How Everyday Products Make People Sick: Toxins at Home and in the Workplace » (2nd Edition)

Paul D. Blanc is Professor of Medicine and holds the Endowed Chair in Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

"A superb tool for making our homes, finally, a safe place to raise children."—Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., author of Crimes Against Nature and St. Francis of Assisi.

"This is the work of a lifetime, one sure to be a classic for future lifetimes. Thirty years ago, Paul Blanc educated me about the threat of cancers caused by corporate and government negligence. Now he tells a great, entertaining and shocking story, based on a vast knowledge of science, government regulation, history and popular culture that shows our personal dependency and the almost-forsaken cause of public health."—Tom Hayden, former chairman, committee on natural resources, California state senate."

"A masterful synthesis of some of the very heated and critical environmental and occupational health issues of our time. Paul Blanc offers a grounded look at the long term history of industrial disease, and the toxic environment in which we now live — something that has been overlooked in discussions of the rise of the modern environmental movement."—David Rosner, author of Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of
Industrial Pollution and co-author of Are We Ready? Public Health Since 9/11.

Library Journal

Blanc (medicine, Univ. of California, San Francisco) has written a scathing account of how industry toxins and factory processes have systematically poisoned large portions of the human population. He documents hazards generated as new products and processes birth chemicals that sicken workers and environments, and castigates governments and businesses that have historically denied, ignored, or weakened protections for workers. Examples include London's "killer fog" of 1952, which took more than 3500 lives, and moving parts in factories that have killed or maimed thousands. Blanc provides case studies from Europe and the United States about specific products, such as glue and rubber cement, shoes, phosphorus matches, asbestos, and rayon. He uses solid facts and a dry wit to expose continuing abuses to humans and the planet. Government agencies and politicians are condemned as too weak, prone to undue influence, and ignorant of the threats posed by emerging chemical toxins that may be more deadly than biological weapons. An outstanding text for students of occupational health issues. Janet M. Schneider, James A. Haley Veterans' Hosp. Lib., Tampa Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Acknowledgments VII

List of Abbreviations IX

Preface to the 2009 Edition XI

Introduction 1

1 The Forgotten Histories of "Modern" Hazards 5

2 The Shadow of Smoke: How to Evade Regulation 28

3 Good Glue, Better Glue, Superglue 45

4 Under a Green Sea: The Rising Tide of Chlorine 92

5 Going Crazy at Work: Cycles of Carbon Disulfide Poisoning 132

6 Job Fever: Inhaling Dust and Fumes 172

7 Emerging Toxins 215

Conclusion 262

Notes 271

Index 347