Deceit and Denial

This ably written book makes a strong case for a precautionary approach toward the regulation of toxic hazards. * The Lancet * Chronicles the history of poisoning by environmental lead and vinyl chloride. . . . [The book shows] how that the lead industry in the United States was well aware of the hazard decades before the publication of the article by Byers and Lord but chose to respond to it primarily as a public-relations problem. * New England Journal of Medicine * Like any solid work of history, Deceit and Denial stands on the strength of its evidence and argument. Rosner and Markowitz marshal a devastating case, and the overarching question of culpability gives their account a narrative power and an analytical precision too often missing in historical scholarship. * Reviews in History * Provides a most readable narrative history. . . . Even for those unfamiliar with the players, this is a riveting account that can convey a better understanding of the complex influences of corporate-government interactions and the cost to health. * JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association * An important work . . . A wonderful depiction of the difficulty of combating a well-funded corporate culture. * Enterprise & Society * The authors . . . write authoritatively and persuasively, marshaling an impressive array of sources. . . . It raises numerous issues related to the manufacture and marketing of potentially toxic products. The book has potential as a [course] text. * Technology and Culture * Twenty of the biggest chemical companies in the United States have launched a campaign to discredit two historians who have studied the industry's efforts to conceal links between their products and cancer. In an unprecedented move, attorneys for Dow, Monsanto, Goodrich, Goodyear, Union Carbide and others have subpoenaed and deposed five academics who recommended that the University of California Press publish the book Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution, by Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner. The companies have also recruited their own historian to argue that Markowitz and Rosner have engaged in unethical conduct. Markowitz is a professor of history at the CUNY Grad Center; Rosner is a professor of history and public health at Columbia University and director of the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health at Columbia's School of Public Health. * The Nation *