[P2P-F] Fwd: The Poison Papers Expose Decades of Collusion between Industry and Regulators over Hazardous Pesticides and Other Chemicals

Thu Jul 27 09:01:35 CEST 2017

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jonathan Latham <jrlatham at bioscienceresource.org>
Date: Thu, Jul 27, 2017 at 7:32 AM
Subject: The Poison Papers Expose Decades of Collusion between Industry and
Regulators over Hazardous Pesticides and Other Chemicals
To: bsr-PROJECT-ELIST1 at gn.apc.org

*Center for Media and DemocracyFor Immediate Release*: Wednesday, July 26,
2017

*Contact: *Dr. Jonathan Latham, jrlatham at bioscienceresource.org
<jonathan at bioscience.org>, (607) 319-0279
Cara Newlon, cara.newlon at berlinrosen.com, (703) 899 3206
Carol Van Strum, cvstrum at gmail.com
*The Poison Papers Expose Decades of Collusion between Industry and
Regulators over Hazardous Pesticides and Other Chemicals*

*Watchdog Groups Digitize and Release 20,000 Documents*
*for Public Review*

The Bioscience Resource Project and the Center for Media and Democracy
today are releasing a trove of rediscovered and newly digitized chemical
industry and regulatory agency documents stretching back to the 1920s.  The
documents are available at PoisonPapers.org <https://www.poisonpapers.org/>
.

Together, the papers show that both industry and regulators understood the
extraordinary toxicity of many chemical products and worked together to
conceal this information from the public and the press. These papers will
transform our understanding of the hazards posed by certain chemicals on
the market and the fraudulence of some of the regulatory processes relied
upon to protect human health and the environment.

"These documents represent a tremendous trove of previously hidden or lost
evidence on chemical regulatory activity and chemical safety. What is most
striking about these documents is their heavy focus on the activities of
regulators. Time and time again regulators went to the extreme lengths of
setting up secret committees, deceiving the media and the public, and
covering up evidence of human exposure and human harm. These secret
activities extended and increased human exposure to chemicals they knew to
be toxic," said *Dr. Jonathan Latham, Executive Director of the Bioscience
Resource Project*.

The Poison Papers are a compilation of over 20,000 documents obtained from
federal agencies and chemical manufacturers via open records requests and
public interest litigation. They include scientific studies and summaries
of studies, internal memos and reports, meeting minutes, strategic
discussions, and sworn testimonies.

The majority of these documents have been scanned and digitized for the
first time and represent nearly three tons of material. The regulatory
agency sources of these documents include: the EPA, the USDA Forest
Service, the FDA, the Veterans Administration, and the Department of
Defense. Chemical manufacturers referenced in the documents include: Dow,
Monsanto, DuPont, and Union Carbide, as well as many smaller manufacturers
and the commercial testing companies who worked for them.

The Poison Papers catalogue the secret concerns of industry and regulators
over the hazards of pesticides and other chemicals and their efforts to
conceal those concerns.
Most of the Poison Papers were collected by author and activist Carol Van
Strum.

"In total, the stark truth revealed by these 50 years of documents is that
the entire pesticide industry could not exist without lies, coverups,
rampant fraud, and government enablers," said *Van Strum, who authored the
1983 book “Bitter Fog: Herbicides and Human Rights.”
<https://www.amazon.com/Bitter-Fog-Herbicides-Human-Rights-ebook/dp/B00PZGSXAI/ref=la_B001KIJEFI_1_1_twi_kin_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1501001060&sr=1-1>*

Corporate concealment is not a new story.  What is novel in the Poison
Papers is the abundant evidence that EPA and other regulators were often
knowing participants or even primary instigators of these cover-ups. These
regulators failed to inform the public of the hazards of dioxins and other
chemicals; of evidence of fraudulent independent testing; and of widespread
human exposure. The papers thus reveal, in the often-incriminating words of
the participants themselves, an elaborate universe of deception and deceit
surrounding many pesticides and synthetic chemicals.

The chemicals most often discussed in the documents include dioxins,
herbicides and pesticides (such as 2,4-D, Dicamba, Permethrin, Atrazine,
and Agent Orange) and PCBs. Some of these chemicals are among the most
toxic and persistent ever manufactured. Except for PCBs, almost every
chemical discussed in the Poison Papers is still manufactured and sold
today, either as products or as product contaminants.

“The Poison Papers will be a tremendous resource for researchers, the
media, and everyday Americans worried about many of the chemicals used on
farm fields and in common consumer products,” said *Mary Bottari of the
Center for Media and Democracy*.

*EXPLORE:* Some of the 20,000+ documents in this repository have surfaced
over the years. Many have never been seen online or publicly written about.
The Poison Papers therefore offer a unique opportunity for researchers, the
public and the media to discover much more about what was known about
chemical toxicity, when, and by whom.

*ACCESS:* You can access the papers at PoisonPapers.org
<https://www.poisonpapers.org/>. Important instructions on how best to
search these old documents are also available here
<http://www.poisonpapers.org/assets/uploads/2017/07/DocumentCloud-Tutorial.pdf>
 and on the website.

*Poison Papers Reveal:*

*Secrecy *— They disclose EPA meeting minutes of a secret high-level
dioxins working group that admitted dioxins are extraordinarily poisonous
chemicals. Internal minutes contradict the agency's longstanding refusal to
regulate dioxins or set legal limits.

*Collusion *— They demonstrate EPA collusion with the pulp and paper
industry to “suppress, modify, or delay” the results of the
congressionally-mandated National Dioxin Study, which found high levels of
dioxins in everyday products, such as baby diapers and coffee filters, as
well as pulp and paper mill effluents.

*Deception *— They provide important new data on the infamous Industrial
Bio-Test (IBT) scandal. By the late 1970s, it was known that more than 800
safety studies performed by IBT on 140 chemicals produced by 38 chemical
manufacturers were nonexistent, fraudulent, or invalid. The Poison Papers,
however, show that EPA and its Canadian counterpart, the Health Protection
Branch (HPB), colluded with pesticide manufacturers, to keep invalidly
registered products on the market and covered up massive problems with many
IBT tests.

*Cover-up *— The papers also show that EPA staff had evidence that this IBT
scandal involved more independent testing companies and more products than
ever officially acknowledged.

*Concealment *—Show that EPA concealed and falsely its own studies finding
high levels of dioxin - 2,3,7,8-TCDD - in environmental samples and human
breast milk following routine use of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T (Agent Orange) by
the federal Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.

*Intent *— Show that Monsanto chief medical officer George Roush admitted
under oath to knowing that Monsanto studies into the health effects of
dioxins on workers were written up untruthfully for the scientific
literature such as to obscure health effects. These fraudulent studies were
heavily relied upon by EPA to avoid regulating dioxins. They also were
relied upon to defend manufacturers in lawsuits brought by veterans
claiming damages from exposure to Agent Orange.

Links to the above documents and more can be found on the website here.
<https://www.poisonpapers.org/the-poison-papers/>

The mission of The Bioscience Resource Project
<https://bioscienceresource.org/> is to provide the highest quality
scientific information and analysis to enable a healthy food system and a
healthy world. The Bioscience Resource Project is an educational nonprofit
based in Ithaca New York, USA. It is the publisher of Independent Science
News.

The Center for Media and Democracy
<http://www.exposedbycmd.org/about-cmd/> (CMD)
is a public interest watchdog group based in Madison, Wisconsin. CMD is the
publisher of the websitesExposedbyCMD.org, ALECexposed.org, PRwatch.org and
Sourcewatch.org.

###

*Cara Newlon*

O. 646.693.8205

C. 703.899.3206

*Cara.Newlon at berlinrosen.com <Cara.Newlon at berlinrosen.com>*

*berlin**rosen*
New York • Washington D.C. *• *Los Angeles
berlinrosen.com
@berlinrosen

Jonathan Latham, PhD
Executive Director
The Bioscience Resource Project
Ithaca, NY 14850 USA

www.independentsciencenews.org
and
www.bioscienceresource.org

jrlatham at bioscienceresource.org
Skype: jonathanlatham2
Tel: 1-607-319-0279

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits
and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic
society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society
constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of
our country.”—Edward Bernays, Propaganda

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