He also accuses us of “seem[ing]” to be “confident that information received early on in vinyl chloride research had a definite implication for human health, within and beyond chemical plants.”(p.4-5) Our point is that the industry itself was worried about the implications for human health to the point that it began to quietly take vinyl monomer out of household aerosols, particularly hairsprays. Further, it did so to avoid “drawing attention to the industrial hygiene aspects of the problem.” [15] This is not our assumption; this is the industry’s concern.
Scranton also alleges that we misrepresent or over generalize about sources. For example, on page 5 Scranton claims that we make a series of statements about the setting of standards of exposure in industry that go undocumented. Yet, when you look at the paragraph you will see that we are then summarizing an argument about how standards in general were developed, citing our own previous work on silica as an example. We say: “Most of the established standards [from the 1930s on] were only vaguely dependent on experimentation and epidemiological study. More often they resulted from bargains struck between industry leaders and public health officials.” This is not a profoundly complicated statement – just a summary of the history of standards. Is he really arguing that experimentation and epidemiological studies were the basis for chemical industry standards in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s? If he is, he is ignorant of the realities of industrial hygiene during that troubled period in American industrial history. Industrial hygiene was an infant discipline and sophisticated epidemiological studies were rarely if ever carried out when establishing thresholds of danger. Often, there was little science as we know it involved at all. Observational and clinical data were used by industry-dominated committees to establish “safe” practices. In addition to our previous work Scranton should consult the literature on standard setting, particularly the work of Robert Proctor and Barry Castleman. [16]
Scranton says that we are guilty of a “failure to follow up research,” giving as an example his belief that we should have tracked down the sources of information for an article in a trade journal published over a quarter century ago. We leave it to the reader to judge his objection: Scranton argues that we “failed to inquire at all about what sources the trade journal [Modern Plastics] used for its article” (Scranton, p.7). Scranton also charges (Scranton, p. 8) that we did not establish that “any firms offered ‘public statements’ that provided information for this article.” The article in Modern Plastics makes clear that such information had been obtained and that the MCA was studying vinyl chloride monomer’s “potential hazards.” The MCA had decided several months earlier (January 30, 1973) that it would release information to the press about its own animal studies but that “the nature of the project is to be referred to as a chronic inhalation study without reference to the question of carcinogenesis.” [17] Scranton can take the reader through all the “twists and turns” he wants but the critical element here is that the industry, after all of its twists and turns planned to avoid telling NIOSH or the public about angiosarcoma of the liver in its animals even after its own membership voiced individual concerns about the morality or legality of such an action. Modern Plastics merely underscores this basic point.
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