Scranton continues to mislead and mis-state right up to the very last page and footnotes. He dismisses our observation that a published article differed substantially from the unpublished report upon which it was based, saying that we do not understand that published results are shorter and more concise than full reports. Our point is that the published report left out the critical pieces of information regarding the relationship between vinyl exposure and disease that had been present in the original report (Scranton, p. 42, footnote 5). We noted that the published article was provided to, and edited by, the chemical industry, which might help explain why the critical pieces of information about the dangers of VCM were left out. He ignores our point, arguing that we are naïve about the length of articles typically published in professional journals and that shorter published papers don’t have every piece of data presented in longer reports. By ignoring our observation about what was, and was not, in the final report, he leaves the reader believing that the critical piece of information was left out in deference to the length of the report and that journal editors, not the industry’s people, made the decision to cut out the critical observation.
Similarly, Scranton (pp. 35, 42) argues, in his text and footnotes, that we are sloppy in our referencing since we supposedly have an inaccurate URL for a transcript of an interview with Terry Yosie, the American Chemistry Council representative speaking on camera in an interview following the airing of the Bill Moyers’ special, “Trade Secrets.” He argues that we inaccurately paraphrase Yosie’s remarks. He says: “[n]othing in [Yosie’s] remarks, reproduced on that transcript, establishes a basis for Markowitz’ assertion that ‘representatives of industry today… claim that the past is irrelevant.’”(p. 42) Here is the exact quote from the last page of the transcript at the url http://www.pbs.org/tradesecrets/transcript.html [33] and we ask the reader to decide whether or not our paraphrase is accurate:
Yosie: “I think you all know that what happened 40 years ago is no reflection of the kind of industry that we represent today.”
Yosie’s statement can easily be read as an attempt to distance today’s industry from its past, to claim that the chemical industry is not the same as it was then. We found the comment of interest since Yosie, (while representing the ACC, the industry’s trade association) also holds a doctorate from Carnegie-Mellon in history. From the beginning to the end, Scranton is guilty of not following through on data, misrepresenting what we say to suit his own purposes, and avoiding unpleasant facts.
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