Document bO5B3dMZMp1zOnGd6y8L55qqZ

) '", ' - B.F. Goodrich and Vinyl Chloride: A Study in Corporate Reaction On May 20, 7974, the Louisville Times printed a story which began, "Several chemical firms, includ ing the B.F Goodrich Co, knew oI preliminary but significant data linking exposure to vinyl chloride gas to a rare liver cancer, but the information was not made public for more than a year." Three Good rich employees, and sixteen others in the U.S and abroad, had died from vinyl chloride exposure. The story' went on to tell of (V meetings at which the data were discussed, (2) conflicting views regarding the quality of the data, and (3) confusion as to who knew what, when. Business and Society Review sent the story to a number of distinguished people, asking their opin ions of B.F. Goodrich's reaction on first learning of the linkage between vinyl chloride and liver cancer 2nd, *rther, u'hetf'*r nr not they saw parallels to tne mental processes involved in the VVaie/gatc coverup. / CP. KINDLEBERGER, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: I agree with the thought in your letter of July 1 that the thinking of B.F. Goodrich m suppressing knowledge of the carcinomic qualities of vinyl chloride was comparable to the thinking in the Watergate cover-up. But I believe the capacity to rationalize away situations we are unwilling to face is highly developed in all of us. It is, typicaiiy, a subconscious mechanism, not con spiratorial, and usually operating at what the Su preme Court once called "conscious parallel ac tion/' In the closing days of the European war in the spring of 1945, the American armies overran a numbe' of German concentration camps In sev eral instances, ihe outraged military commander forced the mayor of the nearest large town to walk through the comps and inspect the desola tion. In at least two--and I oehove three--cases, the mayor and his wife went home that night and committed suicide In my judgment, (heir sub conscious minds had known of the horrors of the / camp, but the rationalization process of the con scious had effectively suppressed it. When sup pression was no longer possible, and tne change was sudden, the result was breakdown In the case of Watergate, and of the B.F. Good rich Company, if the facts recited by the Louis ville Times are correct, conscious suppression gave way more slowiy and permitted more or less elaborate rationalizations. But this is the way all our minds work. GEORGE C. LODGE, Professor of Business Ad ministration, Harvard University: The Louisville Times (May 20, 1974) story which you sent me is unclear and vague, but i shall try to abstract what I think it says 1. On January 30, 1973, research which had been conducted in Europe indicating that expo sure to vinyl chloride might cause liver cancer, was revealed for the first time in the United States at a meeting of the Manufacturing Chem ists Assocration (MCA). 44 RSV0030558 B.F. GOODRICH AND VINYL CHLORIDE 45 2 W.E. McCormick, an official of the chem ical division of B.F Goodrich Company, was at the meeting and presumably heard the revelation. 3. Anton Vittonc, head of the chemical divi sion, said, however, that the first he heard of any such study was a year later in February, 1974, about a month after the company announced that three employees had died of liver cancer after long exposure to vinyl chloride. 4. It is unclear when the National Industrial Institute for Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH) heard about the European research. But a spokesman for the Institute said that the indus-. try "may have been looking for liver cancer dam age (after January 30, 1973) without disclosing the fact." 5. Tumors in rats exposed to vinyl chloride had been reported as early as 1970. 6. Exposure to vinyl chloride has now been linked to the deaths of thirteen American and six non-American workers. You ask for my reactions and in particular you are interested in any parallels which I may see "to the mental processes involved in the Water gate coverup." Wp do not know whether V' McCormick told Mr. Vittone what he had heard in January 1973. Let us assume that he did. Then what should Mr. Vittone have done? Pursue his own investigation^ into the link between vinyl chloride exposure and cancer as the NIOSH spokesman implied he did, or report the MCA revelation to NIOSH and seek some governmental rule-making? To me the scandal here is that the U S Govern ment, NIOSH, did not know what apparently was well known in Europe. Why they did not know is unclear. Although I am not familiar with the law on the subject, I assume that if Goodrich knew about the fatal link, it should have told the government. But this may not be entirely ciear. On the basis of the evidence here, I fail to see much that is comparable to Watergate. The issue is more one of the relationship between govern ment and business Business cannot decide what is healthy for either its workers or for the com munity it affects Health is a relative condition. In nineteenth-century Englanci u was considered quite healthy--in fact, downright beneficial--for Small children to work long hours in coal mines. The community, acting through government, de cided that the practice was not healthy and it was prohibited. The vinyl chloride case is, of course, much more subtle. In this day and age tech nology is so complex that industry may know well before anyone else that something it is do ing is unhealthy It, therefore, is bound to inform government of such knowledge. Then govern ment must decide how healthy industry should be just as it must decide how clean the air should be or how pure the water. The question then comes: How docs govern ment make sure that business discloses what it knows or fears or suspects about matters of health? The answer would seem to lie in a much closer relationship between government and business and more forceful requirements con cerning disclosure. Tins seems to me to be one of the strongest arguments for Federal chartering of large corporations. Disclosure stipulations should be written into the very birth certificate of the corporation, with revocation of the charter the punishment for delinquency Disclosure should not be left merely to ad hoc regulation by inadequately staffed agencies which are sub ject to the numerous pressures of interest groups. Nor should it be left to the independent judg ment of managers. It mav not he so murh Mr. 'Attcre who :z to blame here Uj it is the com munity--the government--which has not made clear,or explicit what it expects of business It is tempting in a time of transition such as the present to see our woes as the work of devils. and, as In the declining days of medievalism, to look to the exorcist for help. But our problems are not so simply resolved; they grow out of a systemic process in which the fundamental struc ture of the relationship between our important institutions--such as businesses like B F. Goodrich and government like NIOSH--are changing It is the lecognition of tnis process which is crucial. Those interested in my views about it might wish to read "Business and the Changing Society" (Harvard Business Review, March-Apnl 1974) or my forthcoming book, tentatively entitled The RSV0030559 46 BUSINESS AND SOCIETY REVIEW New American Ideology, to be published by Al Companies are not built that way, products arc fred A. Knopf These observations, let me repeat, are made on not developed that way, employee policy is not made that way, and responsibilities are not met the basis of an inadequate statement of the facts, that way. but they may serve some use. But newspaper accounts can very easily be written pointedly, ralher than pondering all these things. CROSBY M. KELLY, Senior Vice-President, Litton industries: There is no widely ranging, advanced-tech nology company which does not place one quantum-|ump foot carefully after another, sur f reply to your letter of July 2nd addressed to veying the scene for effect and consequences Mr. Charles B. Thornton, chairman of Litton In with each footfall. If this were not so, you would dustries be working in a cave on a stone wall with a make What you were asking Mr. Thornton to do, Mr. shift chisel. Cross, was to contribute to the rampant chaos We were told inertial navigation would never and confusion which charactenzes society today, work, but more than forty international airlines asking that he make judgments of situations in get their passengers to their destinations much terior to a respected company without knowing more safely than was ever possible before be any of the facts at ail--the sole fact being a copy cause of our inertial navigation. We have seen of the Louisville Times's interpretation. You could help me a irttle if you told me what the expertise of Messrs. Donald M. Houghton and Dennis Polite is beyond being "Louisvi//e Times Staff Writers.'' Imagining only now, i wouio assume thrs certification along with the standing of the Imiiwt/le Times would ring the bells of journal consumer organizations sow concern around the ism sJ,og!s, but !'d fee1 a hotter 'f t tnouem worla for use of microwave even; in homes, ye' they had eminence in chemistry rather than how there has never been to this date one recorded to come up with a text which would support a injury from microwave oven use We have been scarchcad That's for openers. finding energy resources world-wide for decades, We are talking about a tragedy. People have * and ns recently as last week Norway was reported died, and they have been diagnosed as having '' as troubled in knowing it has so much oil lying died from a cause which is a company product. off its shores, necessitating a change in life style We have in this story a total of nineteen deaths, In short, Mr. Cross, there is a vast viewmg-with- six of them overseas This nas been cumulative alarm-prone segment in our society, which can over a period of many years, and considering the charge on any hobbyhorse anyone brings up. size of the chemical industry, it is not an over Not everyone is a valid Paul Revere, and the whelming statistic--and the red flag of danger consequences they shout about happen rarely. went up quite recently, and only tentatively then But they do confuse Those who ride the real I don't know for sure, but I suppose this overall horses which make this country go-i-American death rate parallels Kentucky highway fatalities in business, managers and employees, and pur any month, which using your indicated logic chasers of its products--must be surer of their should arouse us ail against the automotive manu facts before making a change facturing industry. I was especially caught up on the Louisville When there are unknowns and the laboratory Times paragraph which said that "the public re- jury is still out, it does no one any service to lations man at MCA said there had been 'great * charge on the basis of a shadow, or a faint piece reluctance' by European firms to share their scien of an outline, or an isolated sample. If a whole tific data until they were guaranteed it would be industry, its employees, its carefully developed kept in confidence." Any one researcher worth product Jine, and its good reputation are all on having would ask for such protection for research the line, decisions should never be whimsically in progress, or before a conclusion could be made. reached Was this why, perhaps? Or, did it make ; ; ! 1 t [ ; | RSV0030560 B.F. GOODRICH AND VINYL CHLORIDE 47 a better story to leave an Orient Express-type intrigue specter hanging there? Parallels to the Watergate cover-up? Ah, but you do give yourself .way there ARTHUR SCHLESINGER, Jr, Albert Schweitzer Chair in the Humanities, City University of New York: If the Louisville Times is correct in writing that B. F. Goodrich Co. and other chemical firms sup pressed information indicating a connegtipp j]Qr hveefi exposti?8 10 vinyl cliioricie gas and liver cancer, it is evident that the cover-up psychology has its disciples not just in the White House but in the business community as well One would not be suiprised if such things took place in a communist or fascist state, where cover-up is a way of life. The Goodrich story makes it clear that it can happen here and that that the socalled free market by itself offers hopelessly in adequate protection to workers as well as to consumers. The only way to stop the'cover-up, whether in government or private enterprise, is unrelenting public vigilance If enough Watergates, or their equivalents in private enterprise, arc exposed and .f the perpetrate-; ere punished, it may encourage their successors, whether in the White House or in the MCA, to understand that a free society requires a first ioyalty on every one's part to honesty, accountability ana the gen era/ welfare rather than to private power or pri vate profit. DAULM SWEEZY, Editor, Monthly Review- In reply to your letter about B. F Goodrich's reaction to the disclosure of a link between vinyl chloride and liver cancer, I can only say that this seems to me to be absolutely normal, to be ex pected from any capitalist enterprise, past, pres ent, or future. What would be surprising and worthy of comment would be a contrary reaction.1 1 OUIS B LUNDBORG, Chairman of the Board L- (Retired), Bank of America: While I of course have no first-hand knowl edge of the incident about which you wrote me, and so would not want to pass judgment on that particular incident, I would make two observa tions about the principles involved: If a company is in possession of "bad news," meaning informal ion unfavorable to the com pany, failing to disclose that information is both morally indefensible and pragmatically foolish as intelligent management practice--foolish be cause, in the words of (he trite old truism, "the truth will always out", but the controlling factor is that it is morally indefensible. The developments of Watergate amply demon strate both truths. AMITAI EtZ'IOMI; t'rbf&sof 6f Sbfclolbgy, Co lumbia University: One can argue the merits and demerits of cap italism, or more specifically, of a society which makes the worship of consumption and produc tion its central project. One can favor or oppose the notion that "let the buyer bewaie," and ask if the buyer can acquire the needed information to sensibly choose among products. But triers is no question in my mind that only an economic-political system bent on commit ting suiciae would allow the frequent marketing of products w'nicn are endangering health and life ancf tolerate coroorations, who--once faced , 1. t. * t*. a 4 iL - * VILlI lllV. ICAV.& tllUl 111. j\ vd UL.sZt 2iU OumiO^m i^ not the pocKetbook of the consumer but his body --do not desist but persist Unfortunately, in a society in which ends "jus tify" the means, which is what Watergate is ail 'about, quite a few corporations do engage in such unhealthy, ultimately self-destructive, pro duction Baby cribs which burn like a torch, tri cycles unsafe at any speed, radioactive ovens, and airline seats which emit cyanide when heated are just a few cases in point. True, in some cases the outcry is not justified and further checking shows no danger existed. But too many corporations, too often, resist rather than assist the examination of the facts and, above ail, fight rather than promote vital corrections. The business community must excommunicate such unethical corporations or it will be tainted with their Watergate-like blight, as sure as night follows day. MURRAY N. ROTHBARD, Editor, Libertarian Forum. The story of vinyl chloride and the B. F. Good rich Co. is a grisly one, but it contains a consider- RSV0030561 48 BUSINESS AND SOCIETY REVIEW able amount of hope as well. The story seems to be the familiar one of any bureaucracy that we have all come to know so well from Watergate: when confronted with unpleasant or unprofitable facts, wc find denial, passing the buck, and coverup. This sort of reaction seems to be endemic to any bureaucracy. The hopeful part of the tale is that, in the case of vinyl chloride and even in Watergate, the truth finally manages to emerge. It emerges to the extent that there are competing and decentralized centers of knowledge. In the eds Of Vinyl fchlfJHlIS, ihurg die sG Iflart? tfiHliiM of scientific research that the truth finally man aged to emerge. In the case of government bureaucracy, however, with its coercive and mon opoly powers, the emergence of truth was far more difficult; it was only an active, free, and decentralized press that finally managed the breakthrough, and it was touch and go. The les son for us all is not to eliminate bureaucracy, which 5s impossible, but to keep open competing and free channels of research and information. NEIL CHAMBERLAIN, professor of Business Ad ministration. Columbia University; Analogies are often as misleading as enlighten ing, and only on the strength of the May 20,1974, Louisville Timas story i would not identify the B. F. Goodricn Co.'s actions with respect to dis closing possible deleterious effects of vmylchloride exposure with the Watergate coverup Even if, as alleged, company officials lied con cerning the date on whicn they first learned of the possible danger, they were not thereby cover ing up any illegal action nor was their he equiv alent to perjury in any legal sense. I do not think this Is just a matter of semantic quibbling. There was no obstruction of justice, even though there may have been an arguable failure of social con science and a flawed exercise of personal integ rity. Without seeking to make out a case for any particular corporate management, I can sympa thize with the position or a responsible officer who is first confronted with information imply ing--but not dearly establishing--a link between his familiar industrial processes (or products) and serious health consequences for his employees (or customers). It is not so simple a matter as putting corporate profits ahead of human welfare, even though that may be importantly involved and even decisive If the alternative is to close down an operation, the consequence is unem ployment for those affected, and there have been instances enough where workers themselves have fought actions intended for their long-run good but harmful to their short-run interests (as, for example, where employees have fought against the closing down of facilities found unsafe by factory or mine inspectors), This does not mean that workers prefer unsafe or unhealthy condi tions or that they do not want remedial action, but only that they sometimes prefer to continue at their customary employment while the haz ardous condition is being remedied. One could still reasonably maintain that this should be a decision shared by management with the workers affected, rather than made solely by management in its own best judgment. 1 would not quarrel with th?.t pos'Hon At the same time I can see where anuibei peiaon >n guoJ con science might consider such an action unneces sarily alarming and rumor-inciting not only to and t among workers airectiy involved but to other ' workers in unrelated processes. I cannot see any exculpatory reason, however, for falsifying the date on which a management * representative was first put on notice as to the danger. If the decision was taken in good faith, in consideration of all factors, the company should stand by and defend that position as long as H continued to believe in it. This is certainly not a situation confined to one company, i suspect most companies (and gov ernment regulatory agencies) have been con fronted with matters involving possible harm to customers as well as employees, and have chosen --at least initially--to "accept" the risk rather than take preclusive action The facts obv.ously differ in each case, and a blanket indictment or justification is not possible Some of such de cisions may be considered socially undesirable, but if they arc permissible what is involved is personal judgment and morality but not law. Slanted press releases, obfuscation of the facts, public prevarication may sometimes be used in RSV0030562 B.F. COODRICH AND VINYL CHLORIDE 49 support of a company's decision--clearly coverup actions, and actions I would condemn--but I would not want to equate this flawed corporate (and personal) behavior to the coverup of unlaw ful activity. In brief, 1 would question the social desirability of the decision to conceal, and would criticize the alleged dishonesty in pursuing that policy, but would refrain from tarring it with the Water gate brush. There is good reason to distinguish between situations contrary to (everybody's) law, those contrary to (somebody rise's) notion of good lodgment, and those contrary to (somebody rise's) sense of personal integrity and social con science. We do not gain in understanding our complex and disturbing industrial problems if we lump those all together HTRUCRT S. DENNENBERG, Counsel, Pennsyl vania Public Utility Commission: The vinyl-chloride cover-up is just one more example of the kind of secrecy and lack of ac countability that pervades business, government and our other institutions Watergate is only the most horrendous and glaring example of this per vasive syndrome. No one should be shocked by the fact that a corporation covered up the link between cancer and vinyl-chloride gas After ail, we have a long history of corporate and government cover-up of hazards to human life. Look at the history of the auto manufacturers and auto safety or look at the performance of some of our regulatory agen cies in regard to their safety responsibilities The cure to the syndrome of secrecy and non- accountability must be sought in many ways In cluded in the long catalogue of cures would be passage of the Consumer Protection Agency Bill, strengthening freedom of information legislation at both the state and federal level, and the further opening up of government and corporate records and activities. | | L. MISCH, Vice-President, The Ford Motor * * Company: Since we arc not familiar with the B T. Good rich situation to which you referred m your letter of July 1, we have no basis upon which to com ment on that company's handling of its problems nor would we consider it appropriate to do so. We have spelled out our own position in the attached letter to the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health You will note that wc have indicated that we feei there can be no compromise in assuring a final standard that provides adequate protection for human beings At the same time we are also concerned that a "no detectable level'' standard could not be met by the polyvinyl chloride supply industry, a^d that a shutdown of that industry could have se rious economic efiects. We urge a standard based on breathing zone exposure, which still would provide heath protection tp employees in the PVC industry. [Attached was a four-page letter to the Labor Department.] * PRIORITIES ARE PRIORITIES "Americans are applying some three million tons of nutrients to inwns, gardens, cemeteries and golf courses--more than used by an the farmers in India, and half again as much as the current shortage in de veloping countries" James P. Grant, The New York Times, August 28, 1974 RSV0030563