The Poison Papers became news today with the publication of Sharon Lerner’s interview with Carol Van Strum in The Intercept.
Depicts Carol Van Strum’s long history of collecting and working with crucial documents exposing human and environmental health hazards. This excellent article nevertheless only skims the surface of some of the important documents contained in the Poison Papers collection.
“Along the way, she amassed disturbing evidence about the dangers of industrial chemicals — and the practices of the companies that make them. Two documents, for instance, detailed experiments that Dow contracted a University of Pennsylvania dermatologist to conduct on prisoners in the 1960s to show the effects of TCDD, a particularly toxic contaminant found in 2,4,5-T. Another document, from 1985, showed that Monsanto had sold a chemical that was tainted with TCDD to the makers of Lysol, who, apparently unaware of its toxicity, used it as an ingredient in their disinfectant spray for 23 years. Yet another, from 1990, detailed the EPA policy of allowing the use of hazardous waste as inert ingredients in pesticides and other products under certain circumstances.”
To read the full article “100, 000 Pages of Chemical Industry Secrets Gathered Dust in an Oregon Barn for Decades — Until Now” by Sharon Lerner in The Intercept (July 26, 2017) go to: https://theintercept.com/2017/07/26/chemical-industry-herbicide-poison-papers/