Poison Spring: The Secret History of Pollution and the EPA (Bloomsbury Press) is a must-read for scientists, particularly chemists and biochemists in America. Authors E.G. Vallianatos and McKay Jenkins describe the perversion of science by a powerful alliance between toxic chemical generators (including major power and chemical companies) and the national political figures. The particular focus is the decline of the U.S. EPA over the last 30 years, and the resulting danger to public health and safety. A second concern is the blacklisting of scientists who dare to speak out.
Poison Spring makes it clear that scientists can find themselves facing conflicts that pit ethics and training against the goals of management. The authors report the case histories of scientists who have come up against these conflicts; some go along with management, while others look for new positions. A few stand tall and resist. For whistleblowers, retaliation is usually swift and severe. While some are eventually vindicated and win settlements that at least partially compensate them for damage to their career, many are not so fortunate. Scientists who have read Poison Spring will be better prepared to manage their career options should a challenge of this sort arise.
Detailed accounts, including names and dates, illustrate how the “protection” function has been eradicated from the Environmental Protection Agency by the close alliance between big chemical and energy companies and their political cronies. Listed problems include:
- The relative ease with which those employed by regulatory bodies move to jobs in regulated industries
- Destroying of reports and work product of staff and contractors
- Failure to critically review data submitted by vendors of toxic products
- Failure to follow up on reports of adverse events
- Fraudulent scientific data placed in the scientific literature.
The resulting confusion will take decades to rectify; confidence in science-based regulation has been lost, particularly in regard to the EPA space. (Is there a chance this will not be rectified—that we will move forward without addressing the whitewash? Or is there an effort underway to address the issues and, if so, will it be successful?
The chapter “Why Are the Honeybees Disappearing?” directly addresses the decades-long issue of beehive die-off. Many crops in our food supply depend on pollination. For decades, some beehives experienced die-off. In around 2011, the die-off accelerated, leading to public discussion of “beehive collapse.” The authors note reports in 1947 of sick bees that appeared contaminated with pesticides. Similar observations were made during the 1960s. In the 1970s, S.E. McGregor of the USDA warned farmers to be careful with pesticide, since no technology could replace bees for pollination of their crops. In 1974, the EPA licensed parathion and things quickly got worse for bees and humans. By 1985, parathion was appearing in food products. Then Pennwalt (Pittsburgh, Pa.) began marketing Penncap-M, which was parathion encapsulated in 5‒50 μm particles. This happens to be similar to flower pollens in size. Bees carried the highly toxic capsules back to the hives along with honey and pollen. Thus parathion entered the food chain. It also wiped out many hives. In an effort to salvage some of their bees, keepers tried to recycle the combs, but new hives based on recycled combs typically died within a day or two. For more than a decade, beekeepers wrestled with the problem, but did not understand the cause.
As an example from the public health sector, the authors trace the rise in sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) back to the parathion-activating botulism spores, which are also found in natural honey. In the 1970s, honey was a common natural ingredient in baby formula.
The encapsulation technology referenced above is so effective that a series of follow-on products were introduced, including most recently neonicitinoids. These are used as seed dressing and as sprays. The controversy with encapsulated products continues today with the use of sulfoxaflor (Dow Chemical Company, Midland, Mich.).
Fracking for gas and petroleum is addressed in the last chapter, which is not up to the standards of the earlier narrative. This section seems to echo the fears expressed by the public in 2011 and 2012. By late 2014, hydraulic fracturing seemed to be well understood, controllable and accepted by the public.
The authors present recommendations to rescue the EPA before it bleeds out. Their model is similar to the Federal Reserve Board (the Fed), which functions as an independent agency in the U.S. government charged with managing America’s monetary system with two goals: manage inflation and unemployment. The Fed’s astute management of the major recession (2007 to date) prevented it from being worse and hastened recovery. If the EPA were restructured in a similar way, an autonomous chair and board would be charged with protecting America from the toxic excesses of our industrial firms.
Like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Poison Spring makes a strong case for a redesign that ends political management of environmental protection. Among specific steps that can be taken, the authors recommend requiring USDA county agents to provide prescriptions for the application of herbicide and pesticides from the USDA’s county agent. This would lend a responsible and hopefully scientific basis to the choice of treatments and help to increase the accuracy of recordkeeping and reporting.
Again, I strongly recommend Poison Spring for reading by scientists in general, and particularly for scientists involved in regulation and protecting the environment.
Robert L. Stevenson, Ph.D., is Editor Emeritus, American Laboratory/Labcompare; e-mail: [email protected].