In case you have any illusions about Al Gore's principles when it comes to protecting the public from corporate chemical predation, pick up and read Toxic Deception: How the Chemical Industry Manipulates Science, Bends the Law, and Endangers Your Health by Dan Fagin, Marianne Lavelle and the Center for Public Integrity (Common Courage Press, 1999). The book, first published in 1997, has a new afterword, starring Al Gore. In 1996, Congress amended the federal pesticides laws with something called the Food Quality Protection Act. It was an election year, and the Republicans wanted to pass something that made them look a touch Green. To spur them on, new studies emerged linking legal but toxic chemicals to childhood illnesses and hormone disrupting effects. The law called on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to review all of its regulated pesticides and take a fresh look at whether or not those products have hormone-disrupting effects and whether they pose a special risk to children. Immediately after the law was passed, the chemical industry, led by the Chemical Manufacturers Association and the American Crop Protection Association (those good folks at the pesticide companies who bring you the news on National "Public" Radio (NPR)), started whipping up anti-EPA sentiment among farmers and small businessmen, and their legion of lawyers and lobbyists began working pulling strings in Washington. But in early 1998, a rumor began to spread in Washington that the EPA was moving to restrict many of the organophosphate pesticides -- perhaps including the wildly popular household insecticide chlorphyrifos (Dursban) -- because of the risks they posed to children. The industry cranked up its public relations machinery into high gear. "The American Crop Protection Association used their web site and direct mail to get thousands of farmers to write in to the EPA, and if farmers didn't really know what to say in their letters, well the pesticide industry was happy to supply the wording and to mail the letters, too," Fagin, the environment reporter for Newsday, told us recently. Two farm belt Democrats -- Charles Stenholm of Texas and Marion Berry of Arkansas -- visited Vice President Gore to warn that he would face a tough time in important farm states like Iowa, Texas, Florida and California in the 2000 elections if the EPA moved against the organophosphate pesticides it was considering banning. "Soon after this visit, and after a lot of lobbying pressure from the industry, Gore directly ordered the EPA to slow down its implementation of these tougher pesticide standards that were required by the FQPA," Fagin told us. "He also told the EPA to make a special effort to consider the needs of agribusiness and the views of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A new advisory committee, which included many of the key chemical manufacturers and their consultants, was set up to review implementation of the new law. That committee is still meeting, and the EPA still hasn't moved against organophosphates." The guts of Toxic Deception shows that Al Gore is not exceptional in his tendency to kowtow to the industry -- he's just part of a system of lawmaking and policing that has been overwhelmed by a powerful industry that has no match in Washington. The authors looked at four heavily regulated chemicals -- alachlor, atrazine, formaldehyde and perchloroethylene. They found that studies of these chemicals funded by the chemical industry tended to find the chemicals innocent, while studies financed by non-industry sources tended to find the four chemicals to be dangerous to human health. The authors reviewed 161 studies of the chemicals on file at the National Library of Medicine and found that of 43 industry- funded studies, only six returned results unfavorable to the chemicals. But in the 118 studies conducted by non-industry researchers, 71 were unfavorable. The chemical companies are required by federal law to make any scientific findings available to the government if a chemical already on the market is found to pose a "substantial risk of injury to health or to the environment." The authors found that the industry frequently acted in "bad faith" in this regard. In 1991 and 1992, when the EPA offered amnesty from big-money fines to any manufacturer that turned in health studies they should have provided under the law earlier, manufacturers suddenly turned over more than 10,000 studies showing that their products already on the market pose a substantial risk, the authors reported. Toxic Deception is also highly critical of the revolving door between the EPA and the chemical industry. Of the 344 lobbyists and lawyers identified as having worked from 1990 to 1995 for the chemical companies and trade associations, at least 135 came from federal departments or agencies or congressional offices. In Washington, the chemical industry sets the agenda and has overpowered the nation's system of safeguarding the public health. The public be damned. Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor. They are authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Common Courage Press, 1999) -- see www.corporatepredators.org. (c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman Focus on the Corporation is a weekly column written by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman. 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