Lead Wars

May 15, 2013

When there is scientific consensus that even low levels of a toxin in children's blood will cause lasting damage, are there valid reasons to stop short of eliminating that threat? Using the decades-long conflict over lead in the environment, Markowitz (history, John Jay Coll. CUNY) and Rosner (public health & history, Columbia Univ.), coauthors of Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution, explore the complexity of that question. Beginning with an appeal court's decision that Johns Hopkins University researchers violated their ethical obligation to children in their study of varying levels of lead paint abatement in homes, the book traces the evolution of the widespread scientific condemnation of environmental lead, as well as the parallel efforts by the lead industry to question that science and regulatory changes. Antiregulatory policies put into place in the 1980s and court decisions that upheld the industry's denial of liability have left thousands of families living in homes containing lead paint. The authors compare the industry's obfuscating tactics to those used by the tobacco industry and anticlimate-change forces, both of which leave many children (and society at large) at risk in the service of economic concerns. VERDICT Thoroughly researched and clearly written, this book does an excellent job of illustrating the problem society encounters when science and industry face off over likely harm versus economic benefit.--Richard Maxwell, Porter Adventist Hosp. Lib., Denver

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