De: envtecsoc-owner@csf.colorado.edu en nombre de J.

Timmons Roberts
[timmons@tulane.edu]
Enviado: Martes, 27 de Marzo de 2001 07:41 p.m.
Para: envtecsoc@csf.colorado.edu
CC: timmons@tulane.edu
Asunto: battle over Moyers Chemical industry show yesterday

Envirosociologists:

I am forwarding four pieces from just before the Moyers show yesterday
"Trade Secrets" on the chemical industry's cover-ups of health effects of
vinyl and other products on workers and communities. If you missed the
show, try to get a copy, it is a sharp, if one-sided, punch at this
industry, as the Houston Chronicle piece at the bottom suggests, and the
industry is fighting back with its webpage
http://www.abouttradesecrets.com. Visit
http://www.pbs.org/tradesecrets
for the tape and lots more details from the show. One excellent section
details the PR campaign of the industry organization (CMA, now renamed ACC
for PR reasons) is at:
http://pbs.org/tradesecrets/evidence/secrecy_pop01.html

Two final notes. EPA official Stephen Johnson, acting assistant

administrator in EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention spoke this month at
the American Chemistry Council/Socma conference in Baltimore (the trade
group Moyers' report blasts), and said EPA "is concerned" that the
documentary "will increase public concern about chemical risks and create a
perception of inadequate regulatory oversight by the agency." (quotes are
from Neil Franz, Chemical Week reporter, March 21,2001, p. 38). He also
reports elsewhere in the same issue that EPA is concerned that "some
chemical companies are late in fulfilling their pledges int he voluntary
testing initiateive for high production volume (HPV) chemicals, which was
launched in 1999 by EPA, Environmental Defense (ED), and industry groups."
(p. 13).

One wonders now which way the regulatory winds will blow.

Timmons Roberts
Tulane

Moyers Blasts Back at Attacks on Trade Secrets Report.

By cbebucket@igc.org

chemical industry attacks on Bill Moyers

By sksnow@worldnet.att.net

TRADE SECRETS: A MOYERS REPORT

By sksnow@worldnet.att.net

------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 08:17:25 -0800

From: Denny Larson <cbebucket@igc.org>
Subject: Moyers Blasts Back at Attacks on Trade Secrets Report.
Bill Moyers Responds to Chemical Industry Attack on Investigative Report
Based On Confidential Industry Documents

'TRADE SECRETS' Premieres on PBS on March 26 From 9-11 P.M.

NEW YORK, March 23 /PRNewswire/ -- ``TRADE SECRETS: A Moyers Report'' is a

two-hour program that lays out an historical record of chemical industry
behavior and devotes 30 minutes, 25% of the broadcast, to a panel discussion
of issues such as what scientists know about the health effects of
chemicals, how fully chemicals are tested before they come to market,
worker safety and whether the public is fully informed about chemicals and
their impact on
personal health.

The portion of the program that lays out the historical record is based on
the industry's own words, preserved in black and white in confidential
industry documents that the public was never supposed to see.

The panel discussion, which will be produced live-to-tape the afternoon of

the program premiere, includes two representatives of the chemical industry,
a representative of the public health sector, and a representative of an
environmental organization.

The chemical industry's trade association, the American Chemistry Council,

has begun a campaign to discredit ``TRADE SECRETS'' before it is broadcast
by
attacking Bill Moyers' professionalism as a journalist and the balance,
accuracy and fairness of the program.

Following is a statement by Bill Moyers to industry attacks, as well as a Q

&
A rebuttal to issues the chemical industry has raised in the media:

Statement by Bill Moyers

``As usual, the chemical industry is misleading the American people and the
press. The American Chemistry Council has known that we designed the
broadcast to include industry representatives. Weeks ago we even provided
the
industry with the very questions to be discussed on the broadcast. When
Terry
Yosie, the industry spokesman, told me that the industry wants to address
issues of worker and product safety and the benefits to society of
chemicals,
I agreed. Mr. Yosie won't tell you that, because Mr. Yosie is trying to
defend the industry against the indefensible record in its own documents.

I consider myself in good company to be attacked by the industry that tried

to smear Rachel Carson when she published ``Silent Spring.'' As its own
documents reveal, this is the industry that kept from its workers the truth
about what was making them sick; that opposes the right of citizens to know
what is polluting their communities; that manipulated its own science to
hide
the hazards of chemicals; that spent millions of dollars to buy political
influence, carve loopholes in environmental law, and create a regulatory
system that it controls. The people who watch 'TRADE SECRETS' will decide
for
themselves who is guilty of malpractice.``
 Q & A about "TRADE SECRETS"

Q. Why didn't Bill Moyers interview representatives of the chemical

industry for "TRADE SECRETS"?

-- He does include industry representatives, in a format that gives

them
an unedited opportunity to present their point of view. Half an
hour,
which is 25% of the program, is devoted to a discussion of issues
raised by facts in the internal industry documents that are the
focus
of the first portion of the program.

-- This discussion provides equal time to chemical industry

representatives as well as others with differing viewpoints
representing the public health sector and environmental
organizations.

-- In the discussion, the industry is invited to offer opinions on such

issues as their assessment of the present state of regulation, the
scientific basis for their confidence that chemicals absorbed by
human
beings have no health consequences in the short term or the long
term,
and their plans for the future to ensure that chemicals they
manufacture pose no threat to the public.

Q. Why weren't industry representatives interviewed for the documentary

portion of the program?

-- The documentary portion of this program lays out historical evidence

about the chemical industry contained in their internal industry
documents spanning a period of almost 50 years.

-- These internal industry documents are a fact. They exist. They are
not
a matter of opinion or a point of view. The documents state what the
industry knew, when they knew it and what they decided to do.

-- In the documentary portion of the program, the chemical industry is

represented by these documents, which describe the industry's
decisions -- in their own words in black and white and on paper --
about how they will behave.

-- The interviews in this portion of the program focus on determining

if
the information contained in the chemical industry's documents was
revealed at the time to company employees, governmental regulators,
citizens concerned about environmental pollution, or the general
public.

Q. The chemical industry has stated "TRADE SECRETS" can not be

balanced,
accurate or fair because they were not given the opportunity to
present their side of the story.

-- Bill Moyers has a different view. Regarding accuracy, every fact in

 "TRADE SECRETS" has been scrupulously sourced. There is no question
of
accuracy in the presentation of the documents because we have made
them available for all to see. The viewer doesn't have to wonder if
excerpts from these internal documents were perhaps unfairly taken
out
of context during the program. The full text of every document
referenced in "TRADE SECRETS" will be available for all to read on
the
"TRADE SECRETS" Web site on PBS.org. Nothing could be more fair.

-- The program is balanced in broadly framing the chemical industry.

The
program plainly states that chemicals have improved many aspects of
our contemporary lifestyle. The documentary does not question the
positive aspects of the chemical revolution of the last fifty years,
and acknowledges them.

-- As the documents reveal, the chemical industry has invested millions

of dollars trying to dominate public perception as well as the
regulatory process. This program is making information available to
the public that has been deliberately and consciously withheld.
Attacking the journalism in "TRADE SECRETS" is a strategy to
discredit
the content so that their own viewpoint can dominate public
perception.

Additional information on ``TRADE SECRETS'' is available on PBS PressRoom at

pbs.org/pressroom.

SOURCE: Kelly & Salerno Communications

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 13:30:47 -0600

From: Bunny Snow <sksnow@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: chemical industry attacks on Bill Moyers

Chemical industry attacks on Bill Moyers became public during the week
of 18 March in anticipation of the airing of Trade Secrets on 26 March
at 9pm on PBS nationwide. This investigative special by Moyers reveals
decades of corruption of science and politics by companies, trade
associations and PR firms defending the chemical industry.

a summary plus relevant links at

http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/New/newstuff.htm#moyersattacked

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 14:34:09 -0600

From: Bunny Snow <sksnow@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: TRADE SECRETS: A MOYERS REPORT

This is long, but tucked away in Bill Moyers speech to the National
Press Club, which was aired on C-Span, are some excerpts of what we'll
see Monday, March 26. This speech, at the following URL, is brought to
us by the great research of authors of the OUR STOLEN FUTURE at their
home page web site
http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/New/newstuff.htm#moyersattacked

http://www.pbs.org/pressroom/2001/spring/tradesecrets/speech.htm
Moyers National Press Club Speech

------------------------------

!end

End of la-envirotel@igc.topica.com digest, issue 460

HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section:

Television

March 23, 2001, 11:28PM

Bill Moyers tackles industry head-on in Trade Secrets

By ANN HODGES
Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle

Bill Moyers' new PBS special has all the elements of a blood feud, and
Moyers takes a blood
test to prove it.

He was tested for 150 industrial chemicals, and when he learns there are
84 of them running
around in his bloodstream, he goes for blood.

His paper trail of "trade secrets" ends at the doorstep of the chemical
industry. And it is not a
happy ending for the big-name chemical producers. Moyers hits them on
two fronts: secrecy
and politics.

Trade Secrets (9 p.m. Monday, Channel 8) is a provocative, single-sided

attack against an
industry that for 50 years, Moyers charges, has covered up dire
consequences of working and
living with an ever-growing list of synthetic chemicals. The companies
have "compromised
the public's right to know about the health and safety of man-made
chemicals in the human
body," he says.

Their chemicals "are everywhere in our daily lives, and our children are
the experimental
animals," he says. "Chemicals are presumed to be safe and to be innocent
until they are
proven guilty."

The host and co-writer of this report (with producer Sherry Jones)
promises to "reveal the
secrets a powerful industry has kept hidden for almost 50 years." That
done, Moyers moves
on to the political strategy that has accounted for what he totes up as
$33 million in
campaign-fund donations from the chemical industry in the past three
years.

Chemical industry spokesmen say Moyers never contacted them to get their
side. They have
set up a new Web site -- AboutTradeSecrets.com -- "to provide
information about the safety
and benefits of the products of chemistry and the safety net currently
in place to protect
chemical workers, the public and the environment."

The site, sponsored by the American Chemistry Council, the Chlorine

Chemistry Council and
the American Crop Protection Association, includes the industry's
correspondence about the
program with Moyers and PBS.

Moyers gave his reason for not having them on this controversial show:
"The chemical
industry has a track record of very aggressive public relations to sway
opinion and mute
investigative journalism."

Instead, he said, he has invited industry representatives to join health

experts in the last 30
minutes of this 90-minute program. That is still to be taped, and it
will run unedited.

Moyers and Jones found these "trade secrets" close to our home -- in the
300-mile stretch of
Texas/Louisiana coast that is the largest petrochemical complex in the
world. "Many who live
here call it Cancer Alley," Moyers reports.

Dan Ross worked for 23 years at Conoco's plant in Lake Charles, La.,
before he died of
brain cancer at 46. His death, Moyers explains, resulted in a 10-year
legal battle charging a
conspiracy of the chemical industry and its Washington trade association
to conceal the risks
of working with the chemical that Ross' wife believes caused his cancer.
She's interviewed
here.

Through that case, Ross' lawyer acquired rooms full of boxed-up papers
and correspondence
from the records of major chemical companies. Moyers surveys this cache
that spans the past
50 years and says, "In these rooms is the legacy of Dan Ross, the
secrets of the chemical
industry."

Moyers shows excerpts from those records to make his case that industry
officials knew there
were health hazards and even discussed what to do about them. What they
did not do was tell
workers the dangers they faced working, he says.

He recites case after case of serious health problems, and some come
with interviews of the
workers. Bernard Skaggs worked at B.F. Goodrich's plant in Kentucky for
47 years, and his
job of cleaning out vinyl chloride tanks dissolved some of the bones in
his fingers. Company
correspondence indicates they feared that vinyl chloride might cause
systemic problems, but
they didn't tell the workers.

In the '70s, European scientists found that vinyl chloride caused cancer
in rats and might
possibly be taken to the human brain in body fats. "Determined to keep
it secret," Moyers
reports, Conoco, B.F. Goodrich, Shell, Dow Chemical and Union Carbide
signed a secrecy
agreement about their findings.

Vinyl chloride in aerosol sprays put hazards in hair salons or just

about anywhere spray cans
were used, but the chemical industry gave up the aerosol business
"because the liability was
so great," Moyers says, "and it never went public with why."

In more recent years, there have been problems with toxic wastes;
abandoned chemical
dumps; contaminated wells; PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyl) in lakes,
rivers and even cow's
milk; and benzene scares, Moyers reports.

In his own alarming judgment, "Half a century into the chemical

revolution, there's a lot we
don't know, but we do know" that incidences of breast cancer, brain
cancer in children,
testicular cancer in teen-age boys, infertility in young adults and
learning disabilities in children
are all rising.

In Trade Secrets, Moyers draws battle lines, and the first salvo is his.
Stay tuned for the open
discussion that is scheduled to end this shocking smack-down from the
best investigative
journalist in TV today.
Trade Secrets, 9 Monday on PBS/Channel 8. Grade: A.

--
Timmons Roberts
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Program in Latin American
Studies
Director of Environmental Studies
Tulane University, New Orleans Louisiana 70118 USA
tel: 504-862-3008; FAX 504-865-5544; Email: timmons@tulane.edu

disclaimer: the views above are those of the author and not of the institution.