I draw on Rosner & Markowitz's classic text on the history of #silicosis & the foundry industry in my recent book on the #ManufactureOfDoubt.
(press.umich.edu/Books/D/Dead...)
(press.jhu.edu/books/title/...)
Thus, once more, w/ feeling:
WHAT. 👏🏻 IS. 👏🏻 NEW. 👏🏻 IS. 👏🏻 OLD.
#HistPubHealth #HistSTM 🗃
As Dr. Bachynski and I have been arguing for years, the notion that better technology can make the hazardous product safer is itself a risk frame shift. It is also a tried-and-true technique in the #ManufactureOfDoubt (e.g., "low-tar cigarettes").
If you read my book on collision sports, TBI, & ethics, you'll note that the technological imperative, the notion that we can substantially reduce risk thru improved tech, is part of the #ManufactureOfDoubt.
@bachynski.bsky.social is the real expert on this in context of helmets, so read her work!
The foundry industry advanced that script in fighting regs to protect against ... silicosis. The details of this are covered meticulously in Rosner & Markowitz's canonical "Deadly Dust," but a better proof of the notion that the #ManufactureOfDoubt is a script would be difficult to find.
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Dr. Michaels is obviously aware of this, but it's critical to u-stand the #ManufactureOfDoubt as an historical script that regulated industries have deployed for at least 150 years.
The grotesque irony here is that during the 1920s, 30s, and 40s +
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If only someone had spent the last decade writing about unreasonable demands for proof of causation as a key component in the #ManufactureOfDoubt.
muse.jhu.edu/article/627259
The #ManufactureOfDoubt is an historical script that regulated industries use in pursuing their political and economic goals. Many of the issues noted by the editor are known techniques deployed in #agnotology.
I wrote about a lot of this in my book; also see work of @drtomori.bsky.social
So excited to work with this outstanding team on this very timely project! #CDOH #ManufactureofDoubt
The 1890s are everything. The Second Book, an unpublished intellectual history of the X-ray, is situated around 1895 (Röentgen’s first X-ray).
The Third Book, out now, roots the #ManufactureOfDoubt in the railroad industry, and little doubt the 1890s are the quintessential decade for this focus.
Goldberg recommends using public health laws to counter the #ManufactureOfDoubt – offering specific policy proposals to address the population health and ethical problems presented by tackle football. Give a listen!!!!
We are going to need to think more on, talk more about, and devise ways to counter public health law vacuums. This is a concept on which I began work during early part of the COVID pandemic, but its role in the #ManufactureOfDoubt, the deregulatory political movement, cannot be overstated. #PHLaw
Altho it's been out in the world, today is the official publication day for my book!!! The title indicates it's a book about concussion and American tackle football, which is true, but really this is a book about regulated industries' use of the #ManufactureOfDoubt in ways that harm public health.
“Safer than ever” keeps coming up as a key message, probably part of a coordinated comms strategy in at least some quarters.
I discuss the role of this move in the #ManufactureOfDoubt but there’s obviously more work to do in countering this framing in public reason. 😡😡😡
If you're interested, I have multiple publications on COIs you can check out, and chapter 4 of the forthcoming book is literally all about the role of COIs and #MotivatedBias in the #ManufactureOfDoubt.
7/7
#PHLaw #PHEthx #ScholarTeacher #PublicHealthLaw #PublicHealthEthics #PolicyStudies
Securing partnerships with academics is a core part of the #ManufactureOfDoubt for regulated industries.
Read all about it my forthcoming book!
www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/...
PS Disclosure is an absolutely ineffective remedy for the ethical problems posed by COos pass it on
My editor doesn't necessarily agree with this take, but IMO this is really a book about the #ManufactureOfDoubt and public health. TBI and collision sports is more of the case study.
But if you're at all interested in #agnotology, occupational health, regulatory capture, etc., it's all in there.
From the introduction of products into the stream of commerce that prove injurious to public health. Regulated industries wield these settlements as part of larger political economies and the phenomenon itself is at least somewhat connected to the #ManufactureOfDoubt.
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The tobacco industry did not invent the script. In my forthcoming book I trace it most significantly to the railroad industry. But of course the tobacco industry did more to refine, apply, and innovate new techniques in the #ManufactureOfDoubt than any other.
+
But of course this is the point -- the #ManufactureOfDoubt is an historical script that commercial industries have used repeatedly to accomplish their political and economic goals.
There is zero coincidence b/c the USian tackle football industry is working through the script. +
Someone asked me for a reference on #ManufactureOfDoubt. Do you have a favorite reading?
The whole saga here is outrageous, a paradigm example of the #ManufactureOfDoubt and the critical role regulatory bodies and the modern administrative state plays in public health.
Not great that the ban only applies to the US and the products will still be sold elsewhere.
