Common Courage Press
From Agent Orange to Bhopal to Silicone Breast Implants, New Book Chronicles Controversial Legacy of Dow Chemical Company
“Trespass Against Us: Dow Chemical & The Toxic Century”
by Jack Doyle
Released on Wednesday, December 1, 2004
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Notorious for their 1960’s production of the lethal Vietnam War defoliant, Agent Orange, and more recently for acquiring Union Carbide's still-unresolved Bhopal legacy (see below), Dow Chemical today is among the world’s largest chemical manufacturers, and a major source of many of the world’s most toxic compounds, including pesticides, plastics and solvents. Not unlike Enron or Halliburton, Dow’s story is one of corporate power brokering and lack of public accountability.
Trespass Against Us, the groundbreaking new book by investigative writer Jack Doyle, details dozens of cases in which poisonous chemical products and by-products produced by Dow Chemical Company have silently invaded the human body. According to Doyle, this constitutes a grave and unrecognized “toxic trespass” that should be prosecuted as any other type of infringement on property rights. “Personal and public health, human blood and body tissue, reproduction and developmental biology – these are the highest, most personal, most sacrosanct forms of property,” argues Doyle. “Yet chemical companies like Dow are regularly violating – trespassing – on human health and well being.”
The Dow Chemical Company is being targeted in a litany of lawsuits for its “invent first, ask questions later” practice of chemical manufacture and distribution. Public health authorities, including the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), have documented that synthetic chemicals produced by Dow and other manufacturers are now routinely found in human blood and body tissues, including compounds linked to serious disease, cancers, and birth defects.
Among the findings in Trespass Against Us:
- Agent Orange: More than one million people are suffering from health effects related to the U.S. military's use of the dioxin-contaminated chemical warfare agent, Agent Orange, which was used during the Vietnam War. A class action suit is pending against Dow, Monsanto and the other Agent Orange manufacturers for massive related health damages.
- Bhopal: In Bhopal, India, the Dow subsidiary Union Carbide is considered a fugitive from justice in a pending criminal case related to the 1984 pesticide factory explosion that killed thousands and injured a half million people. The abandoned factory and nearby grounds remain highly contaminated and continue to leak poisons into surrounding communities, contributing to cancer and birth defects. Dow is under pressure to clean up the site, and to appear in a Bhopal court to face manslaughter charges. NOTE: the public release of Trespass Against Us coincides with the 20th Anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, for which Dow still accepts no culpability.
- Dioxin: The Dow chemical complex in the company’s hometown of Midland, Michigan is a major source of Dioxin, one of the most lethal carcinogens on the planet. Dow has poisoned 22 miles of Midland’s Tittabawassee River, many neighborhood parks and thousands of properties with this toxin. Now, in a potentially landmark class action lawsuit, Dow is facing increasing pressure to clean up the contaminated river and compensate residents for their poisoned properties.
- Dursban: Chlorpyrifos, the nerve poison insecticide better known by the trade name Dursban, is one of Dow’s best selling pesticides. Although Dow spent more than $100 million dollars on studies suggesting that chlorpyrifos is “harmless when properly applied,” independent scientists and the EPA found otherwise. In 2000, the EPA restricted most home and garden uses of chlorpyrifos in a special action to protect children’s health, and in 1995 fined Dow a record $732,000 for not fully reporting the chemical’s health effects. Last year Dow paid a $2 million penalty in the state of New York for making false safety claims in Dursban advertisements. Nearly 300 other Dursban-related lawsuits have been filed against Dow since 1990. Most recently, the CDC reported that 93% of people it tested for evidence of pesticides in their bodies had residues of chlorpyrifos.
- Silicone Breast Implants: In the 1970’s Dow Corning produced “new & improved” silicone breast implants that medical journals soon began suggesting were permeable, allowing silicone gel to leak out over time and into women’s bodies. Internal memos would later reveal that Dow Corning officials were fully aware that the implants leaked even before they began marketing them.
Trespass Against Us is the eye-opening story of poisonous chemicals pushed into commerce before being adequately tested; and of future generations burdened with toxic chemicals that will persist in the environment for decades.
Jack Doyle, a Washington-based writer, investigative journalist and consultant, is author of numerous books and articles, including Altered Harvest, Taken For A Ride, and Crude Awakening. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other publications.
ATTENTION JOURNALISTS: Copies of Trespass Against Us and interviews with the author are available upon request by calling Aquene Freechild at 617-524-6018; for other questions please contact Diana Ruiz at 415 981-6205, ext. 321.
Trespass Against Us: Dow Chemical and the Toxic Century
Author: Jack Doyle
512 pages ISBN: 1-56751-268-2 paper $24.95 ISBN 1-56751-269-0,
hardcover, $39.95
Contact: Greg Bates, e-mail: gbates@commoncouragepress.com
121 Red Barn Road, Monroe, ME 04951 207-525-0900 fax 207-525-3068
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