Documents Rosner, David 6 results

"Deceit and Denial details the attempts by the chemical and lead industries to deceive Americans about the dangers that their deadly products present to workers, the public, and consumers. Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner pursued evidence steadily and relentlessly, interviewed the important players, investigated untapped sources, and uncovered a bruising story of cynical and cruel disregard for health and human rights. This resulting exposé is full of startling revelations, provocative arguments, and disturbing conclusions--all based on remarkable research and information gleaned from secret industry documents.
This book reveals for the first time the public relations campaign that the lead industry undertook to convince Americans to use its deadly product to paint walls, toys, furniture, and other objects in America's homes, despite a wealth of information that children were at risk for serious brain damage and death from ingesting this poison. This book highlights the immediate dangers ordinary citizens face because of the relentless failure of industrial polluters to warn, inform, and protect their workers and neighbors. It offers a historical analysis of how corporate control over scientific research has undermined the process of proving the links between toxic chemicals and disease. The authors also describe the wisdom, courage, and determination of workers and community members who continue to voice their concerns in spite of vicious opposition. Readable, ground-breaking, and revelatory, Deceit and Denial provides crucial answers to questions of dangerous environmental degradation, escalating corporate greed, and governmental disregard for its citizens' safety and health.
After eleven years, Markowitz and Rosner update their work with a new epilogue that outlines the attempts these industries have made to undermine and create doubt about the accuracy of the information in this book."

"During the past 2 decades, a growing number of manslaughter and even murder charges have been brought against employers in cases involving the death of workers on the job. In this commentary, the author reviews some of these recent cases and looks at other periods in American history when workers' deaths were considered a form of homicide. He examines the social forces that shape how we define a worker's death: as an accidental, chance occurrence for which no individual is responsible, or as a predictable result of gross indifference to human life for which management bears criminal responsibility. He asks whether there is a parallel between the conditions of 19th-century laissez-faire capitalism that led to popular movements promoting workplace safety and the move in recent decades toward deregulation and fewer restraints on industry that has led state and local prosecutors to criminalize some workplace accidents. Despite an increased federal presence, the activities of state and local district attorneys perhaps signal a redefinition of the popular understanding of employers' responsibility in maintaining a safe workplace. "

"During the Depression, silicosis, an industrial lung disease, emerged as a national social crisis. Experts estimated that hundreds of thousands of workers were at risk of disease, disability, and death by inhaling silica in mines, foundries, and quarries. By the 1950s, however, silicosis was nearly forgotten by the media and health professionals. Asking what makes a health threat a public issue, David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz examine how a culture defines disease and how disease itself is understood at different moments in history. They also consider who should assume responsibility for occupational disease."

"Les risques environnementaux et professionnels préoccupent de plus en plus les pays industrialisés soumis, vieillissement des populations aidant, à l'aggravation du fléau des maladies chroniques.Aux États-Unis,la responsabilité de ces formes nouvelles d'exposition aux produits toxiques se juge devant les tribunaux. Ces dernières années, la question de savoir à quel moment les entreprises,chimiques ou autres,ont eu connaissance de la nocivité de leurs produits,a mené les jurys à solliciter les historiens.Certains ont mis leur expertise au service de l'industrie dans les procès intentés par les ouvriers ou les consommateurs de tabac, de plomb ou d'amiante. D'autres ont au contraire témoigné au profit des plaignants, à commencer par les auteurs du présent article qui retracent leur expérience dans des affaires liées à l'exposition d'enfants ou d'ouvriers à la silice, au plomb et aux plastiques. Ils analysent la réaction des entreprises mais aussi des autres historiens à leur implication dans ces procès.Ils s'efforcent de déterminer le rôle possible des historiens au prétoire,et comment articuler leur éthos professionnel avec l'argumentaire juridique."