Because one of the key accusations is that we inadequately and inaccurately document our statements in Deceit and Denial, we will be posting on this site the documents we used in our footnotes for the scholarly community to evaluate. In the meantime, we encourage the reader to visit two other sites where an extensive selection(27,000 pages) of these and other documents about the vinyl chloride story are available: http://www.chemicalindustryarchives.org/search/default.asp?stemming=Yes&cmd=start&request=&i=vinyl&search=GO and http://www.pbs.org/tradesecrets/evidence/evidence.html
--Terry Yosie, Vice-President of the American Chemistry Council [3]
When “Trade Secrets,” Bill Moyers’ award winning special on PBS first aired, we took heart from the Vice President of the American Chemical Council’s apology for what occurred decades ago in the chemical industry. We certainly hoped that the industry of 40 years ago was not “the kind of industry that” the American Chemical Council represents today. But we are given pause by the recent attempts by the chemical industry to interfere with the peer-review process, academic freedom and open debate. As many of you know from the recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, lawyers for the chemical industry have subpoenaed records from the foundation that supported research for and co-published our book, Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution. The industry lawyers also subpoenaed the records of the book’s co-publisher, the University of California Press, and of five of the eight peer reviewers for the press, going so far as to require them to be deposed by industry lawyers. [4] We have yet to hear of similar actions by industry with regard to an academic book. While Mr. Yosie may believe the chemical industry is a very different industry than it was four decades ago, this attempt to stifle the peer review process and to attack our integrity is reminiscent of earlier attempts by the industry to intimidate or destroy the reputations of others who dare challenge it.
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