Most Sinister Development : Wireless Technology

Asbestos, power-lines and promotable villains

I was once watching an archive interview of Robert Maxwell on television, when Mr. Maxwell made a reference to a man that I was personally acquainted with. This man's family had been friends of my family all my life. When I asked my mother if she was aware that the man we knew had known Robert Maxwell, she responded to the effect that he likely would have, because this man "knew everyone".

Later, unexpectedly, I received a phone call from the wife of the man that Robert Maxwell had referred to in the archive broadcast. She told me that they had indeed known Robert Maxwell, albeit they'd known Betty Maxwell (his wife) better than they'd known him. She told me that her husband had become acquainted with Robert Maxwell (late-1960s, maybe) as he was aware that financial practices that Mr. Maxwell was being criticised for were engaged in by others, who I surmise from what she told me on the phone, were able to carry out their business activities without the sort of negative focus that Mr. Maxwell suffered from.

Is it possible that Robert Maxwell had been used, by business people who were just as 'unethical' as he was, to be a convenient scapegoat, diverting attention away from themselves?

This possible role of Robert Maxwell as a scapegoat within the 'business community', was recalled to my mind when reading a book by Michael Bowker called 'FATAL DECEPTION : The Untold Story of Asbestos - Why It Is Still Legal and Still Killing Us'. Part of the summary of the content of this book on its dust jacket reads:

'..details the gritty struggle for justice in Libby, Montana, site of the most lethal environmental disaster in U.S. history.. also tracks the cover-up that had led to the exposure of more than 100 million Americans to the potentially lethal fibers that still exist in countless homes and in more than a million public buildings and offices... makes the case that the owners of the vermiculite mine in Libby, and the asbestos industry in general, took terrible advantage of employees, who rarely were told of their peril... By establishing the serious threat of asbestos once and for all, Fatal Deception is an urgent appeal to cut our asbestos losses and ban asbestos now...' 

I learnt, to some extent, from reading this book by Michael Bowker how the widespread acceptance of smoking being a serious health problem was used by asbestos profiteers as a cover to prevent the less well-known and understood serious health problem of asbestos from being subject to acknowledgement and investigation:

'...The official cause of death among those who died of lung cancer - even though they smoked and had high asbestos exposures - is nearly always attributed to smoking alone. It is yet another reason asbestos-related deaths are underreported...' [p.118]

'..The wild card - and perhaps the most important ingredient in this witches' brew of concealment - is the fact that illness from asbestos exposure usually takes from ten to fifty years to manifest itself in serious symptoms...

This prolonged time lag from exposure to symptoms enabled the asbestos industry to continue to deny that asbestos was harmful. Years later, when workers and consumers became sick, industry officials blamed it on a host of other factors such as tobacco use or past operational practices...' [p.21]

This excerpt from 'Fatal Deception' refers to the Johns-Manville Company Plant in Manville, New Jersey - which in 1939 was '..the largest producer of asbestos products in America' - specifically, the experience of one of the long-term workers there, Bill Poch and other members of the Poch family:

'Bill and Alice Poch were not as lucky. Bill became chronically ill when he was in his mid-forties, and by age fifty he coughed constantly and struggled to breathe. The company doctors at J-M blamed it on the pipe he sometimes smoked. Alice's sister, who also worked for J-M, got sick with similar symptoms. She did not smoke. Sometimes she and Alice talked and wondered if the ubiquitous dust at the plant had anything to do with the number of people who seemed to have chronic coughs. She died of lung disease less than a decade later..' [p.58]

When Bill Poch retired at the age of sixty-five, with his breathing problems, on going to see a doctor he was diagnosed with mesothelioma. According to his son, also named Bill, he then "..went downhill quickly.. The last time I saw him before he died, he was in an oxygen tent in the hospital. Finally, his lungs just couldn't take in enough air to keep him alive."

Alice Poch died in 1981, of asbestosis. Five years later, Johns-Manville abandoned its Manville site, the factory area of which was, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, one of the most toxic sites in America.

But it was/is not only tobacco that is used by the asbestos industry to keep public attention away from recognising their own responsibility when it comes to the tragic deadly effects of asbestos upon human lives:

'..Headlines in the nation's top business publications - many of which are owned by huge corporations now involved in asbestos litigation - have screamed for the past few years that the total cost of asbestos litigation may reach $200 billion. Typically, they neglect to include the fact that the reason for this is the asbestos industry knowingly exposed more than one hundred million Americans - and the number rises daily - to a substance the industry knew was highly toxic. Rarely is the number of preventable asbestos-related deaths among American workers and consumers included in these articles..

The asbestos industry, including those companies now being threatened.. created a new promotable villain, one that is perhaps the easiest to sell to the American public this side of big tobacco - plaintiff lawyers.

In a flood of articles, press releases and public statements, corporations facing asbestos claims have blamed "greedy" plaintiff lawyers as the reason these lawsuits exist in the first place. They claim plaintiff lawyers represent people who are often not sick and that excessive lawsuits have clogged up the courts and threaten America's very way of doing business. The asbestos victims themselves are rarely criticized because sick people don't usually make effective promotable villains...' [p.269 and 271]      


The use of promotable villains by someone in a position of power and authority, apparently seeking to minimise public concern over concentrated areas of toxic radiation adversely affecting young people and adults, is a feature of Paul Brodeur's book 'THE GREAT POWER-LINE COVER UP : How the Utilities and the Government Are Trying to Hide the Cancer Hazards Posed by Electromagnetic Fields.' Here is a summary of this book's contents:

'..Seven adults and children living on Meadow Street, in Guilford, Connecticut - a street 250 yards long with only nine houses on it - have been struck by cancer during the past few years. Three thousand miles away, children attending the Montecito Union School, in Montecito, California, have developed leukemia and lymphoma at more than fifteen times the expected rate. Fifteen teachers and staff members at Slater Elementary School, in Fresno, California, have developed cancer in recent years. The common factor for all three groups: close proximity to high-current or high-voltage power lines giving off strong magnetic fields.

Tough, hard-hitting, and highly controversial, Paul Brodeur's new book vividly documents tragedies like these all across the nation - and exposes the massive cover-up undertaken by the electric utilities and their government allies...'

A prominent character in the power-line cover up is identified in Paul Brodeur's book as being Dr. Raymond Neutra, chief of the Special Epidemiological Studies Program of the California Department of Health Services. Dr. Neutra had 'issued a second draft report..' in late-May 1990 '..in which it tried to put the best possible face on the situation at Montecito Union School.' There was, then, a final report on the cancer cluster in the school issued December 1990 by Dr. Neutra and his associates.

Referring to a pamphlet written by Dr. Raymond Neutra and three of his colleagues that same year, Paul Brodeur states:

'..Neutra and his colleagues went on to say that, given the scientific information now available, it was not possible to set a standard for exposure to electromagnetic fields or to say that any given level was either safe or dangerous. They advised that "individuals who are concerned may choose to take steps such as moving an electric clock a few feet away from a bedside table or working on their computer key board further away from a screen, or perhaps not using some electrical appliances at all." They had no advice for individuals such as the teachers and parents of children at the Slater Elementary School, who might be concerned because the school was situated very close to a pair of high-voltage transmission lines, which give off stronger fields at greater distances than any appliance, and by subjecting people within their range to long-term exposure, pose a far more serious health risk...'

Dr. Neutra was also cited regarding the health hazard of EMF fields in another pamphlet, issued that year, by San Diego Gas and Electric:

'The pamphlet quoted him as saying that although no one knew for sure if there were any harmful effects from electromagnetic fields, people might wish to reduce their exposure "without causing a lot of trouble to society" by moving their electric clock radios, or maintaining a greater distance from their video display terminals...'

Dr. Raymond Neutra participated in a subcommittee meeting at Slater Elementary School on October 30th 1991, using a speakerphone system. Patricia Berryman was a first-grade long-time teacher at the school, who was concerned by the cancer and various other tumours affecting a lot of people working around her there and the possible power-line partial cause of these health problems.

Paul Brodeur quotes Mrs. Berryman as reporting of the subcommittee meeting:

"The speakerphone hook-up was a disaster. Dr. Neutra's voice kept fading in and out, and we could only hear fragments of the answers he gave to our questions about his draft report on the cancer cluster. During one of the more intelligible segments, he recommended that a man named Karl Riley, who had a magnetic-field measuring firm in Berkeley, come and take readings at Slater. He said that Riley had found and corrected some problems in the fluorescent lighting in his - Dr. Neutra's - office, and that the correction made him feel better about working there..."

It isn't difficult to surmise from reading Paul Brodeur's accounting of the activities of Dr. Raymond Neutra of the California Department of Health Services, that this man might not, in the general run of his work, have had a lot of interest in alerting the public to the localised health hazards associated with the use of computers, electric clocks and certain types of fluorescent lights. Faced as he was, however, with a larger problem of the toxic power-lines, which he seemingly was very keen to minimise people's concerns about - despite strong evidence that their concerns were very much justified - the unhealthy, yet far less problematic fixtures inside people's homes and workplaces were emphasized by Dr. Neutra as promotable villains within this specific operation of a cover-up.