In an interview with Executive Report, a business publication, Ketchum president Paul Alvarez explained further. “We routinely envision worst-case circumstances for our clients. That’s our job,” he said. “In the case of Clorox, we knew Greenpeace was very hot on the whole chlorine issue and we were concerned—as was the client—that Clorox, which doesn’t use chlorine, might be a mistaken target.”3
In fact, Clorox does use chlorine—specifically, sodium hypochlorite, a chlorine-based chemical that is widely used as a bleaching compound and disinfectant. What Alvarez probably meant to say is that sodium hypochlorite is generally regarded as safe for the environment. Even Greenpeace, which has campaigned heavily for a phase-out of all industrial uses of elemental chlorine, regards household bleach as a low-priority concern.4
Ketchum may indeed have been just doing its job. It is ironic, however, that many PR firms are willing to “envision worst-case circumstances for our clients” while working assiduously to prevent the public from envisioning worst-case scenarios that may affect human health and the environment. Nowhere is this more clear than in the high-stakes PR battle over organochlorines—the class of chlorine-based chemicals that Greenpeace does oppose. Environmentalists and public health advocates believe organochlorines threaten us with everything from cancer to sterility and birth defects. For more than a decade, however, the chemical industry—working through a variety of trade associations, including the Chemical Manufacturers Association, the Chlorine Institute, the Chlorine Chemistry Council, the Vinyl Institute, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—has been working to persuade the public and government policymakers that there is no threat at all.
The two sides in this debate both have access to the same scientific information, although they interpret it differently. Fundamentally, however, the difference between the two sides does not revolve around science. It revolves around a concept known as the “precautionary principle.”
Looking Before Leaping
Most of us learned some version of the precautionary principle as children. Our parents taught us to look both ways before crossing the street and admonished us that we were “better safe than sorry.” As a guideline for social and environmental policy, the precautionary principle has emerged in recent years as an expression of the growing realization that human technological advances have made it possible to do previously unimaginable damage to human health and the environment. With new power comes new responsibility, and the precautionary principle aims to anticipate and prevent potential disasters before they occur.
The principle has been formulated in various ways. “When there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation,” stated the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit Conference in Rio de Janeiro. Versions of the precautionary principle have been incorporated into several international treaties, including the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, and it has been enacted into law on a Europe-wide basis in a treaty that states, “Community policy on the environment . . . shall be based on the precautionary principle and on principles that preventive action should be taken, that environmental damage should as a priority be rectified at source and that the polluter should pay.” In January 1998, an international panel of scientists, grassroots environmental activists, government researchers, and labor representatives from the United States, Canada, and Europe formulated the “Wingspread Statement on the Precautionary Principle,” which defined the principle as follows: “When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause-and-effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.”
“To foresee and forestall is the basis of the precautionary principle,” explain Carolyn Raffensperger and Joel Tickner in their book, Protecting Public Health and the Environment. “It is the central theme for environmental and public health rooted in the elemental concepts of ‘first do no harm’ and ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.’ . . . Scientific uncertainty about harm is the fulcrum for this principle. Modern-day problems that cover vast expanses of time and space are difficult to assess with existing scientific tools. Accordingly, we can never know with certainty whether a particular activity will cause harm. But we can rely on observation and good sense to foresee and forestall damage.”5
The reason that scientific uncertainty is the fulcrum for the precautionary principle is that the harm associated with technological innovations is often impossible to prove at the time the new technology is introduced. When DDT was discovered, for example, it was considered a safe alternative to toxic metallic compounds then in use. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were also considered extraordinarily safe when they were introduced for use as coolants in refrigerators, and remained in use for decades before scientists discovered their destructive effect on the earth’s ozone layer. There was a scientific basis for concerns about leaded gasoline at the time of its introduction, but no irrefutable scientific proof. In each of these cases, waiting for proof to appear meant that action was not taken until serious damage to health and the environment had already occurred. Amassing unambiguous proof is a long and costly process, particularly after a product is in widespread use and industries have a vested interest in defending it. The idea behind the precautionary principle is that a lack of conclusive scientific evidence should not be used as an excuse for failing to take measures to protect human health and the environment.
Of course, like any guideline the precautionary principle can be abused. “One problem is that the precautionary principle could become a very convenient way to protect domestic industry and agriculture,” observes Jean Halloran of Consumers Union. “Let’s say for example that hothouse tomatoes grown in Holland are cutting significantly into U.S. hothouse tomato sales because the Dutch tomatoes are much more flavorful. The U.S. tomato industry searches around for a scientist-for-hire and finds one who will say that the tomato varieties that happen to do well in Dutch hothouses also have slightly higher levels of a toxic chemical that affected cell reproduction in one lab test done at the scientist-for-hire’s lab. He is also willing to lay out a theory whereby in a worst-case scenario this could suggest reproductive difficulties in 20 percent of the people who eat the Dutch tomatoes for three years or more. U.S. tomato growers demand a ban on imports under the precautionary principle.”
Obviously, some balance needs to be struck between hypothetical scenarios and actual plausible risks. “As a practical matter in these situations, one ends up weighing the scientific uncertainty against the benefits,” Halloran says. “In the case of bovine growth hormone, with zero benefits to consumers, there’s no reason to tolerate any risk, no matter how farfetched or small. With a new cancer drug, we’ll tolerate a lot of risk. With beef hormones, we can imagine two different societies coming to different judgments, but we can also imagine the beef industry in one of those societies distorting science to exaggerate or underestimate a risk in order to influence how society ends up feeling.”6
Most people probably think that the precautionary principle is already part of the process of evaluating and approving risky or unfamiliar chemicals, products, and industrial practices. To a casual observer, there might not seem to be a lot of difference between an industry lobbyist who talks of “assessing risks with sound science” versus an environmentalist who talks of “acting to mitigate potential risks before they appear.” In the real world, however, the differences are much greater than mere linguistics. Today’s regulatory system essentially allows anything to be released into nature unless it is proven unsafe by scientific data, which is defined to mean measurable harm. In practice, this means that preventive action is not taken until damage has already been done.
In 1998, for example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture attempted to promulgate standards for “organic agriculture” that would have defined any practi
ce as “organic” provided it did not produce measurable degradation of soil quality. “One of the ways we could document ‘degradation’ to soil quality was measurable damage to earth worms,” says North Dakota organic farmer Frederick Kirschenmann, a member of the National Organic Standards Board. “But every soil scientist working with earth worms and soil quality with whom I have conferred has told me that it sometimes takes years to establish cause-effect relationships between farming practices and earth worm populations. And even then it is almost impossible to document precisely which practice causes the degradation. That means that under this regulatory scheme (i.e., risk assessment) we might have to allow ecologically damaging practices for years because we can’t say no before we can document degradation. This is especially true with respect to soil, since soil scientists are still debating how to measure soil quality, and since soil microbe communities are only now beginning to be understood. . . . It will be years before we will be able to determine which microbes cause which effects in soil and plant systems. And then some years more before we learn how to manage soil to take advantage of this miniature world of ecosystem services—critical to our understanding of organic agriculture. In the meantime, using the risk assessment model, certifiers would not be allowed to prohibit practices we suspect might be harmful to this microbial community, because we can’t yet prove it by establishing the necessary cause-effect data.”7
As Kirschenmann observes, this “risk management” approach runs contrary to the precautionary principle that has historically defined organic agriculture. “We have always operated on the assumption that we did not possess the cleverness to understand the intricate interrelationships of nature’s biological and evolutionary systems,” Kirschenmann says. “Consequently we have no choice but to act with caution. That is why we have always said ‘no’ to exogenous [foreign] materials, unless they were absolutely necessary, and the material had been proven safe, rather than merely not proven unsafe.”8
Adopting the precautionary principle shifts the burden of proof in decisions about whether to adopt new technologies. It prioritizes safety over innovation, and this is precisely why conventional business interests prefer to use risk analysis, which makes it easier to spin rationales in favor of business-as-usual. “In the face of scientific uncertainty, decision-makers who are responsible for the welfare and safety of the public are more frequently choosing what has become known as the precautionary principle,” complains Gregory Bond, corporate director of product responsibility at Dow Chemical. “This approach is being demanded by consumers and the general public, particularly in Europe where the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad Cow Disease) epidemic caused widespread outrage. Application of the precautionary principle has many in industry very concerned, because it is viewed as starting down a ‘slippery slope’ that could result in public policies based on theories, fear, and innuendo rather than sound science.”9
For the chemical industry, the precautionary principle is revolutionary because there are tens of thousands of chemicals that have already been introduced into common use without careful testing for long-term health effects. For the biotechnology industry, the principle is dangerous because thousands of products in development involve genetically modified foods, medical treatments, and other processes that they believe are safe but whose safety cannot be proven except in practice. For the automobile, fossil fuel, and mining industries, the precautionary principle is dangerous because growing evidence of global warming threatens to impose substantial changes on the way they do business. In their eyes, therefore, the slogan “better safe than sorry” means economic disruption, lost profits, and controversy—all because of risks that they are not convinced even exist.
The End of All We Hold Dear
“The precautionary principle holds that a manufacturer must prove that its product does no harm, before it can be marketed,” complains Jack Mongoven, president of the Washington-based public affairs firm of Mongoven, Biscoe & Duchin (MBD). Writing in eco.logic, an anti-environmentalist newsletter, Mongoven warned that “activists want to use this weapon to control the behavior of other Americans . . . [to] revolutionize American thinking about regulation, constitutional law, and government’s role in society. . . . If the type of thinking that underpins the precautionary principle prevails, future historians may refer to the last score of years of the twentieth century as the ‘Death of the Linear Period’ or the ‘Birth of the Holistic Age’ ”—as the end, in other words, of “devotion to logic and the abstract purity, clarity and certainty of Euclid and Aristotle,” which “provided Western civilizations with the basis for scientific learning and its tools for progress.” He warned that corporations need to “take the precautionary principle seriously, and develop a strategy to deal with it. . . . If industry does not participate in the process and ensure that logic and sound science prevail, it will have to live with the consequences, including the kind of fuzzy thinking which brought us the likes of the precautionary principle.”10
Like Gregory Bond, Jack Mongoven views the precautionary principle as a rhetorical ploy that appeals to the general public’s inability to think rationally or grasp the principles of science. “The modern day ‘common knowledge,’ as understood by most Americans, stems not from examination of facts, but from analogy and individual or group intuition,” he complains. Although Mongoven himself is not a scientist, he passes judgment on a variety of scientific issues, invariably reaching conclusions that match the interests of his clients. “Errors in common knowledge abound,” he states, “such as the impact of a 10 percent decrease in the ozone layer, the potential impact of global warming, the impact of manmade as compared to natural toxins, and the impact of acid rain. The unconscionable establishment of public policy based on known error to serve the ends of an individual or group is compounded when the issue involves science, because the average American is ignorant of science and of scientific method.”11
You have probably never heard of Mongoven, Biscoe & Duchin before. It is a company that deliberately maintains a low profile, in keeping with its mission as a sort of ongoing corporate spy operation, expert in providing what it calls “public policy intelligence.” Its company literature describes it as “a public affairs firm specializing in issue management. It helps clients anticipate, cope with and respond to movements for change in public policy which would adversely affect them.”12 MBD is highly secretive about its activities and refuses to name its clients, but an internal company document says they “are almost all members of the Fortune 100, and six are members of the Fortune top 20.”13 Known clients have included Monsanto, DuPont, Philip Morris, Shell Oil, and the Chlorine Chemistry Council, an offshoot of the Chemical Manufacturers Association that was formed in 1993 to combat a growing body of evidence linking chlorine-based chemicals to a wide-ranging series of environmental and health problems.
MBD’s services do not come cheap. Regular clients pay a retainer ranging from $3,500 to $9,000 per month. In addition, it produces special reports on specific organizations, which it sells to its corporate clients for upward of $1,000 per copy. According to MBD literature, the groups it routinely monitors are involved with issues including: “acid rain, animal rights, clean air, clean water, endangered species, environmental groups/movements, greenhouse effect, ozone layer, rainforest, global climate change, . . . superfund, hazardous and toxic wastes, environmental justice, drinking water, risk assessment/sound science, women’s and children’s health, . . . incineration, ocean waste, packaging, disposables, polystyrene, recycling, landfills, waste-to-energy conversion, . . . Eastern European developments, The Green Party (non-US), Greenpeace International, . . . indoor air pollution, dioxin, chlorine, organic farming/sustainable agriculture/[low impact sustainable agriculture], pesticides, . . . multiple chemical sensitivities, endocrine system disruption, . . . biotechnology—all phases, . . . vegetarianism/veganism, . . . oil spills, wetlands.”14
MBD promotional literature boasts that it maintains “extensive
files” on “forces for change,” which “often include activist and public interest groups, churches, unions and/or academia.”15 A typical dossier includes an organization’s historical background, biographical information on key personnel, funding sources, organizational structure and affiliations, publications, and a “characterization” of the organization aimed at identifying potential ways to co-opt or marginalize the organization’s impact on public policy debates.16
To compile this information, MBD tries to get on the mailing list of nonprofit organizations, and its employees read activist newsletters and other publications to keep tabs on controversial issues that may affect its clients. Its field operatives telephone members of the groups they monitor, politely asking detailed questions while doing their best to sound sympathetic to the people they interrogate. They have on occasion misrepresented themselves, claiming falsely to be journalists, friends of friends, or supporters of the groups they monitor.17 Most of the time, however, they simply give very limited information, identifying their company only by its initials and describing MBD euphemistically as a “research group” that works to “resolve contentious public policy issues in a balanced and socially responsible manner.” During the heat of the Monsanto company’s campaign to win FDA approval for genetically engineered recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), for example, MBD operative Kara Ziegler placed information-gathering calls in a single day to rBGH opponents including U.S. senator Russ Feingold; Dr. Michael Hansen of Consumers Union (the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine); and Francis Goodman, a Wisconsin dairy farmer. In June of 1996 another MBD employee, Emily Frieze, phoned environmental activist Paul Orum to ask about activities regarding ethylene glycol, a highly toxic poison used in antifreeze. The call came at a time when ethylene glycol manufacturers were lobbying to have the chemical removed from the government’s Toxic Release Inventory of right-to-know chemicals. In May of 1996, an MBD operative who identified herself as Tanya Calamoneri contacted Ann Hunt, executive director of the Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination (CACC), a Michigan group located near the headquarters of Dow Chemical, the nation’s largest producer of chlorine. Calamoneri wanted information about an upcoming environmental conference that CACC was sponsoring. “I asked which group she represented,” Hunt said. “Her response was ‘MBD,’ which she characterized as a public policy and research consulting group. I later learned that it was Mongoven, Biscoe and Duchin, chief consultants and dirt-diggers for the Chlorine Chemistry Council. . . . It amazes me that the forces of darkness are that interested in what a little grassroots group in central Michigan is doing.”
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