Poison Spring (40 page)

 
  
7
   EPA report, September 21, 1977.

 
  
8
   Eldon P. Savage et al., “Chronic Neurological Sequelae of Acute Organophosphate Pesticide Poisoning: A Case-Control Study” (Final Report, Epidemiologic Pesticide Studies Center, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, May 1980).

 
  
9
   See Hale Vandermer’s memo, “Persons Acutely Poisoned by Organophosphate Pesticides Have an Apparent Delayed Impairment of Neuropsychological Function,” August 8, 1980.

 
10
   “Chronic Neurological Sequelae of Acute Organophosphate Pesticide Poisoning: A Case Control Study” (U.S. EPA, OPP, Final Report, May 1980).

 
11
   Harvey L. Bank and Diane Melendez, “An Enzyme Immunoassay for the Detection of Malathion Specific Immunoglobulin” (January 1981).

 
12
   U.S. Army, Environmental Hygiene Agency, “Behavioral and Biochemical Effects of Malathion” (Study No. 51-051-73/76, October 1975–April 1976), p. 11.

 
13
   Satoshi Ishikawa et al., “Eye Disease Induced by Organic Phosphorous Insecticides,”
Acta of the Ophthalmological Society of Japan
75 (1971): 841–55.

 
14
   We know this from James Boland, who was in the midst of the scientific and political bureaucracy of the EPA. In a memo of November 5, 1980, Boland, a scientist dealing with the management of the Colorado study, reported that “when the OP [organophosphate] preliminary study results were suspected last December, Ed Johnson used the OP study as one of the pillars upon which to build his farm worker program.”

 
15
   The problems for the EPA created by Dr. Cranmer’s findings paralleled those the EPA faced as a result of the use of malathion in South Carolina. Malathion in the environment changes to malaoxon, a compound more toxic than malathion itself. Adrian Gross, who reviewed five malathion/malaoxon animal studies done by the National Cancer Institute, concluded in 1984 that both malathion and malaoxon cause cancer of the adrenal and thyroid glands in rats, and malathion alone causes liver cancer in mice. Not only is it extremely difficult to detect malaoxon in nature, but the compound also continues to kill or cripple biological organisms long after the disappearance of malathion. See Adrian Gross, “Carcinogenicity of Malathion” (memorandum to Kevin Keaney, OPP, EPA, April 24, 1984).

 
16
   “The Environmental Protection Agency and the Regulation of Pesticides” (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, December 1976).

 
17
   Theo Colborn et al., “Developmental Effects of Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals in Wildlife and Humans,”
Environmental Health Perspectives
, 101, no. 5, October 1993, 378–84. See also “The Estrogen Complex,”
Newsweek
, March 21, 1994, 76–77.

 
18
   Laura Vandenberg, “There are no safe doses for endocrine disruptors,”
Environmental Health News
, March 15, 2012.

 
19
   Theo Colborn, “Endocrine Disruption Fact Sheet,” www.endocrinedisruption.com. Colborn is also the coauthor (with Dianne Dumanoski and John Peter Meyers) of the study of endocrine-disrupting chemicals titled
Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence, and Survival? A Scientific Detective Story
(New York: Plume, 1997). See also Laura N. Vandenberg et al., “Hormones and Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals,”
Endocrine Reviews
, 33 (3) (June 2012), edrv.endojournals.org.

 
20
   Warren P. Porter, James W. Jaeger and Ian H. Carlson, “Endocrine, Immune, and Behavioral Effects of Aldicarb (Carbamate), Atrazine (Triazine) and Nitrate (Fertilizer) Mixtures at Groundwater Concentrations,”
Toxicology and Industrial Health
, 15 (1–2) (1999): 133–150.

 
21
   Joan M. Spyker Cranmer, “Integrated Study of Subtle and Delayed Effects from Low-Level Exposure to Pesticides” (Final Report, EPA Contract # 68-01-1925 [1979]), p. 140.

Chapter 7: The Swamp: The Big Business of Fraudulent Science

 
  
1
   From the April 1983 “Opening Statement” of the IBT court transcripts. The “Opening Statement” was several hundred pages long. The other major source for the IBT story was my extensive discussions with Adrian Gross. In addition, my IBT narrative is based on evidence in these documents: (1) Memorandum of Concern Regarding the Regulatory Follow-Up of the IBT Audit at Decatur [Illinois]; From: Edwin L. Johnson, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Office of Pesticide programs, EPA, March 1, 1978; (2) Status of International Biotest Investigation—Information Memorandum; From: Steven D. Jellinek, Assistant Administrator for Toxic Substances; To: The [EPA] Administrator, March 8, 1978; (3) Letter to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Chairman, Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, Committee on Human Resources; From: Steven D. Jellinek, Assistant Administrator for Toxic Substances, EPA, October 23, 1978; (4) Quality Assurance Paper: Decision Memorandum; From: Marcia Williams, Director, Special Pesticide Review Division; To: Edwin L. Johnson, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Pesticide Programs, January 12, 1981; (5) Fact Sheet—IBT Program, OPP [December 1981]. I also read with interest these secondary sources: Sharon Begley, “Scandal in the Testing Lab,”
Newsweek
, May 30, 1983; Eliot Marshall, “The Murky World of Toxicity Testing,”
Science
, June 10, 1983, 1130–32; Eliot Marshall, “EPA Ends Cut-and-Paste Toxicology,”
Science
, January 27, 1984; Keith Schneider, “Faking It,”
Amicus Journal
, Spring 1983, 14–26; Schneider, “The Data Gap,”
Amicus Journal
, Winter 1985, 15–25.

 
  
2
   Gross discovered the IBT fraud in 1976. By the time he was talking to Manny Reyna, Gross was the most knowledgeable government expert about the magnitude and significance of the IBT crimes. A. E. Conroy, director of pesticides enforcement at the EPA, sent EPA’s IBT files to the Justice Department on May 2, 1978. So the FBI was assisting in the investigation probably from 1978.

 
  
3
   The story of Gordon came from Adrian Gross, who was present during the FBI’s investigation of Gordon.

 
  
4
   October 31, 1977, letter from Wilson to Edwin Johnson.

 
  
5
   See memo on Status of the EPA Toxicology Data Auditing Program Enforcement Cases, April 2, 1979. See also “Grand Jury Indicts Velsicol, Six Persons,” UPI, December 13, 1977, http://news.google.com/newspapersnid=2209&dat=19771213&id=XnljAAAAIBAJ&sjid=53kNAAAAIBAJ&pg=5157,2629988.

 
  
6
   Senior EPA officials went out of their way to diminish the gravity of the cut-and-paste malpractice. See: Letter to Congressman George E. Brown, Jr., Chairman, Subcommittee on Department Operations, Research, and Foreign Agriculture, Committee on Agriculture; From: Edwin L. Johnson, Director, Office of Pesticide Programs, February 24, 1983; and Letter to Congressman George E. Brown, Jr., Chairman, Subcommittee on Department Operations, Research, and Foreign Agriculture, Committee on Agriculture; From: John A. Moore, Assistant Administrator for Pesticides and Toxic Substances, January 5, 1984.

 
  
7
   Gross discovered the science scam in the huge corporate laboratory in Chicago while working for the FDA. Senator Edward Kennedy thanked Adrian Gross for his “professional competence, integrity and unyielding dedication.” Exposing the EPA’s dirty secret of licensing dangerous toxins brought Adrian Gross so much trouble for so long that it ultimately destroyed his career in the federal government. On September 6, 1985, Gross wrote a letter to the EPA administrator, Lee M. Thomas, in which he begged Thomas for some sort of “garden-variety, elementary justice.” He never heard back. But Gross never gave up. He kept exposing the deficiencies of his colleagues, their sloppy science serving the poison merchants. His lengthy memos became his weapons. They circulated widely, always adding light to obscurity and replacing jargon with logical narrative. They were models of good science and clarity, explaining difficult technical issues in terms even a nonexpert could understand. See Opening Statement by Senator Edward Kennedy at Joint Hearings Before the Senate Subcommittees on Health and Administrative Practice and Procedure, January 20, 1976.

 
  
8
   See Kate Davies,
The Rise of the U.S. Environmental Health Movement
(Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013), p. 156. See also http://www.sier raclub.org/sierra/200103/conspiracy.asp.

 
  
9
   Adrian Gross uncovered the IBT scandal, so he was held in high esteem by the government lawyers. He learned what he told me because of his privileged position during the trial. See also “Faking It: The Case Against Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories” and “IBT-Guilty: How Many Studies are No Good?,” two articles by the
New York Times
reporter Keith Schneider published in spring 1983 in the
Amicus Journal
, http://planetwaves.net/contents/ibt_guity.html.

 
10
   For more on the case, see https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/?776/776.F2d.678.84-1639.html.

 
11
   Marcia Williams, “Quality Assurance Paper,” decision memorandum to Edwin Johnson, January 12, 1981. Williams was a senior official.

 
12
   “Fact Sheet—IBT Program,” OPP, EPA [late 1981].

 
13
   USDA Laboratory Audit / Inspection Issue; memo from Edwin L. Johnson to Steven D. Jellinek, July 17, 1979.

 
14
   Laurence D. Chitlik, “Data validation of two Dimilin studies conducted at the Veterinary Toxicology and Entomology Research Laboratory, USDA, College Station, Texas,” memorandum to Laurence Chloupek, March 1, 1979. Chitlik and Chloupek were EPA scientists.

 
15
   Shoddy practices in labs were hardly unusual. One of my colleagues, whom I will call Robert Eagle, once worked for a major chemical company developing pesticides. The company, he told me, “used to hire former criminals, just out of jail, to formulate pesticides.” “Those poor bastards would go about mixing the deadly chemicals blissfully ignorant of what they were doing,” Eagle said. “And the company scientists creating pesticides never dream about anything else but how to keep their job and make more money. To hell with public health, they say. So when the experimental animals develop tumors or other nasty effects because of their exposure to pesticides, the company toxicologists, or the toxicologists of commercial laboratories hired to test those poisons for chemical corporations, dump those animals in the trash can, replacing them with healthy animals in the middle of testing, and in a thousand other fraudulent ways they destroy any evidence [that] their product might cause what EPA defines as ‘unreasonable adverse effect’ on man or the environment. Then, to smooth their way into EPA, they go about inviting EPA scientists for a brief visit to the company headquarters, ostensibly for showing them all the fabulous scientific machinery, talent, money, and time the company uses in the development of pesticides. The purpose of the invitation, however, is to wine and dine and bribe, with booze and women, those bureaucrats. Having done that, the rest is easy. The ‘kill and count studies’ arrive at the gates of the EPA regulators to be quickly approved and, in the midst of one irregularity after another, the poison gets the government’s blessing to start its deleterious Odyssey in the country’s land, food, drinking water, and people.”

 
16
   Memo from Edward Johnson to Steven Jellinek, June 5, 1979.

 
17
   James G. Touhey, “Status of Cannon Laboratories Testing Data,” memorandum to Steve Schatzow, February 7, 1985. Touhey and Schatzow were senior officials in the EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs.

 
18
   Cannon Lab audit report by EPA inspector Adrian Gross and FDA inspector Andrew J. Allen, August 15–19, 1983.

 
19
   Anna Rena Phillips, “Relative Risk, One Result at a Time,”
American Scientist
, January–February 2012.

 
20
   March 1, 1978, letter from Johnson to A. E. Conroy, EPA’s chief of pesticides enforcement, and Joan Z. Bernstein, EPA’s top lawyer.

 
21
   This accounting comes from the IBT studies EPA scientists reviewed from June 1980 to December 1981. See “Fact Sheet—IBT Program,” OPP, EPA, late 1981.

 
22
   “Looking into the Black Box: Factors Considered in Risk/Benefit Decision-Making” (briefing paper, OPP, late 1980s).

 
23
   B. Ritz et al., “Dopamine transporter genetic variants and pesticides in Parkinson’s disease,”
Environmental Health Perspectives
, 117 (6) (June 2009), 964–69; “Genes and Pesticide Exposure Interact to Increase Men’s Risk for Parkinson’s Disease,”
Science Daily
, June 14, 2010; Marianne van der Mark et al., “Is Pesticide Use Related to Parkinson’s Disease? Some Clues to Heterogeneity,”
Environmental Health Perspectives
120 (3) (March 2012), 340–47.