Synthetic Chemicals and Bill Moyers

Ronald Bailey | March 28, 2001

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The plain fact is that overall cancer incidence rates and, more to the point, cancer mortality rates in the United States have been falling for about a decade. (See "What Cancer Epidemic?")

As the chemical revolution has unfolded, average American life expectancy has also been increasing. This is not to say that exposure to synthetic chemicals, especially workplace exposures, don't sometimes harm people. But they are not a major cause of death in the United States. The American Institute for Cancer Research estimates that "[e]xposure to all manufactured chemicals in air, water, soil and food is believed to cause less than 1% of all cancers."

In the documentary, Dr. Philip Landrigan, a long-time activist with Physicians for Social Responsibility, tells Moyers, "I think the most fundamental lesson is that we have to presume chemicals are guilty until they're proven innocent." However, if cancer rates are the evidence, then it is not unreasonable to conclude that the modern chemical revolution has produced largely innocent substances.

Indeed, on the other side the ledger, one also ought to consider the number of lives that have been saved by the products made from synthetic chemicals. This includes people who would have died from tainted food if there had been no plastic wrap to keep foods fresh and safe from bacteria; those who were saved by automobile air bags; those saved by disposable sterile plastic syringes, blood bags, and medical tubing; and those not injured because solvents, soaps, and foods were stored in unbreakable plastic bottles and containers.

Corporate executives should not be allowed to get away with withholding relevant information about safety and health from their workers--and they should definitely suffer severe legal consequences if they try to do so. Bill Moyers certainly fingered some bad actors in the chemical industry from many years ago, but in the end, he simply cannot show that the health of Americans is at significant risk because of synthetic chemicals.