened about two dozen scientists to share their work. Few of these participants were aware of the work of the others. The Wingspread Statement emerged from this gathering. It is an historic public declaration from scientists and health researchers addressing their concerns about toxic impacts on endocrine systems.

In 1998, Theo and Pete held another conference based on the Precautionary Principle. The Precautionary Principle states four pillars for preventing harm from environmental exposures:

●   Taking preventive action in the face of uncertainty.

●   Shifting the burden of proof to the proponents of an activity.

●   Exploring a wide range of alternatives to possibly harmful actions.

●   Increasing public participation in decision making. (Kriebel et al. 471)

          Regarding the first pillar – taking preventative action – this refers to an “ask” that is shared among environmental health advocates: test products for impacts to human health and the environment before putting them into the marketplace (Tickner 6). 

          The second pilar – shifting burden of proof to proponents of an activity – means that the responsibility for due diligence, as much as possible, that the substance or product is safe, is on the entity making that substance.  

For new activities the emphasis will be on shifting the burden of proof to proponents 

of a potentially harmful activity. Proponents should not only demonstrate that the

activity will not be harmful, but also that they have considered a wide range of    alternatives, including forgoing the questionable activity.  (Tickner 7)

Indeed, much of the basis of“Precautionary,” or European Union and Canadian polices are grounded in the Precautionary (“Principle,” “3.CEPW,”).  “Wherever there are efforts to regulate toxic chemicals and keep them out of the marketplace, the Precautionary Principle is meant to inspire the heart of protective regulations” (Steele 1). 

Of course, one could look at this pilar as shifting the cost of hazard from the public (for illness and injury) to the corporation that makes the substance, which may, in turn, could raise prices on their products. Yet modern methods of testing that reduces those costs are emerging (Price 725). 

More than ten years after Our Stolen Future was published, and well after the Wingspread Statement was declared, Theo started her own non-governmental organization (NGO) called The Endocrine Disruption Exchange at the age of 76. Together with researcher Carol Kwiatkowski, they created the only database of its kind, “Critical Windows of Development,” which contains every published peer-reviewed study (lab animal and human) on chemical exposure health impacts in utero, from conception to birth (Colborn and Kwiatkowski). Fetuses’ developing systems are the most vulnerable to chemical exposures (Landrigan, Philip J. et al. “Children’s Health” 259). You’ll find a link to this database in the Explorations section of this module. Carol Kwiatowski can be heard in the companion podcast talking about Rachel Carson’s impacts on raising environmental health awareness. Dr. Colborn passed away in 2014, and as of this writing Carol Kwiatkowski is working with Arlene Blum, who is also featured in the podcast for this module. 

As for Pete Myers, he has co-founded a new company called SUDOC working to make safer chemicals. After our interview, I was treated to images from his other passion: photographing shore birds. The exquisite detail Pete captures while depicting these busy birds demonstrates his profound love for beauty in nature. It seemed to me that Pete’s immersion in the lives of shorebirds must inspire his work to protect all life from toxic exposures.  You can see some of those images here. Pete Myers tells stories about Theo Colborn in the podcast for this module.    

Children’s Pajamas and Furniture Foam

About twenty years before Theo Colborn’s discoveries, a young graduate student at Stanford was making discoveries of her own. Arlene Blum is a chemist and, at the time, was a prolific mountain climber. In a demonstration of her capacity for determination, when she was refused entry on a climbing team with men, she formed her own women’s mountain climbing team. They became the first American climbing team to scale the Annapurna mountain in the Himalayas, chronicled in Annapurna: A Woman’s Place (Penguin Random House). 

Dr. Blum first discovered harmful manmade toxics in children’s pajamas that were imbued with flame-retardant chemicals. Her findings came about using a test developed by her Supervising Professor, Bruce Ames (Arlene Blum). The “Ames’ Test” is a breakthrough test for carcinogens. It determines if exposure to a substance can change a genetic structure or DNA. At the time, Blum’s revelation prompted U.S. government regulatory agencies to request that manufacturers of children’s pajamas remove the chemicals (Brozan).  Dr. Blum explains the Ames test for determining if a substance is carcinogenic or not in this module’s podcast.

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After her big discovery, Dr. Blum took somewhat of a break from her career in chemistry to raise her daughter. Twenty years later, she returned to her research and found out, to her horror, that the same chemicals banned from children’s pajamas in the 1970s were part of all sorts of furniture foam – including infant car seats, couches, and other items made with foam – due to a California state regulation, TB 117.The regulation was promoted into effect by the chemicals companies that make toxic flame retardants (Standen). 

More people smoked cigarettes at that time resulting in more fire related mortalities. In the U.S. in 1977, there were 5,865 deaths reported in home fires (“Fire-Related”). Because California is such a large market, companies making products with foam in furniture and other products automatically used the toxic flame-retardant chemicals in the foam for their products to, theoretically, meet the regulation requirements to prevent fires. 

Yet when researcher Babrauskas and others examined the way fire ignition hazard was calculated, they discovered that a fire safety benefit had in fact not been established for chemically treated foam used in furniture. Simply put, the foam with the toxic flame-retardant chemicals burned almost as fast as foam without the toxic flame retardants (271).  Most deaths and injury from fires occur due to smoke and soot inhalation (Gupta 56), thus flame-retardant chemicals make the smoke and soot more toxic (Shaw 261). This has become a concern for firefighters who experience higher rates of cancer and other illnesses. I had the pleasure to meet Tony Stefani who founded the San Francisco Firefighters Cancer Prevention Foundation and joined the fight to halt the use of the toxic flame-retardant chemicals. Since embarking on this graduate studies project, the University of Victoria in collaboration with the International Federation of Firefighters, has issued a recent body of work, “Raising the Alarm,” asking for better protections from toxic flame-retardants in Canada (Secord).  

Over time, foam breaks down and the chemicals manifest in dust. People and pets breathe in the persistent toxic flame-retardant chemicals from the dust, which can enter the blood stream. An Oakland Tribune Investigation discovered the flame-retardant chemicals from a family’s furniture in their baby and the bodies of the rest of the family (Fischer et al. 1581). Exposure to these flame-retardant chemicals is linked to infertility, neurological impacts, and even cancer (“Flame Retardants”). The halting of toxic flame-retardant chemicals in furniture foam became a huge campaign with different groups nationwide, such as the Center for Environmental Health, Clean and Healthy New York, the Ecology Center (in Ann Arbor, Michigan), Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Physicians for Social Responsibility: Los Angeles, and many others. See the Chicago Tribune “Playing with Fire” series (Callahan et al.) in the Explorations section of this module for details about why the toxic flame retardants were de facto required in foam for furniture in California.

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2012

Arlene Blum has engaged the stellar investigative “Watchdog” journalist team at the Chicago Tribune, comprised of Patricia “Trish” Callahan, Sam Roe, and Michael Hawthorne. As a former journalist myself, I often work with journalists to help find elements for their stories. I’ve previously connected with Sam to assist with a lead in a lipstick story when I worked for the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics a year or so before. I have never worked with Trish or Michael.

            “They need a ‘smoking gun’ of some sort, evidence that “’Citizens for Fire Safety” is really a front for the chemical industry,” Dr. Blum explains. “Can you help find the ‘smoking gun’ to prove ‘Citizens’ is an industry front group?”

            I am honoured to be asked to assist this investigative journalist team – one of the best in the entire country. “Citizens” purports to be a group of burn victims and community members begging for toxic flame-retardant chemicals to continue to be used in foam for furniture and other products. Searching the California Secretary of State lobby database, I find the “smoking gun.” In the database, documentation tying the chemical companies that make the toxic flame-retardant chemicals to the purported “Citizens” group is in plain sight. It’s reportedly been created by an account executive at the Burson Marsteller public relations firm, a company U.S. journalist Rachel Maddow once called “evil on speed dial” for all the reportedly nefarious clients they represented (Maddow). I email Dr. Blum a screen shot showing that “Citizens” was in fact a creation from the public relations firm for corporations that make the toxic flame-retardant chemicals.

The Chicago Trib team ran with the evidence that “Citizens” was an industry front group and uncovered even more. It turns out that a spokesperson for the group, a physician working out of Seattle, reportedly told an oft-repeated lie about a baby who had gotten burned because of a candle near his crib that, ostensibly, had no flame-retardant chemicals in it. This story was told by chemical company lobbyists to government officials as evidence to support regulations to force the use of toxic flame-retardant chemicals in baby furniture, regular furniture, and other products with foam. The Trib team was able to document that there was no baby, no candle and no crib. Their series, “Playing with Fire,” was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. The series was front and center in a 2013 HBO feature documentary, Toxic Hot Seat. Demonstrating the importance of journalism for environmental health, the Trib investigation triggered hearings and legislative actions to better regulate toxic flame-retardant chemicals in many states and in the U.S. federal government (“Policies”).

Dr. Blum now leads environmental researchers to understand the hazards of some of the most concerning chemicals. Check out her “Six Classes of Chemicals” reports on the Green Science Policy Institute website, found in the Explorations section of this module. 

Dr. Blum’s skills with communications and creating relationships with reporters are far above those that I’ve experienced with the average chemist. When working with her, I often felt lucky to just follow up on the inroads she made with important decision makers at the New York Times, CNN, and other large audience media venues to get stories that many folks would read, including those in positions to make policies and regulations to protect environmental health. 

Ultimately, the work of environmental health advocates and journalists helped to create change in the California regulation. As of 2018, toxic flame-retardant chemicals are no longer required in foam for furniture in California, and thus for the rest of the world. At the same time, there had been less fire related mortality. Arlene Blum and many others working worldwide succeeded in demonstrating to regulators that the forcing of persistent, harmful toxic flame-retardant chemicals into furniture foam posed more hazards to human health and the environment than lower the risk of fire. This reduced risk is due to less use of candles, less use of cigarettes along with the use of reduced fire risk cigarettes (designed to slow burning the filter), and an increase in other fire safe technologies (Kegler 200, Ghassempour 12, “Fire Standard”). 

While I did not work directly with him, I had the honour to meet Andrew McGuire, who supported Dr. Blum’s efforts to ban toxic flame retardants. Burned in a fire as a child, he founded the Safe Cigarettes Campaign in 1977, forcing the cigarette industry to make “fire safe” cigarettes (Hemenway 40). which are designed to slow the burning when not being smoked (“Fire Standard”). Sometimes when I meet EH or EJ advocates, and this happened when I met Andrew, my imagination easily conjures images of ancient warriors. In Andrew’s case, he inspired a vision of a Celtic hero taking on the Romans. We were lucky to have him with us on the toxic fire-retardant campaign.

Dr. Blum has not stopped working to rid the world of what she sees, as a chemist herself, as unnecessary dangerous manmade toxic chemicals. I witnessed her sounding the early alarm on PFAS and PFOS chemicals, which have now made the nightly news and are being restricted by U.S., Canadian, and European Union regulatory authorities (“Our Current Understanding,” “Draft State,” “Next Steps”).

Lois Gibbs and Love Canal

In the 1970s while Dr. Blum was a young grad student focused on toxics in baby pajamas, another young woman in Niagara Falls, New York, was discovering a shocking toxic situation of her own that also threatened children. She lived in a neighborhood called “Love Canal,” named for a man named William T. Love who wanted to connect the upper and lower Niagara rivers in the late 1800’s with a canal (“Love”). While there have been many neighborhoods that have suffered from toxic contamination, it was the work of Lois Gibbs and her neighbors who made “Love Canal” globally synonymous with toxic disaster (McFadden, Robert). Lois and other Love Canal residents discovered that tens of thousands of chemicals had been dumped under their children’s school and throughout the land where their homes had been built. They would not accept government or corporate denial, and eventually the government evacuated 400 families. Hear Lois talk about this in the companion podcast for this module. Thanks to Lois and her colleagues, a new policy was created on December 1, 1980, called the “Superfund.” The U.S. EPA website explains: “The severity of the site’s contamination led to the creation of federal legislation to manage the disposal of hazardous wastes throughout the country” (“Love Canal”). One aspect of this policy was the creation of a tax on polluters that would go into a Superfund. This was the one of the early codifications of the “polluter pays principle” into U.S. policy (Khan 634).

Wielding Corporate Power

A few years after the Superfund was created, in 1983, I produced a TV talk show at the CBS station in San Francisco with a beleaguered director of the U.S. EPA, Anne Gorsuch Burford. The appointment of Burford, nicknamed The Ice Queen (Romano and Trescott), demonstrated how strong the influence of the polluting corporations – including the fossil fuel industry – is on the U.S. government: these polluting corporations likely had something to do with President Ronald Reagan placing a person as head of the EPA who would weaken regulations for polluters. The Washington Post reports about Burford:

Her short, tumultuous tenure [at the EPA] was marked by sharp budget cuts, rifts with career EPA employees, a steep decline in cases filed against polluters and a scandal over the mismanagement of the Superfund cleanup program that ultimately led to her resignation in 1983. (Dennis and Mooney).

1982

“Is she here yet?” My executive producer makes her fifth trip into the Green Room that morning. The live television studio audience is seated, talking with each other in low tones. The hosts of the show come from the makeup room, getting ready to go out to the set. My face is pressed up against the window looking down on Battery Street. It is a dark and rainy San Francisco winter day, and the window glass is cold on my flushed skin.

“We’d better get a rerun ready,” sighs the director as he makes a rare appearance in the Green Room. Then, I see them. Three huge black SUVs pull up on the street four stories below, with guys in suits leaping out and opening the door of the middle car. It is less than five minutes to live air with our seven million viewers. Secret Service men exit the SUVs. “She’s here!” I bark at an intern, “Tell Eliot to let her through and bring her up in the elevator, pronto! Ross McGowan and Ann Fraser, the show hosts, stare anxiously at me. They prefer shows on diets, sex, and celebrities, not having to host a live TV program with a U.S. presidential cabinet member who could go to federal prison directly after the show. “What should we do?” implores Ann.

 After conferring with our executive producer, we tell them; “OK then, let’s do a short first segment, with you setting up the latest news with Congress happening right now, just as we planned this morning. We’ve got the copy on the prompter. Read the intro. Then, we’ll go to break and seat her, and you can start the interview in segment two.” 

I had briefed them on the latest news earlier that morning, which only seems to heighten their anxiety. Burford is in contempt of Congress, in part, for refusing to testify against President Reagan, and there could be a federal warrant for her arrest. My executive producer is holding open the Green Room door. Our beloved makeup man, David Clark, is standing by with a powder puff and his portable bag so he can follow Burford on set and touch her up before air. Bypassing the Green Room, the embattled EPA director demands to be ushered right into the studio. The show’s theme music is playing, one hundred people in the audience are clapping, we are live, and Anne Gorusch Burford is standing right next to me in a light blue woven skirt and jacket that match her icy eyes. David comes to pat powder on her, and she shoos him away. He rolls his eyes out of view from her.  Her short dark hair looks lacquered into place. Whispering, I turn to her and say,

            “Thank you for coming Mrs. Burford,” I muster, “This must be a tough day for you, and I appreciate you being here.”

“You have no idea,” she snaps at me, clearly irritated on many levels. During the break, we seat her on the set; she snaps at the sound man affixing the mic to her lapel. After Burford lays out a few obviously planned talking points, co-host Ann Fraser interrupts her and asks (just as I had written the question the night before): “You have been a steadfast, loyal defender of President Reagan, and now, it seems, he has ‘fed you to the wolves.’ How does that feel?” Burford’s brusque momentum stops. She looks at Ann Fraser with tears streaming down her face. As a reporter later recounts: “The Ice Queen melted.”  I feel sorry for her, but I’m pretty sure those tears aren’t for Lois Gibbs, who we’d also had on the show previously. Nor was Burford likely crying because of all the many people harmed by toxic corporate pollution in their communities. 

The Superfund policy survived Anne Gorsuch Burford, Ronald Reagan, and many other corporate influenced people in positions of government power. It is a testament to government officials who have integrity, and to people working on environmental health and environmental justice (EJ) (more on EJ in the “Health Professionals on the Frontlines” and “On the Fenceline” modules), that U.S. laws and regulations to hold corporations accountable for toxic hazards seem to be getting stronger. 

It is important to point out here that the differences in government structures also influence how environmental protections and other policies are handled. In a casual discussion with my Principle Investigator, Greg Garrard, who has lived in the United Kingdom and holds Canadian citizenship, he pointed out that in parliamentarian systems, the civil servants handling regulatory affairs are unlikely to be tied to the political party in power. Whereas in the United States, where I am from, it has been my experience that whatever political party is in office can put pressure on civil servants in regulatory positions. This was abruptly brought to my attention when George W. Bush was President of the United States. 

Another Industry Influence Story

2006

“I need you to get a New York Times article about something!” announces one of the staff scientists at PANNA [Pesticide Action Network North America] where I was Communications Director] as he bursts through the doorway to my office. “You’re not going to believe this!” He has just been on a phone call. “There was a meeting with chemical industry lobbyists and one of Bush’s EPA appointees. I don’t know if any of them were actually scientists. They are trying to draw up a human testing rule that allows them to intentionally test pesticides on pregnant women, infants, incarcerated men, and women and, get this, ORPHANS!”

Shocked, I ask him: “I don’t understand. What do they mean by ‘test’?” 

“When you test a person with a substance, you dose them until they exhibit an acute effect, like a skin rash, headache, or nausea. I’m betting with this effort by industry that there is no provision for monitoring long-term health effects such as learning disabilities or neurological illnesses that are linked to organophosphate pesticides, which we’re guessing might be what they want to use, since EPA has been putting restrictions on them for consumer products. We don’t know exactly what pesticides they want to use.” My colleague was understandably astounded, as was I. 

 I call my contact at the New York Times. He tells me that it is unlikely that they will do the story. “How can you say that?!” I raise my voice. “Don’t you understand what will happen if this rule becomes codified?! Babies – people – will get sick! And they might end up getting some kind of neurological illness years later and not know it was this testing that caused it! 

“The Times already has multiple lawsuits against it from the Bush administration,” he explains. “We can’t afford to incur any more.” 

“Trust me, this story is worth incurring a lawsuit. We have memos from the meeting and eyewitnesses! You’ve GOT to do something!” I don’t often metaphorically reach through the phone lines and grab an editor by the lapels, but if there was ever a time to do it, this was the time. I HAD to make them do their job. People’s lives were at stake.

“I’ll need to speak with one of the EPA scientists who was in the meeting.” The editor has a reporter call me, Michael Janofsky. It turns out that he’s been covering human testing issues for a couple of years. I beg him to refrain from revealing the scientist’s identity. “You know that if you reveal their name, they’ll lose their jobs. Can’t you speak with them anonymously?” 

“That would really put us in a bad situation for a lawsuit, we just don’t do that.”

“Well, you won’t be as vulnerable as the babies, pregnant moms and incarcerated men and women may become victims of deliberate poisoning!” I know that I am over the line now, but I don’t care. 

“Let me see what I can do,” he sighs heavily and hangs up.

Chemist and EPA scientists’ union representative Bill Hirzy comes forward to speak with Janofsky. Jeff Ruch from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility is also interviewed. The story hits. U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer works to block the rule (Janofsky, “Limits,” “Unions”). It turns out to be the last story Michael Janofsky writes for the New York Times. 

We found out later that at the time of the proposed human testing rule, the U.S. EPA in fact did want to test organophosphate pesticides (Resnik 814). Organophosphates, or OPs, were developed as chemical weapons by German scientists during World War II (Everts). When the U.S. brought the German scientists back after the war, they helped adapt the chemical weapons for widespread domestic use in the U.S. The pesticides parathion and malathion were among the first to be made from the neurologically damaging OPs, and, more recently, the now widely used chlorpyrifos hit the marketplace (Adeyinka and Muco). It was an ingredient in over-the-counter insecticides, including, according to then New York Times science reporter Andrew Revkin, “… some Raid sprays, Hartz yard and kennel flea spray, and Black Flag liquid roach and ant killer” (Revkin). 

Earlier in 2006, the same year this human testing rule was proposed, research at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University revealed that children exposed to chlorpyrifos in consumer products had lower IQs and delayed development (Lovasi et al. 66, Rauh et al. “Impact” e1856). In the Mailman study, researchers also observed that low-income children of color incidentally exposed to consumer products containing chlorpyrifos in utero (when their mothers were pregnant with them) were five times more likely to experience “delays, attention problems, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder problems, and pervasive developmental disorder problems” (Ibid. 1845).  

In a similar timeframe, the U.S. EPA had been conducting a study with low-income infants called the Children’s Environmental Research study, or CHEERS.  Unlike the Mailman study, there were questions about how CHEERS was conducted, including accusations of intentional dosing (not simply observational study), and “incentives that amounted to coercion” of participants (Resnik and Wing 414).

I want to note here that the Mailman study identified links to health impacts from the pesticide exposures that happened incidentally in the household, not from intentional dosing of children. The question remains: Why were representatives from the chemical companies trying to dictate a rule to the U.S. EPA that would basically legalize intentional dosing of children with pesticides? A 1970 report from the U.S. National Research Council argued that intentional human dosing will assist with “… improving the scientific basis for implementing legislation and human health or environmental benefits” (National Research 4).

After a couple of years, EPA regulations were enacted to forbid toxicity studies on pregnant women, infants, children, and incarcerated men and women (“Protections”). Still, I find great irony in the logic that intentionally dosing infants and other vulnerable human beings is justified to determine health effects, presumably to protect the public health.            

When we think of actions like these as incomprehensible, we can look back at somewhat recent history and see that human testing in vulnerable populations has precedents, notably the Tuskegee experiments on African Americans in the U.S. (Torgerson), and the experiments of Joseph Mengele on Jewish people in Germany during the Holocaust (Weindling 5). The fact that this proposed rule was blocked by EPA scientists who stood to lose their jobs and even their careers is a powerful example of the courage modern scientists must have working in the realm of environmental health protections.

A Continuing Story

This module presents some of the key players in the history of environmental health protection, but many more people have contributed to this fight. The stories are far from over. The work is to protect all of life, including our own species, our health and well-being, are always worth fighting for. It’s not easy, and few wade into the struggle, yet knowing that these men and women are championing a healthy world for everyone gives me hope. Please look through the Explorations for this and the other modules to learn about others who have been working on our behalf.

 If you have not seen them already, check out the films Dark Waters, Erin Brockovich, Michael Clayton, and Silkwood, to meet some other relatively unsung heroes and sheroes. The success of these films was made possible due to the drama provided by litigation avenues taken by the protagonists, a recourse taken more commonly used in the U.S. than in Canada or the European Union. 

There are many more stories that could be told about the history of environmental health, we only have enough time or space here to scratch the surface. Perhaps you can discover stories on your own that illustrate the courage and determination of those working to protect environmental health and environmental justice. 

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