Here's a short memo signed by Lawrence Summers when he was Chief Economist at the World Bank in 1991. After this position, he became US Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, US Secretary of the Treasury, and then President of Harvard University.
From the record of a congressional hearing at finance.senate.gov (h/t Wikipedia):
DATE: December 12, 1991
TO: Distribution
FR: Lawrence H. Summers
Subject: GEP
'Dirty' Industries: Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Least Developed Countries]? I can think of three reasons:
1) The measurements of the costs of health impairing pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view a given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.
2) The costs of pollution are likely to be non-linear as the initial increments of pollution probably have very low cost. I've always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City. Only the lamentable facts that so much pollution is generated by non-tradable industries (transport, electrical generation) and that the unit transport costs of solid waste are so high prevent world welfare enhancing trade in air pollution and waste.
3) The demand for a clean environment for aesthetic and health reasons is likely to have very high income elasticity. The concern over an agent that causes a one in a million change in the odds of prostrate[sic] cancer is obviously going to be much higher in a country where people survive to get prostrate[sic] cancer than in a country where under 5 mortality is 200 per thousand. Also, much of the concern over industrial atmosphere discharge is about visibility impairing particulates. These discharges may have very little direct health impact. Clearly trade in goods that embody aesthetic pollution concerns could be welfare enhancing. While production is mobile the consumption of pretty air is a non-tradable.
The problem with the arguments against all of these proposals for more pollution in LDCs (intrinsic rights to certain goods, moral reasons, social concerns, lack of adequate markets, etc.) could be turned around and used more or less effectively against every Bank proposal for liberalization.So the head economist of the World Bank and future US Secretary of the Treasury thinks it's ok to send America's toxic waste to poorer countries, many the victims of past and present US wars or coups, because their resulting sickness, disability, and death costs less than it does in the US, where the waste was produced and where the people enjoyed the benefit of whatever process resulted in the waste.
When people talk about the banality of evil, this is pretty much what it looks like - Summers is no storybook villain, obviously obsessed with evil for evil's sake or for suffering's sake. He simply operates in a paradigm that values money over life, and he and others like him manage international affairs. Even if you don't care about the Africans or South Americans that received all those toxins, understand that this process happens inside the US too, and explains why poor neighborhoods are often more polluted than wealthier ones, and why even well-off neighborhoods are seeing terrible costs from i.e. fracking. And Summers was Secretary of the Treasury under the Democratic Clinton, supposedly the party that cares more about the environment, human rights, etc.
Another example of framing, this time from an article in the Guardian: Toiletry chemicals linked to testicular cancer and male infertility cost EU millions, report says: (h/t NakedCapitalism):
The hormone-mimicking chemicals used routinely in toiletries, cosmetics, medicines, plastics and pesticides cause hundreds of millions of euros of damage to EU citizens every year, according to the first estimate of their economic impact.
The endocrine disruptor compounds (EDCs) are thought to be particularly harmful to male reproductive health and can cause testicular cancer, infertility, deformation of the penis and undescended testicles.
The new report, from the Nordic Council of Ministers, focuses on the costs of these on health and the ability to work but warns that they “only represent a fraction of the endocrine-related diseases” and does not consider damage to wildlife. Another new study, published in a medical journal, showed an EDC found in anti-perspirants reduced male fertility by 30%.
The Nordic Council, representing the governments of governments of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, is demanding the European Union speeds up its plan to identify, assess and ban harmful EDCs. Sweden is already taking legal action against the EU over its missed deadlines, which it blamed on lobbying by the European chemical industry.
“I am not happy that taxpayers have to pay for the damage caused by EDCs, while industry saves money by not investigating their chemicals properly,” said Danish environment minister Kirsten Brosbøl on publication of the new report.
Michael Warhurst, of campaign group Chem Trust, said: “Companies should focus on developing and producing products that don’t contain hormone disruptors and other problem chemicals. This will give them a competitive advantage as controls on these chemicals become stricter around the world – and as consumers become more aware of this issue.”
The report, called The Cost of Inaction, uses the extensive health records collected by the Nordic countries to determine the incidence of the male reproductive health problems linked to EDCs and then uses Swedish data to estimate costs. These are extrapolated to the population of the EU’s 28 nations.
The report also assesses the proportion of the health problems attributable to EDCs, with a central estimate of 20%, leading to a conclusion that the male reproductive health problems cost the EU €592m (£470m) a year. The report states: “Minimising exposure to endocrine disruptors will not only remove distress and pain for the persons (and the wildlife) affected, it will also save the society from considerable economic costs.”
The EU, which would be the first authority in the world to regulate EDCs, is currently conducting a public consultation on a scientific method to identify the chemicals, which ends on 16 January. In 2011, the UK and German governments lobbied to EU to restrict the definition of EDCs to only the most potent chemicals, a proposal described as a “loophole” by critics.
Peter Smith, executive director for product stewardship at CEFIC, which represents the European chemical industry, said the Nordic report attribution of health problems to EDCs was “arbitrary”. He said: “The link between exposure to a chemical and an illness has not been shown in many cases. The authors themselves say they have some trouble with causality.”
Smith said the delays to EDC regulation in the EU did not suit the industry. “Nobody is happy with the delays. But we would prefer it to be permanent and right rather than temporary and wrong.” He said case-by-case rigorous assessment was needed and that any precautionary action had to be proportional to the evidence of harm.
However, Professor Andreas Kortenkamp, a human toxicologist at Brunel University London in the UK, said the epidemiological work needed to prove causation is very difficult. For example, he said, analysing links to birth defects would having taken tissue samples from mothers before they gave birth.
“Hard evidence for effects in humans is difficult to demonstrate, though there are some exceptions,” he said. “But there is very good, strong evidence from animal and cell line test systems. The chemical industry only likes to emphasis the first part of that.” He said precaution was the only safe approach and said the Nordic report was good work.
“Industry lobbying has put regulation back by 3-5 years, which was entirely the intention,” said Kortenkamp, who led a 2012 review of EDCs for the EU which found new regulations were needed. “Every year of no regulation means millions of euros to the industry. That is what it is all about.”
In 2012, the World Health Organiation and the UN environment programme published a major report on the state of EDC science, which concluded that communities across the globe were being exposed to EDCs and their associated risks and that urgent research on the health and environmental impacts was needed. Dr Maria Neira, the WHO’s director for public health and environment said at the time: “We all have a responsibility to protect future generations.” Another review in 2012 by the European Environment Agency advised “a precautionary approach to many of these chemicals until their effects are more fully understood.”
What about the framing of the article is interesting?
1) The focus is not on all the men with broken penises. It's not on the couples who can't conceive or the children who grow up with broken bodies. It's on the economic cost. Review this quote:
The report states: “Minimising exposure to endocrine disruptors will not only remove distress and pain for the persons (and the wildlife) affected, it will also save the society from considerable economic costs.”Same with this quote:
“I am not happy that taxpayers have to pay for the damage caused by EDCs, while industry saves money by not investigating their chemicals properly,” said Danish environment minister Kirsten Brosbøl on publication of the new report.I would rather have a minister that cared about the health of my families than the millions in financial costs to 'treat' the problem. And maybe he does but it's not how he's presented in the article. The author totally removes the human aspect of the problem, drenching us in financial bullshit as we continue to live in more and more toxic environments.
2) The author doesn't note that endocrine disruptors have been known problems at least since the 1990s.
3) The author doesn't note how sociopathically evil the chemical industry lobbyist's position is:
He said: “The link between exposure to a chemical and an illness has not been shown in many cases. The authors themselves say they have some trouble with causality.”
Smith said the delays to EDC regulation in the EU did not suit the industry. “Nobody is happy with the delays. But we would prefer it to be permanent and right rather than temporary and wrong.” He said case-by-case rigorous assessment was needed and that any precautionary action had to be proportional to the evidence of harm.
To summarize both the points expressed and the framing that's evident here:
- The chemical industry needs ironclad proof that they're poisoning millions of people before they're willing to stop profiting from it.
- The chemical industry doesn't need to pay for that research itself; others need to do it at great expense
- The chemical industry doesn't share the burden of proof that their products do no harm: instead, outside researchers must prove that their products are toxic.
- The chemical industry doesn't know or deliberately obfuscates what the precautionary principle is: "any precautionary action [has] to be proportional to the evidence of harm": if there's evidence of harm, it's not precautionary action, it's responsive action! Precautionary action would be blocking the use of chemicals until they'd be demonstrated to be safe for you and your family.
- The chemical industry gets to pretend they care about people's health by verbally acknowledging they want regulation, and they're only being reasonable by only wanting 'evidence of harm', when constantly act to delay regulations of any nature and lie about the real effects of their chemicals both with fake scientific studies and PR/lobbying.
4) The author fails to cite past industry efforts at lying about the harm their products cause which would show that they do not speak or act in good faith. For examples, see my post "Useful Resources for Seeing the World as It Is", and skip to the section "Long Term Corporate Disinforation Campaigns" (click the blue box to expand it and see the analyses of these campaigns).
5) The author presents an underlying assumption that all these problems I pointed out above are normal; the author doesn't note anything strange about this debate. It's as if it's perfectly normal for an industry to poison millions for profit until some 3rd party researchers conclusively show that that is indeed what's happening. Note how this framing leaves it to the reader to get upset.
6) There's a sense of 'progress' presented in the article, including the citation of a few recent reports that give the impression that as new information comes to light, it is being actively debated and acted upon. The author ignores the research from 20 years earlier, since he'd have to explain why it has been ignored for so long.
7) The author only notes one defense for the people polluted by the chemical industry. The only 'defense' mechanism cited in the article was for researchers and some elected representatives to complain loudly to regulatory bodies... while people are actively and knowingly being poisoned. We loudly debate whether Zimmerman had the right to kill Treyvon Martin in "proactive self-defense", but we don't loudly debate how we can proactively (or even reactively) protect ourselves from sociopathic corporate leaders.
8) The author only cites researchers, politicians, and lobbyists, not social activists who could give a much more comprehensive and meaningful understanding of past and present chemical industry behavior and research into endocrine disruptors.
9) The author does not give the reader any meaningful ideas as to how to combat the chemical industry: it doesn't link to any social organizations that foster local efforts to ban chemicals or organize meetings other interested locals so that they can link up and strategize face-to-face instead of merely hoping that these remote and unknown institutions magically act in their best interest.
The list could go on, but you get the idea - both the Guardian article and Summer's memo have the unstated but underlying assumption that finance is paramount, and human health matters only insomuch as maintaining it enables increased financial production. The Guardian article is pretty boiler-plate for a regulatory battle. Sadly, such sterile public debates have happened a lot in the last century+, and so this one is quite normal, but that doesn't mean it's not disgustingly unethical and representative of a heavily-suffering human society.
I believe a major source of America's mental health problems are actually due to articles like the Guardian's: we're constantly presented with myriad problems but, at least in the mainstream media, we're not empowered to work with others to truly understand our challenges and respond effectively. Instead, we're constantly made to worry and then hope that others fix things alright. "Lies" are a problem, but the 'framing' like the Guardian's is much more effective at shaping how people act and behave. Being constantly worried and feeling totally helpless would make anyone a nervous wreck after a long enough time.
All writings have framing: we need to ensure we only follow the authors and institutions which present reality in a reasonable, ethical, and empowering manner.
EDIT: For another example of running chemistry experiments on whole populations, here's an example: Study Shows Dramatic Correlation Between GMOs and 22 Diseases.
