. ~ ~ Ruth Hubbard/Facts & Feminism • Anthony E. Ladd/ Epcot Center .

I WITH TH IS NEW fUOD IRRADfATOR OUR MEATS AND V£GETABL£5 WILL LAST FOR£V£R I • Who says scientists are detached, suspending their reactions in :PEOPLE glass beakers? In February, Science for the People's steering committee evaluated the magazine, frequently interrupting Editor parliamentary procedure to critique the issues we published in Leslie Fraser 1985. We haven't held a meeting with as much animation in a Business Manager Gary Keenan long while. Designer No votes were taken, but we kept a tally of strong opinions David Gerratt that were met with a chorus of agreement. Most people favored Cover shorter articles and more departments in the magazine. All agreed Craig Comeau that SftP needs more spark-livelier debates and opinions, Art stronger political analysis, diversity in the topics we report on. Craig Comeau, Andrew Joslin, Mara Loft Many thought that Sdence for the People should offer readers a Proofing better vision of the future, with more examples of positive uses of Roger Felix, Joe Regna sdence and technology. Some thought that we should focus Book Review Editor more on science policy and the social impact of new Joseph Alper technologies. Material Requests We'd like to know what our readers think. What articles would Jim Barton you like to see in the magazine? What topics should we cover7 Outreach Coordinator Jon Beckwith What do you like and what can't you stand about SftP7 We're Fundralslng Coordinator working on a readers' survey to help us plan promotional efforts Gerry Waneck and changes in the magazine. But you don't have to wait; send Editorial Intern us your feedback now. Luigi Palmeri In this issue, we've slightly expanded our departments. With Editorial Committee more forums, interviews, letters. opinions, grassroots news and Bob Chatelle, Leslie Fraser. Dan Grossman, international reports, we hope that readers will feel more like Joe Regna, Seth Shulman, Cathy Wenthe partidpants. We want to produce a magazine that involves it Editorial Advisory Board Joseph Alper, Rita Arditti, Jon Beckwith, readers. As an almost all-volunteer publication, our members and Philip L. Bereano, Edith Brickman, Stephen Chorover, Fran Conrad, Eric Entemann, Roslyn readers are the magazine. So your involvement really counts. Feldberg, Ross Feldberg, Marilyn Frankenstein, Our September/October issue will focus on alternatives in Douglas Futyama, Ted Goldfarb, Rae Goodell, Stephen Jay Gould, William Haseltine, David science. We'll report on alternatives in medicine, research, Himmelstein, Eric Holtzman, Ruth Hubbard, occupational health, public interest work, and education-in and David Kahn. Charles Koplik, Richard Levins. Richard Lewontin, Karen Messing, Frank Mirer, out of the mainstream. It's going to be a very partidpatory issue. David Noble, Richard Novick, Connie Phillips, Alvin F. Poussaint. Stephen Risch, Richard Rosen, If you'd like to contribute by sharing your own experiences, or Virginia Schaefer, Scott Schneider. Miriam Struck. sending us ideas or names of people to contact, you can still Sue Tafler. Michael Tanzer. Scott Thacher. John Vandermeer, Gerry Waneck, Joseph squeak in under the May I deadline. Weizenbaum, Sandy Wiper, Steffie Woolhandler With this issue, we'd also like to extend a warm sendoff to the Printing three profesores who are participating in SftP's program of Rowley Printing. 395 Main Street Rowley, MA 01969 cooperation in science teaching with Nicaragua. Beginning in SUBSCRIPTIONS: U.S. one year/srx tssues: SIS. Foretgn rate: March, they will teach engineering and statistics at two S21. U5. IJbranes/insmunons: S24. Foreign libranes: S30. universities in Managua. MernJer subsolpoons {tncludes the magazine. our ~ ald other communu:atJonsj: S30. Foreign While they're working in Nicaragua, we will be fighting against subscribers rn.Jst rerrvt tn U.S currency. wtth erther an International Money Order or a check drawn on a U.S. President Reagan's proposal for SIOO million in U.S. aid to the bank. contras, with S70 million earmarked for military use. We will keep SCIENCE FOR THE PEOPI.£ IS available to bookstores on consignment from the publisher or through Carrier Pigeon sending ambassadors of peace to Nicaragua, while working to Distributors. Box 2783, Boston. MA 02208. The magazine is available 1n m1croform from University Microfilms, 300 N. stop the CIA's war on Nicaragua. Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, Ml 48106. Science for the People is indexed in Alternative Press Index, Box 7229, Baltimore, MD 21218.

Science for the People March/April 1986 Volume 18. No.2

6 RADIATION WORKERS by Robert Alvarez The dark side of romancing the atom

12 FOOD IRRADIATION by Leslie Fraser Zapping what you eat

16 FACTS AND FEMINISM by Ruth Hubbard Thoughts on the masculinity of natural science

21 CORPORATE ENERGY FUTURES by Anthony E. Ladd A Dumbo ride through Epcot Center

DEPARTMENTS

Preview 2 Letters 3 News notes 27 Opinion: 11:39:12 a.m. EST 28 Review: The Dialectical Biologist 30 In Brief 32 Grassroots Report 33 Network

SCIENCE FOR THE PEOPLE (ISSN 0048-9662) is published bimonthly by the Science Resource Center. Inc.. a nonprofit corporation at 897 Main St., Cambridge, MA 02139, telephone 617/547-0370. Edited and produced by the national organization of Science for the People. We offer a progressive view of science and technology. Articles, letters, reviews, newsnotes, photos, and artwork are welcome. Please send double-spaced, typed manuscripts. on Wordstar IBM-compatible disks if possible. Unless otherwise noted, all material copyright 1986 by Science for the People.

March/April I 986 5cap8goating tt. Contra War? were essentially the fruits of one monthly arribada, or arrival. something was quite wrong. First priority use of vehicles and Looking up to the author's name Dear SftP: gasoline goes to the war effort, [Roger Felix] confirmed my I just read Julie Ogletree's which now consumes about 50% hunch. I was really amazed. I article about the Nicaraguan sea of Nicaragua's gross national wondered if there was some turtles in the Nov./Dec. 1985 product. IRENA's conservation strange dearth of women in the issue, and it left me with more projects are not next in line for Boston area, or whether they are questions than answers. such equipment and money. all so advanced that they would My greatest puzzlement was the It represents a step forward in be above writing a book review statement that 4,000-6,000 turtles conservation of marine turtles, for SftP. Surely there are women lay their eggs on the coast of but not the completion of that whose development you wish to Nicaragua, followed by the task. Many fewer eggs are recognize or to foster? statement that 40,000 dozen eggs collected and marketed than ever Certainly men father children, were allowed to spoil. Does this before, even taking the spoilage but they just do not have the mean that up to 10 dozen eggs are into consideration. This is the experiences which provide the taken from each turtle, and they program's first year, and project grounding for the issues of this all spoiled, and this is called managers are taking steps to book. Rather than thoroughly conservation? Or was there an eliminate transportation snags. present the book, all he did was to error in the numbers given? The reference to the "dry rain make his inadequacies as a Another thing I wondered about forest" is based on an exact reviewer of it very clear. was the description of translation of the Spanish­ Women (and men) need Nicaragua's coast as a "dry rain bosque seco. I claim no expertise powerful analyses in the health forest". What is a dry rain forest? in forestry, but my understanding reproduction area, and all book To get back to the 40,000 dozen is that the forest is deciduous but reviews should contribute to some (or however many) rotten eggs, also includes tropical plants. kind of theoretical framework. the article says that the culprit -Julie Ogletree Science has the potential to be a was transportation difficulties Cambridge, Massachusetts tool of liberation, and women are caused by the contra war and the your largest constituency. Let's U.S. embargo. While I don't doubt Stronger feminist Analysis see SftP living up to its ideals. that the war has caused great -Joan Scott disruptions of all activities in Dear SftP: St. Johns, Newfoundland Nicaragua, it seems that in some I am writing because two book cases it might be too easy a reviews in your 100th issue Call for Papers scapegoat-unless information is (July I August 1985) of The New given to support the claim that Our Bodies Ourselves and Test Dear SftP: the U.S. is at fault. (Ed. Note: See Tube Women really disappoint A special issue of Hypatia: A article in Jan./Feb. 1986 issue of me. Journal of Feminist Philosophy SftP, "Moving Towards Because of history, science is will be devoted to feminist Independent Agriculture: not yet a strong thread in the perspectives on science. We Nicaragua Struggles in a World women's movement, and the welcome submissions on topics in Economy," for an economic concerns of women have a barely the history, philosophy, and history and analysis.) embryonic status among sociology of the natural and All in all, I felt that the article scientists, but in the past SftP has behavioral sciences, approached failed to explain just how the really made progress for from feminist perspectives. We Nicaraguan turtle protection and everyone on the latter aspect at are also interested in discussions egg marketing method works, or least. However, these book and critiques of current feminist if it works. I'd appreciate reviews are not good enough. scholarship in these areas. anything you could do to make Our Bodies Ourselves is Manuscripts should have the this clearer to me. considered with enthusiasm, author's name on the title page -David Stein which is nice, but doesn't advance only, for the anonymous Chicago, Illinois theory or place the issue(s) reviewing process. Papers must among other feminist concerns. conform to Hypatia style, with The author responds: What does such a review do to only informational footnotes. All As mentioned in the article, educate people at various stages references must be made by 4,000-6,000 turtles lay their eggs of experience and knowledge, and parenthetical inserts in the text. on Nicaragua's Pacific Coast each with different perspectives? What Papers should be submitted in month for eight months between does the review do for feminist duplicate to Nancy Tuana, Arts May and December. Each turtle writing in this area, except to and Humanities, JO 3.1, lays between three and five dozen generally encourage? University of Texas at Dallas, eggs a month. Then I looked at Test Tube Richardson, TX 75083-0688. The 40,000 eggs which spoiled Women, and it was not long Papers must be received by due to transportation problems before I became aware that October 1, 1986.

2 Science for the People One year ago there were over 2,000 vending machines selling adult magazines in Tokyo. They were largely unregulated, some being installed near schools. Complaints about the machines and the behavior of their younger customers initially had little impact, as the municipal govern­ ment had no authority over the machines. Parents' organizations then joined together with local police departments to develop a strategy of meeting with merchants and For more than seven years, imum wages, and face a grim landowners on whose property midwestern farmworkers have future. Migrant children have the machines stood. Their efforts fought for union recognition and only a 40% chance of finishing succeeded in reducing the number the right to negotiate a contract the eighth grade, and only 20% of machines by 50% as of last with the growers for Campbell will finish high school. Their December. Soup Company. The company infant mortality rate is 125% to Two other groups have their has finally agreed to recognize 300% above the national average, eyes on unregulated vending the Farm Labor Organizing and their life expectancy is 20 machines in Japan. The All Committee (FLOC), ending a years shorter than nonmigrant Japan Anti-smoking Council three-year consumer boycott of children. and National Citizen's Associa­ Campbell's products. FLOC repre­ Conditions for adult farmworkers tion of Alcohol Problems met sents over 2,000 Ohio farmworkers are not much better. In Ohio, field recently to discuss the "Hazards who had gone on strike in the workers earn a dollar an hour of Vending Machines". The impos­ tomato and pickle fields contracted less than the national minimum. sibility of halting sales to minors to Campbell Soup. With the right to negotiate a or regulating selling hours Child labor abuses have been contract, farmworkers hope to under current arrangements was FLOC's major concern. Children win higher wages, decent housing, criticized. Recommendations for as young as five years old work and protection from pesticide supervisable siting, a ban on in the fields to support themselves poisoning, so their children tobacco vending machines, and and their families. They live in won't have to work the fields. increased consumer education deplorable housing, earn submin- were made. While one can hardly sympathize with the loss of jobs to automation in the pornography, booze and sot-weed sector, it remains unclear whether eliminating the machines will dampen the appetites they "Look, there's the North Star, materialized. According to the serve. Such traditional vices there's the Little Dipper, and researchers, they chose the name have a persistent history, one there's ... Gomez's Big Mac??" simply because the star "looked full of male bonding rituals Yes, it's true. The Big Mac hamburger shaped." involving smoking, drinking, became officially enshrined as a What can we say? Since the and whoring. Treating the porno­ celestial body when astronomers star wasn't christened with a graphic contents of vending at the Cero-Tololo Inter-American kickback, perhaps it's not the machines as so many cans of Dr. Observatory in Chile named a crassest name to have ever Pepper may be disconcerting, star with a ring of dust around it graced the heavens. Still, when but it serves to remind us that after the McDonald's hamburger. we next look to the skies for these individual pursuits of We at SftP are watching out for inspiration, won't it be disquiet­ pleasure have a cold, impersonal any large grants from the fast­ ing to know that those ever-so­ quality. -Gary Keenan food industry making their way earthly golden arches already to these particular astronomers, have a claim to what's staring but so far such a flagrant funding back down at us? Newsnotes are compiled and connection doesn't seem to have -information from New Scientist edited by Les.lie Fraser.

March/April 1986 3 Just how safe is that computer you use every day at work, anyway? We wish we knew; as longtime readers of SftP remem­ ber, we have been covering this important story for over five years. Unfortunately, the research to date remains inconclusive, and the answers aren't becoming any more clearcut, especially where birth defects are concerned. The latest round in this ongoing debate comes from Sweden. TheN ational Swedish Board of Occupational Safety and Health (NBOSH) recently reported that significant numbers of birth defects were found in mice subjected to low-level magnetic fields from Video Display Ter­ minals (VDTs). These findings appear to support results from a PoJish study involving rats. Five hundred pregnant mice were subjected to magnetic radia­ were analyzed, taking into account embryos, but a study in the U.S. tion pulses for 14 days. This was not only fetal malformations but did not replicate the results. said to be the equivalent exposure also "fetal deaths and resorptions," The Swedish research is the to a woman sitting in front of a the effects are less significant first to look for effects on mice, computer screen for six months. and do not "suggest any damaging and is also the first study to be The results of the study, to be effect on fetuses." Looking only careful to replicate the saw­ fully reported at an upcoming at birth defects in mice, the toothed shape of the pulses that conference in Stockholm this researchers had found effects actually emanate from VDTs and May, were released to the press five times higher in the mice television sets. Until the full based on preliminary abstracts subjected to the radiation than results are reported in May, the of the study. those in the control groups. issue remains, as Slesin stated, Almost immediately, in the To put this research in perspec­ "reopened," and probably won't U.S. and elsewhere around the tive: as many readers may remem­ be settled until this area is given world, the study raised tremendous ber, the issue of possible adverse the funding priority for research controversy. According to Louis effects of magnetic fields originated that it deserves. Slesin of the New York-based in 1982 after Dr. Jose Delgado, a Meanwhile, here in the U.S., the Microwave News, it reopened the Spanish researcher, found that Center for Office Technology, an debate about potential effects of weak, pulsed magnetic fields industry research and lobby VDTs on reproductive health. damaged the development of group, responded to the second "Everything went berserk in chicken embryos. Delgado's re­ announcement from NBOSH Sweden when these results were search indicated that this effect was with press releases of its own, announced," he stated. "NBOSH due to the pulse form of the field, stating in bold headline: "VDTs was flooded with inquiries." not simply the strength of the Do Not Endanger Reproductive Shortly after the preliminary field. Health, Swedish Government results were released, a further Delgado's study caused contro­ Declares." Perhaps this one­ announcement was issued in versy too, and some critics found sided emphasis of such a little response to the outpouring of methodological problems with understood area is business as concern about the study's conclu­ his research. The few studies that usual, when industry meets sions. NBOSH reiterated the have followed up on Delgado's health concerns. Instead of foster­ mixed nature of the results of research-of which the Swedish ing such polarized debate, we at previous animal health studies study is one-have had mixed SftP would like to see less and epidemiological research to results. A recent Finnish study posturing and more research in date. Claiming that when the replicated Delgado's results, this increasingly important area. results of the Swedish study also finding effects on chick -Seth Shulman

4 Science for the People Ernesto Cardenal, Nicaraguan pollution. priest, poet and minister of For the past two years, North culture, wrote that the country's Americans have worked under lakes, rivers, trees and animals the supervision of IRENA, the joined the human call for revolu­ agency responsible for protecting tion in 1979. Days after Anastasio natural resources and the environ­ Somoza was overthrown, an ment. They planted trees on agency responsible for preserva­ cooperative farms outside Man­ tion and management of natural agua and on state farms near (EPOCA, formerly Environmental­ resources and the environment Leon, Nicaragua's second-largest ists for Nicaragua) and the was created to meet this challenge. city. Volunteers also seeded corn Nicaragua Network, are scheduled But just a few years after the and sorghum between eucalyptus from May 31 through June 28 and dictator's overthrow, the u.s.­ trees as part of an agroforestry August 2-30, 1986. They will backed contra war redirected project. Last September, some leave for Managua from Mexico scarce economic resources from brigade members worked on an City. Expenses, excluding airfare environmental protection to the !RENA-sponsored wildlife con­ to Mexico City, are estimated at defense of Nicaragua's people. servation project with marine $800. Ability to speak Spanish is Environmental workers have been turtles on the Pacific coast (see not a prerequisite, since the killed, newly-planted forests have Newsnotes, Nov./Dec. 1985). groups will include translators. been burned, and some projects Volunteer workers contribute Participants will receive a few have been temporarily abandoned. their technical expertise as well days of orientation in Managua But the environmental need re­ as their physical labor. Past before going to the work sites, mains to conserve forests and brigade members have also which will be assigned when the wildlife, restore polluted lakes, donated much-needed tools to groups reach Nicaragua. prevent erosion, and develop IRENA. Brigade volunteers have If you're interested in applying parks. met freely with Nicaraguans to the reforestation brigades, North American ecologists, from all walks of life to discuss send inquiries to Linda Devlin at scientists, and environmental changes brought by the revolution the Nicaragua Network, 2025 I activists are now being called and the impact of the contra war. St., NW, Suite 1117, Washington, upon to help preserve and extend This year's participants will be DC 20006, or call 202/223-2328. this environmental reclamation exposed to a full range of the Applications must be returned by joining month-long volunteer country's environmental work, by early April or early June. reforestation brigades in Nica­ and they'll also have an opportunity For more information about ragua during June and August. to learn about Nicaragua's govern­ supporting environmental work Nicaragua is seeking 100 volunteers ment, mass organizations, culture, in Nicaragua, contact EPOCA to help plant and tend trees and people. c/o Earth Island Institute, 4089 which make up windbreaks that The two 50-member brigades, 26th St., San Francisco, CA are designed to stop soil erosion, cosponsored by the Environmental 94131, or call 415/821-7625. prevent flooding, and reduce air Project on Central America -Julie Ogletree

The New England Journal of among the residents of AIDS ers who conducted the research. Medicine (Feb. 6, 1986) contained victims' homes. Blood tests were Participants in the study shared a plea for scientists to quell done for all household members, cookware, dishes, silverware, public fears about catching the and the only evidence of the toothbrushes, towels, clothes, virus through casual contact AIDS virus was in the blood of a beds, baths, and toilets with with AIDS victims. An article in five-year-old girl whose mother AIDS sufferers. They also hugged, the journal reported that people is infected and who was probably kissed, and helped AIDS victims who share their residence with born with the virus. None of the with bathing and eating. With AIDS victims run little risk of household contacts was a sexual this evidence, we hope that catching the virus. partner. people with AIDS will receive The study of 101 household Dr Gerald H. Friedland of more support and acceptance members and 39 AIDS sufferers Montefiore Medical Center in in and outside of their homes. revealed only one AIDS carrier New York led the team of research-

March/April I 986 5 RADIATION WORKERS The Dark Side of Romancing the Atom

by Robert Alvarez the contaminated pages from Madame Curie's notebook, a record of her Over half a pioneering work. n May 1928, Marie Curie, the Over half a century has passed famed discoverer of radium, century has passed since Marie Curie's death, and received a letter from an Amer­ nations with multibillion dollar ican journalist named Florence since Marie Curie's nuclear industries are once again Pfaltzgraph. facing revisions in radiation expo­ IThe letter mentioned that at least death, and notions sure limits for the public, over 1.5 17 women who worked as radium million radiation workers in the watch dial painters in Essex, New with multibillion U.S., and an equal number of Jersey had been afflicted by necrosis workers around the world. of the jaw-a rare disease where the dollar nuclear On January 10, 1986, the U.S. tissues of the jaw simply rot away. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Twelve had already died. At the (NRC) proposed the first sweeping time, about 3,000 workers-mostly industries ore changes in occupational radiation young women-were busy in around exposure limits since 1959. Despite 50 factories in the U.S., dipping once again fociog the NRC's explanation, which brushes in radioactive paint that describes them as an improvement, made watches glow in the dark. revisions in radiation these changes actually represent a Unfortunately, many were ingesting weakening of radiation exposure deadly amounts of radium as they exposure limits. standards. According to an NRC licked the brushes to make the tips press release, the purpose of the finer. proposed changes "is to establish a Pfaltzgraph's letter arrived at a pathies and advised the women to scientifically sound and explicit time when Madame Curie herself eat calves liver. Although Pfaltz­ risk-to-health basis for the NRC's was also paying severely for her graph's letter clearly disturbed her, radiation protection standards to pioneering work with radioactive Madame Curie refused to accept protect the public and workers." sources. Frequent bouts with chronic that radioactivity had anything to The same limits that apply for illness often kept her bedridden, do with the suffering of the dial radiation workers also serve as an and cataracts, now a well-known painters, much less with the deaths umbrella standard for millions of radiation-induced injury, made it of her own laboratory assistants. patients exposed to medical sources all but impossible for her to read The workers were ill-advised. By of radiation every year. Nations without assistance. Even holding a the time Madame Curie died in 1934 with nuclear programs are waiting piece of paper was difficult because from radiation damage to her bone to see what the U.S. will do before of painful scars on her hands from marrow, dozens of angry radium they make their changes in worker radiation burns. workers were filing lawsuits against standards. "In your wonderful work," wrote their employers, while many were Pfaltzgraph, "I wonder if you have dying in agony from America's Epidemiological Evidence Goes discovered anything which might first industrial epidemic of radiation­ Unheeded benefit these women." True to form, induced disease. Finally, in 1941, Madame Curie expressed her sym- the first industrial standard for Since the 192Ds, increased knowledge radiation exposure was set in the of low-level radiation damage has Robert Alvarez is director of the U.S. limiting the ingestion of brought about a steady reduction­ nuclear power and weapons project radium. by over 150 times-in the allowable at the Environmental Policy Institute As a monument of sorts to the doses for workers. But counter to in Washington, DC. He is the haphazard way occupational radia­ the historic trend in standard coauthor of Killing Our Own: tion standards developed, parts of setting, efforts are underway to America's Disastrous Experience the Curie laboratory in France have increase radiation exposures to with Atomic Radiation, published been condemned for their high workers. Incredibly, this is happening by Dell. levels of radioactivity, including in the face of the findings of several

6 Science for the People studies heralding a new and large firestorm of criticism by govern­ death rates have been found in at wave of cancer deaths among ment nuclear agencies in the U.S. least eight government worker radiation workers exposed to levels and Britain. populations spanning over 20 DOE well below current official limits. But more evidence kept piling up. nuclear facilities. Positive findings Evidence of high cancer death In 1978, two independent studies have been established in nine of the rates has been emerging from long­ found excess leukemia deaths twelve government studies that term studies of over 600,000 U.S. among workers at the nuclear navy have yielded research results so nuclear-weapons workers since shipyard in Portsmouth, New Hamp­ far. 1974. That year, a Washington state shire and a threefold excess death According to a report to DOE by researcher found that workers at rate from melanoma (a virulent Oak Ridge Associated Universities the Atomic Energy Commission's form of skin cancer) at DOE's and the University of North Carolina (now the Department of Energy, Livermore National Laboratory in dated May 1984, "excess mortality DOE) Hanford Plutonium Works California. Government scientists due to site/type specific cancers were dying of cancer at a rate 25% responded by publishing studies, (leukemia, lung, brain, digestive greater than non-nuclear workers based on Dr. Mancuso's data, tract, prostate, and Hodgkins Disease) in the state. suggesting that there were no and excess nonmalignant respira­ Two years later, Dr. Thomas major health problems among tory disease morbidity were found Mancuso of the University of federal nuclear workers. among workers exposed to uranium Pittsburgh, working under a DOE However, internal DOE reports dusts and/ or radiations from other contract, not only confirmed the released by the Environmental internal and external sources." Washington study's findings, but Policy Institute in October 1984 Specifically: also found that the risk of dying indicated something quite different. •Workers at the Oak Ridge National from radiation-induced cancer at Mancuso's critics showed that he Laboratory have a 49% excess Hanford was 10 to 30 times greater and others may have merely identified death rate from leukemia when than current standards assume. For the tip of an iceberg. Based on compared to the general public, his troubles, Mancuso was denied project summaries and memoranda with "leukemia mortality ... demon­ further funding for his research, generated by DOE contract research­ strat[ing] a gradient with increasing and he was promptly subjected to a ers, exceptionally high cancer dose."

:J ~ 3 0'1 INDUjTRY5 COMPARISON MENTAL IT 'I ·~ ~------__.u March/April 1986 7 • Janitors, laborers, enrichment plant exhibit "excess which is "significant" among wage maintenance people, and deaths due to lung and brain employees. Also, "there is an construction workers at cancers and respiratory disease." association between exposure to the laboratory have a uranium and the development of •A 1976 study of employees at "significant excess risk" nonmalignant respiratory disease." DOE's Savannah River Plant near of radiation-induced Aiken, South Carolina found a 60% According to Dr. Clarence C. cancers. excess incidence of lung cancer in Lushbaugh, the former principal • Workers who fabricate nuclear male white-collar workers and a investigator of the Oak Ridge studies, warhead parts at the Oak Ridge Y- 114% excess of leukemia incidence "we don't think anybody should have 12 weapons plant have "excess among male blue-collar workers, alarm about them, or consider them a deaths for cancer of the lung, brain, when compared to the general basis for action... we just don't consider and central nervous system, Hodg­ public and to non-nuclear Dupont them substantive conclusions." kins Disease and other lymphatic workers. Lushbaugh finds that working tissue." Brain tumor deaths are conditions at DOE nuclear facilities •A study of 2,529 workers at over a nearly 500% higher than expected are among the safest in the country­ dozen DOE nuclear facilities who for the general public. something the Congressional Govern­ were reported to have received ment Accounting Office (GAO) • Workers at DOE's Rocky Flats more than five rems of radiation in takes issue with. plutonium "bomb trigger" facility a year found a 300% excess death Since 1981. GAO has reported that near Denver, Colorado are dying of rate from rectal cancer. the Energy Department could not brain tumors at a rate 400% higher assure that "employees at DOE's than the general public. • Workers at DOE's Fernald, Ohio uranium processing plant have a nuclear facilities are provided with • Workers at the Oak Ridge uranium 36% excess of digestive cancers, safe working conditions." According to GAO, the Department of Energy is slow to act on employee complaints and inspects its contractors only infrequently for health and safety violations. After defunding Mancuso's studies, the DOE chose Lushbaugh to take over, who directed a radiation study for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In 1975 Lushbaugh reported to NASA that this "prospective study" of radiation damage to cancer victims was "sorely needed to defend existing environmental and occupa­ tional exposure constraints from attack by well-meaning but imprac­ tical theorists." Since that time, the list of "imprac­ tical theorists" has grown to include Dr. Edward Radford, Chairman of the 1980 National Academy of Science's Committee on the Biolog­ ical Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR). Radford advocates a 10-fold drop in the U.S. occupational exposure limit of five rems per year. (A rem-radiation equivalent man-is a unit of measurement which factors in the amount of radiation absorbed and the degree of biological damage.) In 1979 the Environmental Protec­ tion Agency (EPA) and the NRC officially reduced allowable doses to the general public from nuclear power stations by 20 times (.5 rem to .025 rem per year). But similar changes in worker standards are fiercely opposed by the civilian and military nuclear programs. Why? "If Radford's regulations went into effect," a fellow BEIR Committee member told the New York Times, "it would wipe out the nuclear industry." Reeling from severe setbacks such as the Three Mile

8 Science for the People Island accident, enormous cost evidence, scientific opinion began inflation, low electrical demand, to change after World War II. By and massive public opposition, the 1949, the National Council on commercial nuclear power industry By the time Radiation Protection and Measure­ believes it can't afford to make ments (NCRP) quietly advised the changes necessary to accommodate Madame Curie died Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) a major reduction in worker expo­ that there no longer appeared to be a sures. in 1934 from safe tolerance dose of radiation, "You could cut standards in half below which no risk of cancer or and it wouldn't change a thing we radiation damage to genetic damage existed. Worker do," claimed Neal Linkton, an exposures were subsequently lowered official for Rockwell International. her bone marrow, from 36 rems to 12 rems per year. "There's been talk about cutting it Large-scale nuclear weapons test to about one-tenth. You could cut it dozens of angry explosions in the atmosphere trig­ to a point where it would be gered a worldwide outcry which impossible." radium workers was fueled by an often hostile The DOE, in the midst of a costly scientific debate. For decades after renovation and expansion of its were filing lawsuits the NCRP's 1949 recommendation, aging nuclear weapons production AEC officials regularly attacked complex, also faces prohibitive scientists who warned the public costs if worker exposure limits are against their that there was no safe dose of reduced 10-fold. In the fall of 1983, radiation. Dr. William Loewe, a radiation employers. Behind the smug reassurances, expert at DOE's Lawrence-Livermore however, government experts were Laboratory, reported at an in-house well aware of the inherent weaknesses meeting of DOE scientists that Thousands of military and civilian in radiation standards. At a secret "there are tens of billions of dollars personnel were exposed to potentially meeting held in November 1958 to to be spent in the commercial and dangerous levels of radiation after discuss high radioactive fallout nuclear defense industries if protec­ Baker, the second test, shot up a readings in Los Angeles, NCRP tion standards were to be changed." million-ton column of highly radio­ Chairman Lauriston Taylor noted DOE's nuclear program has active water which then rained that official public statements almost twice as many facilities as down, contaminating the entire about standards "carry the implica­ the commercial nuclear industry. lagoon. Navy officers were warned tion that we know what we are Since many workers, residents by Warren's team before the Baker talking about when we set them. But living near federal facilities, and test that the lagoon would be in actual fact they represent the military personnel were exposed to seriously contaminated. But several best judgement we could exercise in nuclear weapons-related radiation ships were sent in hours after the the total absence of any real in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, a blast, and eventually a large portion knowledge as to whether they are significant change in worker expo­ of the Navy's entire Pacific fleet correct or not." sure standards also implies a became contaminated Warren finally By 1959, widespread concern over substantial government liability to succeeded in blocking a third test genetic damage and other health compensate a growing number of explosion and closed down Operation effects prompted the International claims for latent radiation injury. Crossroads after decontamination Commission on Radiological Protec­ In defending against these claims, efforts proved overwhelming. tion (ICRP) to recommend an the government asserts that exposures Influenced by the growing body of across-the-board drop from 12 rems were often "insignificant" and that adequate precautions were taken from the very beginning. Radiation and Health History of Occupational Radiation Exposure Standards unlike the physicists of the early shrapnel passing through a tissue." twentieth century, today's government­ A 160-pound person who receives one­ During the 1940s, radiation health spawned nuclear industries have a fifth of the annual radiation dose allowed experts in the Manhattan Project substantial body of scientific evidence on for a IM>rker absorbs enough energy to (which gave birth to the modern radiation health effects. Researchers ionize each cell of his or her body 1:¥ nuclear industry) realized that now agree that small doses can be 100,000 times. Some of these ionizations their standards were often inade­ harmful and that the violence of low­ can affect vital parts of the cell, such as quate to protect against the risks level radiation occurs at the level of the DNA the essential genetic material which being taken to produce and test the single living cell. determines the nature of the cell. first nuclear explosives. In 1947, Radiation is ionizing when it carries Once the DNA is damaged. distorted after Operation Crossroads exploded enough energy to knock off electrons of messages can be transmitted to the cell the first nuclear test weapons in the the atoms it strikes. Doctors John and passed on through reproduction and Bikini atoll during the summer of Gofman and Arthur Tamplin, former heredity. Thus, thousands of mutated 1946, Colonel Stafford Warren, government radiation experts, theorized clone cells can reproduce themselves, Chief of the Manhattan Project's that when radiation strikes a cell and forming the basis for cancerous tumors. By Radiological Safety Section, wrote, ionizes its blomolecules, "a massive the time a tumor can be seen or felt "in view of the experience [with nonspedfic disorganization" and destruc­ several years may have passed, and it is existing radiation standards]... they tion of chemical bonds can occur that is composed of several million of these would hardly be worth the paper similar to "the effect of a jagged piece of abnormal cells. they are printed on."

March/April 1986 9 /

to five rems per year of external penetrating radiation ICRP's recom­ mendations also took into account internal The First study on fetal irradiation exposures to several radioactive products. Interestingly, public exposure reported positive findings in 1956. limits were set ten times lower. These limits were soon adopted by ,Thirty years Jater, the NRC is the U.S. and other countries. Formed in 1929, the ICRP is a self­ finally proposing the first appointing body of radiologists and radiation experts. Since the 1950s, formal standard to protect the its membership has come mainly from nuclear industries and the bureaucracies of nations with developing child, .5 rem, which may major nuclear programs. In the past 30 years, its recommendations double the risk of childhood have paralleled those of its U.S. counterpart, the NCRP, and have cancer. and mental retardation. been generally accepted. Raising the Umits The major scientific evidence used by the U.S. government to known as jumpers-has risen dramat­ Denial ofData justify relaxing occupational expo­ ically in the past few years, as aging sure standards comes from the 1977 nuclear power plants have become For the past few years, doubts about ICRP recommendations. Although more radioactive. Current standards the underlying rationale for these its stated rationale is to update the protecting temporary workers are recommendations have been surfac­ 1959 proposal by providing a more largely voluntary and do not neces­ ing among industry scientists. The rational approach to radiation sarily prevent a worker from going most significant questions are those protection based on the best available to the next reactor to receive yet dealing with the data on the Japanese science, ICRP recommends continu­ another high dose of ionizing radiation atomic bomb survivors, which have ing the 25-year-old five rem limit. Another alleged improvement is become the principal scientific And in certain circumstances, it ICRP's proposal to integrate external reference used by the ICRP to calls for allowing even higher with internal radiation risks when determine low-level radiation expo­ doses of radiation. multiple-organ exposure occurs. sure risks. ICRP also supports substantial On the face of it, this system may The survivor study, begun in 1950 increases in internal exposure seem better because it considers the by the U.S. government, is comprised limits or "body burdens". This is risk to all organs at once. But in of about 80,000 people exposed to A­ one of the most dangerous risks situations where radiation is deposited bomb radiation in Hiroshima and facing radiation workers. Although on one organ alone, the ICRP's Nagasaki in 1945. Although it is a certain radiation products are not elaborate model allows for very study of high doses, it has been the immediately harmful outside the large increases over current limits. only large-scale study of radiation body, once they are inhaled or For example, the current limit for effects on humans. ingested they can lodge in sensitive radioactive products, like plutonium Soon after ICRP issued its recom­ organs for periods of years, cumula­ or strontium-90, which deposits in mendations in 1977, government­ tively causing serious health damage. bone marrow (a very radiation­ sponsored scientists began to discover On the positive side, ICRP recom­ sensitive organ), is five rems per flaws in the A-bomb survivor study. mends eliminating a current loop­ year. ICRP's proposal allows for an Radiation doses which triggered hole through which workers may be annual dose of 42 rems! cancer among the survivors were exposed to three rems of external Jerry Harden, former president of found by researchers at DOE's penetrating radiation every three the United Steel Workers Local8031 Lawrence-Livermore Laboratory to months, or 12 rems a year, as long as at DOE's Rocky Flats facility, where be much smaller than previously their lifetime average does not workers are exposed to internal thought. Radiation/cancer risk esti­ exceed five rems annually. radiation like plutonium, comments, mates for survivors were also But ICRP's substitute-a "special "ICRP's recommendations appear to increased when it was discovered planned exposure" -is a subject for be designed to allow workers who that cancer incidence is about twice concern. This exception to the rule are over the current limits for as great as cancer mortality (the allows a worker to receive as much internal exposures to continue current basis for survivor risk as 15 rems over a few seconds to a work." estimates). day. Apparently it is designed to Dr. Robert Baker, who prepared Variations in individual sensitivity allow temporary unskilled workers, the revised worker standards at to radiation-induced cancer among involved in jobs with high radiation NRC's Office of Research, concedes the survivors has added another fields (particularly at nuclear power that some exposures will go up, but twofold increase in cancer risks. plants) to receive much higher that the science behind ICRP's Additionally, a new wave of long­ exposures than they could get under recommendations is sound. "We are latency cancers is being observed current standards. going to let the science drive the among the survivors, suggesting The use of temporary workers- policy in this area," Baker concludes. that the worst is not over yet. These

10 Science for the People revisions imply that ICRP's inter­ pretation of the Japanese A-bomb survivor study may underestimate Compulsive Technology explores the the reality. Other essays explore how low-level radiation/ cancer risks by ways in which computers confront computers become a 'defining almost ten times. users as a cultural force, as both tool technology' in the general culture. In light of evidence from large and master. Radical Science Series no.18 populations of U.S. nuclear workers exposed to low-level radiation (which Three case studies- of schools, higher £4.95/$6.50 from was individually measured), the A­ education and the artificial intelligence Free Association Books, bomb survivor study may have little industry - contrast the rhetoric with 26 Freegrove Road, London N7. value in determining low-level radiation standards. But DOE scien­ Edited by Tony Solomonides and Las Levldow tists are reluctant to admit that the worker studies have any worth. COMPULSIVE TECHNOLOGY DOE researchers also refuse to accept years of evidence that children exposed as fetuses to low-level radiation bear very high risks of health damage. These studies, con­ ducted in the U.S. and Britain for more than 25 years, show that a single x-ray given during pregnancy can initiate a childhood cancer-the most prevalent cause of death by disease in the U.S. for children aged two to ten years. Since the 1960s, concern has grown among medical doctors about the . '\ ,,- ·... radiation sensitivity of the fetus, i&B ·.•. , ' . .. FI-. "~~ .--~· -~.., 4~ .. ..,_ particularly since the first trimester . ) .,· .. . of pregnancy is considered to be the ~· ...... J,;A"' ! ' • • most vulnerable developmental . •(':... ~ ~... :-~· t V'" ~·-..::; period Moreover, the human fetus is thought to be 10 to 100 times more sensitive to radiation damage than ':lo/Jall:.

March/Apri11986 II )

"Thirty years of research have shown this pro~ess to be safe.'' Morgor~t Heckler "We don't know it's safe. For the government to say it's safe is simply; untrue." Dr. John Gofman

D IRRADIA110N Zapping What You Eat

by Leslie Fraser nuclear weapons waste into a saleable product by using it for food irradiation," Tucker claims. n the 1950s, the Atomic Energy Last July, the FDA approved Commission and the Pentagon commercial use of irradiation to had high hopes for nuclear kill trichinella spiralis in pork, the weapons waste. parasite that causes trichinosis. I Industry spokesmen claim that Side-by-side VISions of nuclear furnaces in every basement, they trichinosis could be eliminated in dreamed of irradiated chickens in the U.S. by 1987. But use of irradiation every pot. Why worry about radio­ seems superfluous. since trichinosis active waste? Just use it up by is no longer a serious health threat using it again. in the U.S .• and it's now possible to According to Kitty Tucker, president test for trichinae in living pigs. of the Health and Energy Institute Irradiation certainly won't eliminate in Washington, DC, times may have the cause of trichinosis. If U.S. changed, but the government is farmers stopped feeding their pigs acting out a very old fairy tale. The uncooked garbage and rodents. a Department of Energy is playing practice banned in other countries, Rumplestiltskin with the Food and the parasite would not appear in Drug Administration and Health pork. And irradiation won't provide and Human Services department. a better method for killing trichinae. "Rumplestiltskin turned straw into Cooking pork at 170 degrees for five gold; the DOE wants to turn its minutes will kill the parasite more economically. Leslie Fraser is editor ofScience for The final go-ahead for pork the People. She wishes to thank the irradiation was given on January Health and Energy Institute for 14. 1986, with the U.S. Department of material provided for this article. Agriculture's approval of irradiation

12 at doses of 30,000 to 100,000 rads. For consumers, "USDA plans to approve labeling terms on a case-by-case basis, but plans to approve labels "The kind of epidemiological such as 'irradiated,' or 'treated with ionizing radiation,' " according study required to find out whether to Donald Houston, USDA's food safety and inspection administrator. or not a diet of irradiated food The impetus to irradiate pork came from Radiation Technology, will increase the frequency of Inc., a company in Rockaway, New Jersey who petitioned the FDA in cancer or ~~enetic injuries among 1984 to amend food additive regula­ tions. The company hopes that these new regulations will extend humans simply has not been to poultry and other meat. "I believe we can be one of the largest growth done." industries in the history of this nation," RTI's president and former Atomic Energy Commission physicist, company had taken the door to the 12, 1985, Health and Human Services Martin A. Welt, predicted in a New room off its hinges, and disconnected Secretary Margaret M. Heckler York Times interview. RTI cleared a safety lock which should have pre­ approved FDA regulations that $2.1 million in sales last year. vented anyone from entering the would extend commercial irradiation Radiation Technology may be room while the cobalt-60 was to fruits and vegetables for killing ready to start zapping pork, but the exposed. insects and lengthening the time government won't approve their With companies like Radiation that produce can sit on a grocer's plant until it's cleaned up. RTI is a Technology at the forefront of the shelf before rotting. The regulations major environmental polluter, and irradiation business, why worry permit up to 100,000 rads of ionizing the plant is an Environmental about environmental or occupa­ radiation for fruits and vegetables. Protection Agency Superfund site tional safety in the industry? Responding to a petition from because of chemical contaminations. McCormick, Inc., a major spice Radiation Technology is also a Stamp of Approval manufacturer, the new regulations radiation hazard. In January 1977, also triple current limits for irradiation the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Besides pork, the FDA has approved of herbs and spices from 1 million to fined RTI $4,800 for nine violations irradiation of wheat and potatoes 3 million rads. of federal radiation safety standards. since the 1960s, to prevent potatoes "This regulation is an important Nine months later, the company from sprouting and to kill insects in step forward for consumers-a exposed a worker to an almost fatal wheat grain and flour. Because proven, safe method to protect fresh radiation dose from unshielded irradiation is more expensive than fruits and vegetables from insects, cobalt-60. Employee Michael Pierson chemical treatment, it hasn't been and to inhibit spoilage and extend entered a radiation chamber at RTI. used commercially on wheat and shelf life," Heckler said, as she receiving a dose of 200 rads. The potatoes. But with new FDA regula­ signed the new regulations. "Thirty tions approving irradiation of more years of research have shown this foods, the commercial market plans process to be safe." "We don't think the to harvest this technology in the These regulations also require next two years, making irradiation labels for irradiated fruits and American people an economically viable option. vegetables, including the "radura" Irradiation of spices, approved in logo for irradiated food, which should be ~;3uinea 1983, is used for some commercial pictures a flower inside a broken

II products, especially garlic powder circle. This symbol is favored by p1t;3S. and onion powder, and for many the irradiation industry, because it spices which are added to processed looks so benign. In time, Radiation foods. Labeling of foods containing Technology president Martin Welt irradiated ingredients, such as hopes that the symbol will take on spices, has not been mandatory, so positive connotations that irradiation most consumers have not known is "safe, wholesome and nutritious." when they're eating irradiated food. In two years, the FDA will decide Food is irradiated through exposure whether the symbol is familiar to a beam of ionizing radiation from enough to the public to be used gamma sources like cesium-137 without written labeling. and cobalt-60, or machines that The FDA originally proposed generate electron or X-ray beams. eliminating retail labeling entirely, In a commercial plant, packaged but since over 5,000 people wrote to food rides on a conveyor belt protest, they changed tactics. Instead, through a radiation chamber. Expo­ the term "picowaved" will be used sure levels vary with the type of to identify irradiated foods. If the food being irradiated. The chamber FDA required the word radiation on is protected by concrete walls 6.5 fruits and vegetables, irradiation feet thick. companies would take the FDA to Three months ago, on December court. Martin Welt claims that it's '

Science for the People essential to "consumer education" nique is used (such as irradiation keeping, and suppression of unfavor­ to avoid any labeling that refers to followed by canning), there may be able findings. Two of their three radiation, which he believes would a decline in a food's nutritional animal feeding studies on irradiated unduly alarm the public. beef, ham, and pork were found fraudulent. The third study, which Whose Studies Should You was not held in default, found reduced numbers of offspring, and Believe? greater numbers of tumors in The FDA reviewed 441 scientific animals fed irradiated food. studies before deciding that further An Indian study published in 1975 testing is unnecessary. Dismissing in the American Journal of Clinical all but five of those studies as Nutrition reported a high rate of scientifically flawed, the FDA chromosomal abnormalities in the maintains that the five studies they white blood cells of children fed approved show irradiated food to be freshly irradiated wheat. A U.S. safe. They also claim that irradiation Army-sponsored experiment in will improve consumers' health by replacing EDB and other hazardous pesticides. Critics site at least 32 studies showing negative effects from irradiated food. They question the longterm health effects of irradiated food diets, and advocate further testing to assure that chemical changes which occur in food after irradiation aren't harmful. "We don't believe the American people should be guinea pigs," said Health and Energy Institute president According to Dr. John Gofman, Kitty Tucker. professor emeritus of mou.n'"'"'l/ "Despite industry's protest that physics at the University of ""a~•Ju.,~.,. this has been studied to death, at Berkeley, "We don't know it's there's an insufficient number of safe. For the government to say studies," said Allen Greenberg, they know it's safe is simply staff attorney for the Public Citizen untrue. I don't think people are Health Research Group. "The FDA going to drop over dead in 30 days­ is misleading consumers by suggest­ my concern is the longterm carcin­ ing there are no potential health ogenic potential. hazards." "The kind of epidemiological Although irradiation does not study required to find out whether make food radioactive, it does or not a diet of irradiated food will change the composition. Gamma increase (or possibly decrease) the rays can ionize atoms and molecules frequency of cancer or genetic in the food, forming unstable injuries among humans simply has secondary products called free not been done .... What is more, such radicals. They react with the food a study is unlikely to ever be done, and cause molecular changes which because it would require controlling create unique radiolytic products the diets of 200,000 humans of (URPs) that are not caused by other various age groups for at least 30years, food processing techniques. and following their life histories for These radiolytic products could at least 50 years (preferably their 1979 revealed severely depressed be carcinogenic or toxic. Formal­ full life spans)," Gofman warns. reproduction among fruit flies fed dehyde, benzene, and hydrogen For more than 25 years, the U.S. irradiated chicken. And Soviet peroxide have been found in some Army performed most of the research studies published in 1978 and 1981 irradiated foods. In a 1980 report, on irradiated food. In April 1984, showed abnormalities in the kidneys the USDA stated that irradiated Sanford Miller, the food safety chief and testes of rats fed irradiated foods may contain enough URPs "to of the FDA, claimed that only three meat and fish. warrant toxicological evaluation." studies done by the Army on The Health and Energy Institute Irradiation also causes increased sterilizing meats met the FDA's hopes to file a lawsuit to demand an production of naturally occurring criteria for acceptable research, environmental impact statement aflotoxins, a carcinogen produced and even those studies were ques­ and technology assessment of food by fungi. It can increase the chance tionable. irradiation before full-scale commer­ of food poisoning by encouraging Many of those studies were done cial implementation. With so many radiation-resistant botulism bacteria. by the Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories, questions about the integrity of Irradiation also causes nutritional Inc. In 1983, IBT officials were those conducting food irradiation losses by destroying several vitamins, found guilty of defrauding the research, and the poor health including vitamin A, someBs, C, andE. government in drug research due to results shown in some studies, It may alter amino acids and fats. If unsanitary lab conditions, lack of commercial food irradiation should more than one food processing tech- routine analyses, faulty record be halted until it's proven safe. 9

March/April1986 15 FA by Ruth Hubbard prise. As scientists, we must follow AI certain rules of membership and go about our task of fact-making in razilian educator Paulo particular, professionally-sanctioned Freire has pointed out that ways. We must submit our facts to people who want to under­ review by our colleagues and be FEMI stand the role of politics in willing to share them with others shaping education must by writing and speaking about "see the reasons behind the them. If we work for private facts." 1 companies with proprietary interests, Thoughts on I want to begin by exploring some we must still be willing to share our of the political, economic, and facts, but only with a limited social reasons behind a particular number of people. of Natur kind of facts, "facts of natural If we follow proper procedures, science." we become accredited fact-makers. I am attracted to this because ever In that case, our facts come to be since I began to think critically accepted on faith. Large numbers of about science, and about my own people, who are in no position to activities as a scientist, I have been judge whether they're fact or fascinated by "facts", what they are fiction, begin to believe us. After and how they get to be. After all, all, a lot of "scientific facts" are facts aren't just out there. Every counterintuitive-like the earth fact has a factor, a maker. moving around the sun, or that if As people move through the you drop a pound of feathers and a world, how do we sort those aspects pound of rocks, they will fall at the that we permit to become facts from same rate. those that we relegate to being What are the social or group fiction-and from those that, worse characteristics of the people who yet, we do not even notice and are permitted to make scientific therefore do not name as fact, facts? Above all, they must have a fiction, or figment? In other words, particular kind of education that what criteria and mechanisms of includes college, graduate, and selection do people use in the post-graduate training. That means making of facts? that in addition to whatever subject matter they learn, they are socialized The Facts of Science to think in certain ways and to have familiarized themselves with a Making facts is a social enterprise. narrow slice of human history and Individuals cannot just go off by culture-primarily the experiences themselves and come up with their of western European and North own brand of facts. When people do American upper class men during that, and the rest of us do not agree the past century or two. to accept or share the facts they But who gets to have access to offer us as descriptions of the that education? Until the last world, they are considered schizo­ decade or so, they have been phrenic, crazy. If we do agree, predominantly upper-middle and either because their facts coincide upper class youngsters, most of or overlap sufficiently with ours or them male and white. In the past because they have the power to decade, a slightly larger number of force us to accept their facts as real white women and a few more people and true-to make us see the of color have been let in, but the emperor's new clothes-then the class composition has not changed new facts become part of our shared appreciably. reality, and their making becomes a What about the other kinds of social enterprise. people? Have they no role in the Making science is such an enter- making of science? Quite the contrary. In the ivory-that is, Ruth Hubbard teaches in the biology white and male-towers in which department at Harvard University, science gets made, people from writes about women's health issues, working class and lower-middle and is a member of SftP's editorial class backgrounds are well repre­ advisory board. sented. But they are technicians,

16 Science for the People :Ts D secretaries, and clean-up personnel. it, and we think it is somehow Decisions about who gains the better. status of fact-maker are made by This is a mistake in a scientific university professors, deans, and laboratory, because it means that presidents. They call on scientific the laboratory chief-the person ~ISM colleagues from similar institutions with "the ideas" -often gets all the to vouchsafe the quality of a particular credit. The laboratory workers-the candidate and to guarantee that he people who work with their hands­ or she conforms to university and are the ones who perform the ~e Masculinity scientific professional standards. operations and make the observations At the larger, systemic level, that permit hypotheses and ideas to decisions are made by government become facts. Often, they are the I Science and private funding agencies who ones who produce the substrata of operate by what is called peer observations out of which the new review. Like-minded people from ideas emerge, that the laboratory similar personal and academic chief then puts out as his, or backgrounds get together to decide occasionally her own. whether a particular fact-making But it is not only because of the proposal has enough merit to be way natural science is done that financed. It is a club in which head and hand, mental and manual people mutually sit on each other's work, are often closely linked. decision-making panels. Natural science requires a conjunc­ The criteria for access are supposed tion of head and hand because it to be objective andmeritocratic, but seeks an understanding of nature they aren't. Orthodoxy and conformity for use. To understand nature is not count for a lot. Someone whose ideas enough. or personality are out of line is less Natural science and technology likely to succeed than "one of the are inextricable; natural science is boys". These days, some of us girls true only to the extent that it works. are allowed to be one of the boys, Its laws are relevant only if they particularly if we have learned the can be applied and used as tech­ rules by which the game is played. nology. The science/technology Thus, science is made by a distinction is an ideological device predominantly self-perpetuating, of relatively recent historical self-reflexive group: by the chosen, origin which does not hold up in the for the chosen. The assumption is real world of economic, political, that if the science is "good" it will, and social institutions. in the long run, "serve the people." But no one and no group is respon­ Women's Nature: sible for seeing that it does. Public Facts and Fiction accountability is not built into the system. An entire range of discriminatory What are the alternatives? How practices is justified by the claim could we have a science for the that they follow from the limits that people, and to what extent could­ biology places on women's capacity or should-it be a science by the to work. Though exceptions are people? After all, divisions of labor made during wars and other emergen­ are not necessarily bad. There is no cies, these are forgotten as soon as reason and no possibility, in a life resumes its normal course. complicated society like ours, for Then women are expected to return everyone to be able to do everything. to their subordinate roles, not Inequalities which are bad come because the quality of their work not from different people doing during the emergencies has been different things, but from different inferior, but because these roles are tasks being valued differently, seen as natural. ) carrying with them different amounts Recently a number of women of prestige and power. employees in the American chemi­ For example, American and cal and automotive industries have European societies assign different been forced to choose between values to mental and manual labor. working at relatively well-paying We value mental labor more highly jobs and their ability .to have than manual labor, we pay more for children.

March/April 1986 17 In one instance, =!;saaartfive women were ' required to sub- .....:1-'tiifl-+tlt,~rH.-.+mit to steriliza- ~~Es;~~titt15~ tion by hysterec- Subscriptions are available for $29.00 for 50 issues (1 year) and -1 tomy in order to $17.00 for 25 Issues. Special introductory offer 12 avoid being transferred from work weeks/$8.00. in the lead pigment department at American Cyanamid in Willow Island, West Virginia to janitorial Send check or money order to Gay Community News, 167 Tremont work at much lower wages and Street, Suite 55, Boston, MA 02111. benefits. While other women in the department refused hysterectomies GCN is published by the non-profit Bromfield Street Educational Foundation. and were demoted or fired, the women who were sterilized still lost their jobs when the department ------. ------shut down months later. Even thoughnoneofthesewomen Fate or Fiction was pregnant or planning a pregnancy in the near future (indeed, the Biological Theories of Human husband of one had a vasectomy), they were considered pregnant or A 30-minute slide-tape presentation "potentially pregnant" unless they for college, high school, and could prove that they were sterile. community groups. Explores the link Men in the plant weren't sterilized, despite the fact that exposure to between genetics and behavior, lead can damage sperm as .well as exposing the use of science to eggs and can affect the health of rationalize social and political workers (male and female) as well inequalities. as a "potential fetus". Send orders, This vicious choice has been with payment, to: Teaching Guide now available. forced only on women who have Science for the recently entered what had previously 0 Purchase: S150 0 Rental: S35 897 Main St.,Cambridge, MA 02139 been considered relatively well­ paidmalejobs. Women whosework routinely involves exposure to chemical or radiation hazards in traditionally female jobs-such as nurses, X-ray technologists, cleaning Imagine a sustainable women in surgical operating rooms, beauticians, secretaries, workers in future for our planet.* the ceramics industry, and domestic workers-are not warned about the presence of chemical or physical HOW PEACE hazards to their health or to that of a fetus, should they be pregnant. CAME INTO In other words, protection of women's reproductive integrity is THE WORLD being used as a pretext to exclude women from better paid job categories edited by Earl W Foell from which they had traditionally and Richard A. Nenneman been excluded. But women (or men) Foreword by Kurt Waldheim are not protected against health­ endangering work in general.2 It can happen. In the year 2010 the world is at The ideology of woman's nature peace and the threat of nuclear devastation has vanished. How did this come about? that is invoked at these times would have us believe that a woman's Through the imaginative ideas of forty women and men -lawyers, doctors, professors, conflict research capacity to become pregnant leaves specialists, and others who think about peace in a different way, who do not accept that war is her at all times physically disabled inevitable. The wealth of original and workable approaches to peace presented in this book were selected from entries to "Peace 2010;· a contest sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor. Earl W. Foell, by comparison with men. The Editor in Chief of the Monitor and Richard A. Nenneman, the Monitor's Managing Editor have written scientific underpinnings for these introductions to scenarios that range from catastrophe and activism to insight and diplomacy. ideas were elaborated by nineteenth century biologists and physicians. ""How Peace Came to the World is an arresting and evocative compendium of scenarios that imagine a sustainable future for our planet. The book is a superb reminder that people everywhere owe a duty to the children to safeguard the future." -International Physicians for They claimed that women's brains the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipients of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize were smaller than men's, and that women's ovaries and uteruses THE MIT PRESS BOOKSTORE required much energy and rest in $13.95 at all fine bookstores and Kendall Square, 292 Main Street, Cambridge visa/me, phone & mail orders welcome; 253·5249 order to function properly. They "proved" that young girls must be kept away from schools

18 Science for the People and colleges once they had begun to of heterosexual intercourse to send menstruate, and warned that without a sperm on its way to personhood). this kind of care women's uteruses Th~se.days# ·some Therefore, each egg and child would shrivel, and the human race represents a much larger fraction would die out. This analysis was of us 9irls are of reproductive fitness for a woman not carried over to poor women, than each sperm or child does for a who were not only required to work man. hard, but often were said to repro­ allowed to be one From this biological asymmetry duce too much. Indeed, the fact that follow female fidelity, male promis­ they could work so hard while of the boys, cuity, and the unequal division and bearing children was taken as a valuing of labor by sex in this sign that these women were more particularly if we society. As sociobiologist David animal-like and less highly evolved Barash presents it, "mother nature than upper class women. have learned the is sexist," so don't blame her human But this kind of scientific myth­ sons.4 making is not past history. Since rules by which the In devising these explanations, the 1970s, there has been a renais­ sociobiologists ignore the fact that sance in sex differences research game is played. human societies do not operate with that has claimed to prove scientifically a few super studs, nor do stronger or that women are innately better more powerful men usually have than men at home care and mother­ children themselves. The rationale more children than weaker ones. ing while men are innately better is that an organism's biological Though men, in theory, could have fitted than women for the competi­ fitness, in the Darwinian sense, many more children than women, tive life of the marketplace. depends on producing the greatest in most societies equal numbers of Questionable experimental results possible number of offspring, who men and women engage in producing obtained with animals (primarily themselves survive long enough to children. But in caring for them, that prototypic human, the white reproduce. This is what determines this is not the case. Nonetheless, laboratory rat) are treated as the frequency of occurrence of an this kind of theory is useful to though they can be applied equally individual's genes in successive people who have a stake in maintain­ well to people. On this basis, some generations. ing present inequalities. It has scientists are now claiming that the Following this logic a step further, a superficial ring of plausibility secretion of different amounts of so­ sociobiologists argue that women and thus offers naturalistic justifica­ called male hormones (androgens) and men must adopt basically tions for discriminatory practices. by male and female fetuses produces different strategies to maximize the lifelong differences in women's and spreading of genes over future Subjectivity and Objectivity men's brains. They claim not only generations. The calculus goes as that these unproved differences in follows: women cannot produce as Natural scientists attain their fetal hormone levels exist, but many eggs as men can produce objectivity by looking upon natural imply, without evidence, that they sperm, and must "invest" at least phenomena (including other people) predispose men and women as nine months in pregnancy (whereas as isolated objects that exist outside groups to exhibit innate differences it takes a man only the few minutes the context of interrelationships of in our abilities to localize objects in space. in our verbal and mathematical aptitudes, in aggressiveness, competi­ tiveness, and nurturing ability.a Other scientists and sociobiolo­ gists claim that some of the sex differences in social behavior that exist in our society (for example, aggressiveness, competitiveness, and dominance among men; coyness, nurturance and submissiveness among women) are human universals that have existed in all times and cultures. Because these traits are ever-present, they deduce that they must be adaptive (that is, promote human survival), and that they have evolved through Darwinian natural selection and are now part of our genetic inheritance. In recent years, sociobiologists have tried to prove that women have a greater biological investment in our children than men, and that women's disproportionate contri­ butions to child- and homecare are biologically programmed to help "My research shows conclusively that the proton is us insure that our "investments" mature-in other words, that our female, as she stays in the nucleus and cooks while children live long enough to have the male electron goes out and hunts valences!"

March/April 1986 19 and of using the knowledge gained from that interaction acknowledged as science, whereas others are not? I am talking of the distinction between the laboratory and that other, quite differently-structured II~~:er~l~a~e ~~a~~~d~c=~ place of discovery and fact-making, the household There women explore of science-as wives, sisters, and use our brands of botany, chemistry, and hygiene in our 93Cretaies, technicians, a"d stLdents gardens, kitchens, nurseries, and sick rooms. Much of the knowledge of ''great men''-though usually that women have acquired in those places is systematic, communicated, not as named scientists. and it works. But just as our society downgrades It is one of our jobs as feminists manual labor, it also downgrades practical knowledge, however sys­ tematic it may be. We downgrade to acknowledge that role. the orally-transmitted knowledge and the unpaid observations, experi­ mentation, and teaching that happen which human beings are a part. personal and social background in the household. Yet here is an Natural scientists describe their imposes on the way they perceive entire spectrum of empirical know­ observations as though they and the foreign society. ledge that has gone unnoticed and their activities existed in a vacuum. The social structure of the labora­ unvalidated (in fact, devalued and In that vacuum, they can make facts tory in which scientists work and invalidated) by the institutions that and formulate laws. the community and interpersonal catalog and describe, and thus What feminists have to contribute relationships in which they live define, what is to be called knowledge. is the insistence that subjectivity must be acknowledged as part of the I am not sure, and indeed rather and context cannot be stripped subjective reality and context of doubt, that women as gendered beings away. They must be acknowledged doing science. Yet they are usually have something new or different to if we want to understand nature and ignored when we speak of a scientist's contribute to science. But women as and use the knowledge we gain work, despite the fact that natural political beings do. And one of the without abusing nature. Natural scientists work in highly organized most important things we can do is scientists must try to understand social systems. to insist on the political content of our position in nature and in Obviously, the sociology of labora­ science and its political role. The society as subjects as well as tory life is structured by class, sex, pretense that science is objective, objects. and race, as is the rest of society. To apolitical, and value-neutral is The problem is that the context­ understand what goes on in the profoundly political because it stripping that used to work for the laboratory, we must ask questions obscures the role that science and classical physics of falling bodies about who does what kinds of work. technology play in underwriting (that experience no friction) and What does the lab chief-the person the existing distribution of power "ideal" particles (that don't interact) whose name appears on the stationery in the society. has become the model for how to do or the door-contribute? How are No active component of society­ every kind of science-even though decisions made about what work and science and technology are physicists early in this century gets done and in what order? What that-can be politically neutral. By recognized that the experimenter is role do women, whatever our class claiming to be objective and neutral, part of the experiment and influences and race, and men of color and from scientists merely align themselves its outcome. That insight produced working class backgrounds play in with the powerful against the Heisenberg's uncertainty principle this performance? powerless. Feminist science-by in physics: the recognition that the Note that women have played a which I mean science done by operations performed by the experi­ very large role in the production of scientists who consciously integrate menter disturb the system so that it science-as wives, sisters, secre­ feminist politics into their science­ is impossible to specify simultane­ taries, technicians, and students of can expose the errors and dishonesty ously the position and momentum "great men" -though usually not of the claim of scientific objectivity of atoms and elementary particles. as named scientists. It is one of our and neutrality. This is done by Awareness of subjectivity and jobs as feminists to acknowledge insisting on the political nature and context should be part of doing that role. content of scientific work and of all science, because they are part of If feminists are to make a difference science teaching. being human, which includes living in the ways that science is done and Clearly, science and technology in society. Anthropologists often understood, we must not just try to always operate in somebody's try to take field notes to describe a become scientists who occupy the interest. The so-called neutrality of new culture as quickly as possible traditional structures and follow science merely indicates the extent after they enter it. They realize that the established patterns of behavior. to which it supports the existing once they come to know a culture More important, we must understand distribution of interests and power. well and feel at home, they will and describe accurately the roles The male-dominated science we begin to take its most significant women have played all along in the have now is just as political and aspects for granted and stop seeing process of making science. value-laden as a feminist science them. Yet they must also acknowledge Why are certain ways of syste­ the limitations that their own matically interacting with nature continued on page 26

20 Science for the People CORPORATE ENERGY FUTURES A Dumbo Aide Through Epcot Center

by Anthony E. Ladd the existing Walt Disney World Sponsorship of Future World's complex of resort and entertainment pavilions includes an elite parade attractions near Orlando, Florida. of conglomerates like Exxon, General alt Disney Productions Supplemented by World Showcase, Electric, General Motors, Kraft, continue to prove them­ an attraction featuring the cultural Sperry, Kodak, Coca-Cola, AT&T, selves as corporate ped­ displays and reconstructed elements American Express, and Time, Inc., dlers of fantasy. of nine countries, Epcot features a who have spent as much as $25 W Future World of multinational million each to sponsor exhibitions At almost 60 years old, Mickey Mouse still managed to lead the corporate pavilions dealing with seen by almost 11 million people company to over a billion dollars in the universe of current and futuristic each year. earnings last year from character technological achievements in A self-described permanent world's merchandising alone. Disney's energy, communications, space fair, as well as a "proving ground "theme parks"-Disneyland and travel, and transportation. for American technology," Epcot is Disney World-continue to draw by all accounts an intricate blend of tens of millions of visitors every Disney fantasy, entertainment, and year. Disney World in Florida, the technological education. Not inciden­ younger of the two, boasts over 200 tally, it is also a marketplace of million visitors since it opened corporate entities selling themselves in 1971. But with its newest as the white knights of technology, addition, Epcot Center, Disney scientific progress, and the future. moved into new terrain: marketing As one General Electric executive a vision of the technological future. noted, "It's the best kind of advertis­ Sixty years from now, will their ing available. And from a public vision be as pervasive as Mickey relations standpoint, it is very Mouse is today? effective."1 Epcot Center (Experimental Proto­ type Community of Tomorrow) is a $900-million, 260-acre addition to

Anthony E. Ladd is a sociologist in the department of social science at North Georgia College. He teaches and conducts research on the environment, technology, and energy politics.

21 history of relentless progress toward a future worth building. As author Jennifer Allen puts it: Science Here is history without what the Disney people refer to as "downers": and the a past without plague, genocide or famine; a present without unemploy­ Cynics and pundits aside, an ment or overpopulation; a future in Media observer of Epcot's Future World which everyone will own a bubble cannot leave the premises without car and a telephone with a TV screen.2 A conference for feeling the inculcation of at least scientists and journalists three dominant themes: that there In presenting their "voice of will be a future of optimistic optimism" a.bout the future, as well SPONSORED BY choices, that there are natural as the past, Epcot officials are Science for the People Northeastern University's Technical Writing Program MIT's Bush Fellows Program Energy companies not only Boston National Writers' Union N.E. Science Writers' Association disseminate messages that The Boston Globe Saturday deflect the blame for the energy April 19, 1986 situation away from themselves but Harvard School of Public also present to the public Health an image of responsibility, seNice, sacrifice, and expertise Stephen Jay Gould Bias in Science in solving energy problems. Matthew Meselson Yellow Rain & the Media

WORKSHOPS resources and technological strategies unflinchingly upfront concerning The Reporting of AIDS & AIDS Research to get us there, and that big their priorities to entertain first and Larry Kessler, AIDS Aaion Committee; David American corporations can do it for inform their visitors second. As one Ansley, San Jose Mercury-News; Vic McElheny. us best. Disney vice president remarks, Bush Fellows; Richard Knox. Boston Globe; Judy "We're interested is seeing technology Foreman, Boston Globe; Jerome Groopman, HaNard Medical School The Future Is "Fer Sure, Fer Sure" work to accomplish a story point. We wanted to make a point about How to Deal with Statistics While many academics and scien­ America, that dreaming and doing Lucy Horowitz. UMass Boston; Dick Clapp, Mass. tists have labored over the past things is an ongoing thing." Cancer Registry; Eric Lander, HaNard; Richard decades to alert the public to the Describing Epcot as "a new kind Lewontin, HaNard growing problems of overpopulation, of entertainment, spectacular for Star Wars Research & the Media energy crises, and the like, Epcot communicating ideas to people in Jonathan Schiefer, Technology Review; others to has busied itself with presenting a ways they can understand," Disney be confirmed view of the future that is as sure as and corporate partners have merged daybreak and as comforting as to find that ideological messages The Press & Sex Roles Research Mickey Mouse. In the Future World are best delivered to mass audiences Caryl Rivers, BU School of Journalism; Jon Beckwith. HaNard Medical School; Loretta half of Epcot that occupies part of by creating a sense of magic and Mclaughlin, Boston Globe; Sarah Blaffer-H rdy. the giant Disney World complex, animation around their views. An UCAL at Davis visitors are presented with a official of Kraft's pavilion, The glowingly optimistic view of the Land, puts it clearly: "Epcot is an PANEL DISCUSSION future where, as Epcot puts it, "the opportunity to counter the doomsday When Does Science Become News 7 dreams of today can become the attitude that people are going to Jerry Lanson, BU Science Journalism; David realities of tomorrow." starve in the next century."3 Chandler. Boston Globe; Jay Winsten, HaNard School of Public Health; Michael Filisky, New Epcot sells itself as Walt's Final Like the Magic Kingdom, Future England Aquarium; Rae Goodell. MIT Science Dream, a technological testing World is a place where dreams Writing Program; John David, HaNard School of ground that will never be finished, come true, problems are simplified, Public Health but will always be in a state of and worries suspended in an aura of becoming. Instead of Walt's experi­ dazzling entertainment. This applica­ Contaa Science for the People mental prototype community, Disney tion of Disney techniques to futuristic for registration Information executives have chosen to create imagery provides the platform and 897 Main St., Cambridge, MA 02139 what might be described as the context for various forms of adver­ world's largest trade show, an tising on behalf of energy and amusement park showcasing a technology interests.

22 Science for the People is as technologically sophisticated energy solutions. Energy Futures? and awesome in its cinematic Throughout the 30-minute presenta­ leave the Driving to Us appeal as Exxon's Universe of tion, visitors are not only comforted Energy pavilion. Housed in a huge about our energy future but instructed Since October 1, 1982, Epcot wedge-shaped structure and blanketed that present policies pose no real Center has provided the largest by a glistening roof of 80,000 problems. In the pre-show film corporation in the energy industry­ photovoltaic solar cells, the pavilion about global energy resources, one Exxon-with perhaps the most itself seems to speak not only to the learns that "the world must continue sophisticated pavilion of exhibits role of energy in the future world, to depend on imported fuels until showcasing Exxon and Corporate but to Exxon's dominant role in the the real breakthroughs come." America in general. Epcot has world energy marketplace. After visitors emerge from the provided a host of elite conglomerates Exxon's public relations publica­ primeval diorama, a "prehistorical" with a unique and technologically tions stress that the Universe of ride through dueling dinosaurs and dazzling forum for the dissemination Energy presents "an accurate, erupting volcanoes, they learn not of corporate viewpoints and achieve­ credible story about energy" where only about the creation of fossil ments. Indeed, this marriage of big people can learn that "by exploring fuels and their prehistoric origins, entertainment and big business has and developing alternative energy but also a healthy respect for the provided the energy industry with sources we can build a bridge to the mysteries of oil-Exxon's main an unmatched public relations future." Although clearly more product. Not coincidentally, in the pulpit from which to shape mass balanced than many American energy information film following attitudes toward energy policies science museums, the Universe of the diorama, tourists are exposed to and preferences. Energy nevertheless expounds a a heavy promotion of oil, nuclear Of all the corporate pavilions at relatively one-dimensional view of energy, coal, and synthetic fuels as Epcot's Future World, perhaps none energy problems and alternative the most promising "faces of

March/April 1986 23 readers of Harper's that he left the exhibit with the feeling that "dino­ saurs don't have anything to do with energy policy and neither do you." While Exxon's attitudes about hard energy technologies are reas­ suring, their views on soft energies are ambivalent. The most dramatic energy" for solving the world's example of this is the structure of "''be most important anthology •.• growing demands. There is little the pavilion itself. Although the seen in a long time."-Choke mention in the film of the environ­ ride through the Universe of Energy "The first edition of what prom­ mental or economic drawbacks of is partially powered by the 80,000 these sources. photovoltaic cells on the building's ises to be an important annual series • • •"-LIIn'llry }OIIrfllll As well as a proving ground for The Alternative America's technology, Epcot is by Press Annual all accounts on intricate blend of edited by Patricia J. Case with the Disney fantasy, entertainment, and assistance of librarians, scholars, and altemaliYe press people technological education. It is also a Reprinting some of the best and most marketplace of corporate entities. p~ news, reviews, and com­ mentaries that appear in alternalive selling themselves as the white press newspapers and magazines, this knights of technology, scientific ann~ series will make an important addition to almost any collection. progress, and the future. Researchers will find a selection of quality articles "missed" by main­ stream publications on war and peace, In the walk-through exhibit on roof, the narrator of the exhibit only health, employment and unemploy­ nuclear power, Exxon categorically briefly mentions that solar energy declares that "scientists have has helped to propel the very cars ment, the gO't'mllllent and the people,_ developed methods to handle, stabilize, on which the visitors are seated. To thewomens IIXM!IIleflt, and much more. and store radioactive waste safely find out how much electricity the ". . . significant not only because they to protect the human environment." cells produce, how they work, or The exhibit has no mention of the what their potential as an energy provide different perspectives from the political controversies over nuclear source might be, you must call the tr3ditional media, but also becaJse they energy that have crippled its Disney public relations office. report different news. "-Booklist growth, except to say that "nuclear In the exhibit, sunlight is discussed energy is controversial but is still a vaguely as a source of energy 1983 288 pp. ISBN O-Sn22-355-6 $34.95 significant source of energy." "someday" in the distant future, 198f 432 pp. ISBN O-Sn22-392~ $34.95 Additionally, visitors are reminded similar to the way wind and hydro­ that "Japan, France, and other electric energies are discussed. Also available: countries are using nuclear power Although conservation of present­ to build their bridge to the future," day fuels is mentioned as an Alteradft Papers implying the unspoken question, integral part of the energy picture, Selections from the Alternative Press, "So why aren't we?" And at their the touch-sensitive computerized 1979-1980 edited by Elliott Shore, Energy Exchange exhibit, visitors exhibits emphasize the "major Patricia J. case and Laura Daly are invited to play a video game drawbacks" of solar and wind where they can run their own power. In contrast, the same presenta­ 488 pp. illus. ISBN {)..87'722-243-6 dod! $39.95 nuclear plant. tions stress that there is oil and ISBN 0-87722-244-4 · Jllllel' $24.95 Whatever the range of information plenty of coal. From )~ur library wholesaler or given at the Universe of Energy and Exxon has no reservations about Energy Exchange exhibits, the its aim to inculcate visitors with a presentations are dominated and sense of energy optimism while upstaged by the mechanical dinosaurs they play in a technological funhouse. and their role in the creation of oil. As their promotional literature TEMPLE As John Rothchild noted in Rolling points out, "Replacing feelings of UNIVERSITY PRESS Stone, "What one remembers about hopelessness about energy with a the future of energy is that the sense of optimism and choice is the BIDW AND OXFORD sTREETs dinosaurs were very exciting." Still challenge met by Universe of P~ELP~,PA19122 another critic, P. J. O'Rourke, told Energy." Indeed, they suggest to

24 Science for the People visitors that their "total energy themes at Future World. At Sperry's surprising, given the $300 million experience ... offers a breath-taking computer exhibits, visitors are spent by Future World's sponsors. summation of energy possibilities... gently reminded that Sperry makes But the companies seem to want to it is difficult not to share in the American manufacturing more peddle policies as well as products. belief that the dream of an energy­ efficient and U.S. census data more Exxon's promotional literature abundant future can be made into a understandable. At the General makes this point clearly: "We reality." Motors pavilion on the history of believe that the ultimate result of And by many accounts, Exxon's transportation, a visitor arrives at our involvement is going to be a messages are getting through. An the end of the exhibit to a full lineup better informed public, particularly Exxon news release boasts of their of GM's new models. The subtle in the energy-related areas, and ten-millionth visitor to the Universe inference is that the automobile is that has just got to lead to the of Energy, a young boy named the culmination of evolutionary formulation of sounder public Billy. When asked by Exxon officials progression and that it will be with policy over time." how he liked the show, Billy us for a long time to come as the If people come away from Exxon's remarked that he could identify optimal mode of transport. exhibit not only impressed with the most of the dinosaurs and "learned Finally, in the Bell System's energy potential of nuclear, oil, a lot." He thought that "it was better exhibit, visitors are asked, "What is shale, and coal but also with than a book where all you can do is the most important innovation in Exxon's ability to deliver such look at the pictures." Added his the last 100 years?" only to be complex technologies, then the parents, "It makes learning about a answered, "Bell System's data energy industry in general has been complex subject like energy fun communications network." Given well served. Exxon's oil- and and easy-for adults and kids." the added presence at Epcot of electricity-centered interests merge Coca-Cola and Kodak, it should be smoothly with the energy-intensive Peddling Policies and Benevolence no mystery why their cola and film themes of GM's automotive policies, are the only brands sold. Kraft's vision of future technological Major energy conglomerates Such marketing messages are not farming, and Bell's and Kodak's have been relatively successful in molding favorable public opinion toward sources and systems of energy compatible with corporate Disney's Make-Believe World investments and profits. By way of various media channels, advertising "Back in Missouri in the early 1900s meet with Disney to protest the way FBI has influenced the public's perception there lived a farmboy who discovered agents were to be portrayed. of corporate energy policies as According to documents released being acceptable solutions to the that he had a knack for drawing barnyard animals. an adult he began under the Freedom of Information Act to perceived energy crisis. As Energy companies not only dis­ to put his animals into cartoons, and he the Arizona Republic. revievvers described seminate messages that deflect the became convinced that he could the agents as "amass of dolts." A review blame for the energy situation entertain people by telling stories about of the movie in the file contained a away from themselves but also a little creature with a high voice, red handwritten note attributed to Hoover present to the public an image of trousers, and yellow shoes and white that said, "I am amazed that Disney responsibility, service, sacrifice, gloves. would do this. He probably has been and expertise in solving energy "Professionals in the field made fun of infiltrated." Disney did finally comply problems. At Future World, serious the idea, and to produce his first with Hoover's wish, and he changed the cartoons the young man had to sell or characters from FBI agents to Federal policies and solutions are indeed Security agents. expounded, but more importantly, pawn virtually everything he owned. But today, 57 years later, this man and his In spite of Hoover's apparent concern, visitors are reminded of who has the resources and ingenuity to creation have become permanently fixed Disney was not a likely candidate for make them happen. in the history of our popular culture. His communist .subversion. An outspoken Exxon, like the other corporate name was Walt Disney; his little creature critic of the New Deal. Disney once sponsors at Epcot, never lets the was Mickey Mouse." remarked, "It's the century of the Today, as Disneyland's thirtieth communist cutthroat, the fag, and the visitor forget what company has anniversary is drawing to a close, and whore! And FOR and his NLRB [National sponsored which pavilion and their a Labor Relations Board] made it so." own role in solving the problems of weary Mickey Mouse returns home from promotional tour of Peking and twenty When the animation artists at Disney's the future. From the monorail to the a nine other cities. perhaps it is time to studio unionized, Disney refused· to tunnel rides through the exhibit, reffect on the real Walt Disney, beneath negotiate, and they went on strike. In recorded voices and messages constantly remind people of how the sugar coated media hype. Like retaliation, Disney fired the chief artist, Epcot's sponsors are bringing them Ronald Reagan-the kindly story teller who \Mln reinstatement after a court a better life. As Exxon's project who wove the above tale-Walt Disney appeal. But Disney continued to carry a coordinator explains it: had a mythical life suitable for consump-­ grudge, and the artist never regained tion in the popular press and presidential the stature of his former job. We want people to realize that energy speeches, as vvell as a less savory dark Disney not only opposed unions but is an important part of daily life, that side. he distrusted Jews, and never employed there are satisfactory explanations The center of a media empire with blacks as studio technicians. He actually to our present energy problems, and significant influence on popular culture. had a cordial relationship with Hoover, that as a large diversified supplier of Disney was a target of FBI surveillance. who wrote him a number of friendly energy, Exxon can help solve some of those problems.4 When "Moon Pilots" was being letters over his lifetime. produced in 1962, J. Edgar Hoover -Dan Grossman Indeed, the corporate soft sell is directed his chief agent in Los Angeles to perhaps one of the most prevalent

March/April 1986 25 presence is more effectively felt or symbolized. The increasing use of scientific FACTS & FEMINISM exhibits-by industry or others­ and the public's increasing exposure continued from page 20 to scientific achievements may be producing in our society a kind of passivity and acquiescence to would be. Once we realize that, it panoramas of microelectronic soft­ future change that is directed for us, becomes easy to identify and name ware utopias. rather than a future that we steer the political underpinnings and Should visitors to Epcot be ourselves. values that lie hidden beneath its concerned about the relationship of Epcot is more than what Alison presumed neutrality. technological automation to future Bass has called "corporate America's A feminist science would have to unemployment, GM's Bird and the view of technological progress-a start by acknowledging our values Robot exhibit tells them that robots view that is sadly oversimplified and our subjectivity as human can do their jobs more dexterously, and sugarcoated with hype." It is a observers with particular personal and that they'll be glad to be rid of monument to the notion of Scientism, and social backgrounds, and with those jobs anyway. If this vision of a Dumbo ride into the future, based inevitable interests. Once we do robotic romanticism still feels upon the technological fix where that, we can try to understand the discomforting, the exhibit's theme corporate powers do the fixing and world, so to speak, from the inside, music in the background reminds scientific experts call the tunes. instead of pretending to be objective visitors that "It's Fun to Be Free." Despite the pavilion's messages outsiders looking in. 9 that "the future is in your hands," Back to the Real World Epcot's very existence and technologi­ NOTES cal imagery suggests that the That corporations like Exxon and future is anything but something 1. Paulo Freire, The Politics of its partners at Epcot want to that ordinary people can actively Education. South Hadley, MA: Bergin influence public attitudes with and Garvey, 1985, page 2. understand and solve. 2. This is discussed by Jeanne M. messages and images compatible Social issues are not presented at with their interests is nothing new. Stellman and Mary Sue Henifin in their Epcot as having human roots and article, "No Fertile Women Need Apply: What appears to be emerging, therefore human or political solutions. Employment Discrimination and Repro­ however, is a different thrust on the Rather, they present what are ductive Hazards in the Workplace," in part of such powers to clothe their essentially questions of economic Biological Woman: The Convenient interests and policy preferences and political policy as being techno­ Myth, edited by Ruth Hubbard, Mary behind a high-tech veil that simul­ logical problems, amenable only to Sue Henifin, and Barbara Fried, Cambridge, taneously projects their messages scientific solutions-and therefore the MA: Schenkman, 1982, pp. 117-145. to the public in a context of domain of only those with enough 3. Several recent publications have scientific fact, entertainment, and been concerned with hormones and the specialized knowledge to deal with brain. Up-to-date summaries of research awe-inspiring disbelief. Couched in them. the objective and authoritative can be found in Robert W. Goy and Bruce The theme that the future is in the S. McEwen's Sexual Differentiation of imagery that science expositions hands of value-free experts is an the Brain, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, and their clones convey to the underlying message of most scientific 1980, and in a series of review articles public, the contents of those exposi­ expositions today, a message that published in Science 211 (1981): 1263- tions-whatever their ideological encourages more awe than curiosity 1324. Articles intended for general slant and balance-often become about the role of science and techno­ readers have appeared in Quest (October legitimized and accepted as fact by 1980), Discover (April 1981), Newsweek logy in the engineering of progress. (May 18, 1981), and Playboy (January­ the viewing public. Encased within the fantasy and As many observers have pointed July 1982). Feminist criticisms of sex magic of Disneyworld itself, Epcot differences research, including research out, it is easy to believe that life at has become a showcase for the on hormones and the brain, can be found Epcot is better than life in the real belief in a technofix future, where in Genes and Gender II: Pitfalls in world. Politics, contradictions, and corporations are the major actors Research on Sex and Gender, edited by ideological conflicts have been left and beneficiaries. Ruth Hubbard and Marian Lowe, New out. The traveler emerges from Like all Disney tales, as Exxon York: Gordian Press, 1979; Alice Through Epcot's pavilions and darkened says, the Epcot story holds great the Microscope, edited by the Brighton tunnels convinced that the world is promise of a happy ending. And Women and Science Group, London: Virago, 1980; and Biological Woman: beautiful, its inhabitants uniformly like the tale of Dumbo, it portends a hyperactive, its resources adequate, The Convenient Myth, op. cit. future of ringmasters, circus acts, 4. The investment calculus of sex and its problems under control. and happy crowds. 9 differences in social and economic roles Compared to Future World, the is presented in many recent publications real world, as well as the rest of NOTES on sociobiology. Examples are chapters Disneyworld, seems relatively 15 and 16 of Sociobiology: The New primitive and frivolous. The World 1. Del Marth, "Where Business Presents Synthesis, by Edward 0. Wilson, Cambridge Showcase of nations at Epcot may Tomorrow." Nation's Business, 69: 1981, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975; The seem clean and entertaining, but at page 65. Whispering Within, by David Barash, New Future World the serious problems 2. Jennifer Allen, "Brave New Epcot." York: Harper & Row, 1979; The Evolution of of energy, technology, and communi­ New York, 15: 1982, page 41. Human Sexuality, by Donald Symons, New cations are taken up by the reliable 3. Marth, op. cit.4. Manhattan, "The York: Oxford University Press, 1979. Fantastic Story of Energy." Exxon Criticisms are included in The Sociobiology and efficient corporate entities Company, USA, Sept. 24, 1982, page 10. Debate, edited by Arthur L. Caplan, New working for us.s Indeed, there are 5. John Rothchild, "Epcot: It's a Stale York: Harper & Row, 1978, and in Sociobio­ probably few places in America World After All." Rolling Stone, 403: logy Revisited, edited by Ashley Montagu, like Epcot where their power and 1983, page 36. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.

26 Science for the People 11:39:12 am EST bv George Salzman

rs. G.H. Moore wrote to the London Daily Telegraph: "Sir-The hymn "Onward Christian Soldiers', s~ng to the right tune and m a not-too-briskM tempo, makes a very good egg timer. If you put the egg in boiling water and sing all five verses and chorus, the egg will be just right when you come to Amen." Technology long ago made such whimsical time-keeping methods quaint. In the late 1960s, the s?cond was redefined to be the duratiOn of 9, 192,631,770 oscillations of the light radiated when a cesium-133 atom changes in a particular way. Imagine measuring one nine-billionth of a second! The increasing precision and power of instruments for measurement, and for manipulation­ artifacts of modern technology-is indeed awesome. There's no denying the fascination thanks to the technology of television • 4. How many East Timorese did we feel watching a circus performer and satellite communications, untold the Indonesians kill? [over on a high wire, unprotected by a millions of people have watched 100,000] safety net, trusting the tensile reruns of the fatal minute and strength of a thin steel wire and Nearly everyone would know the twelve seconds from blastoff to first two answers. Most, though pitting her skill at maintaining explosion. The untimely death of almost perfect balance against the conscious of homelessness, wouldn't sympathetic human beings, prime know of this estimate from a late unrelenting force of gravity that stuff of tragedy, came quickly and threatens her with a quick, grue­ 1984 Congressional report. The spectacularly to the astronauts number has been growing steadily some death for us to watch. That aboard Challenger, But, assured morbid instant doesn't happen since then. And hardly anyone President Reagan, this tragedy will would have even heard of East often, but we all know it may be not deter us from "our quest in only a moment away, triggered by Timor, let alone the ferocious war space". For the anguished survivors waged-with U.S. support-against the slightest mishap. As spectacle, bereaved in that terrible instant one a shuttle launch is far more gripping, its people. feels only compassion, but other Can it be that U.S.-supported a firework of Olympian proportions, reactions are stirred as well. a prodigious technical feat with killing of 100,000 East Timorese is Nationally, our thoughts and so much less of a tragedy than the people riding the rocket into space feelings are largely determined by and back-unless the morbid moment deaths of the seven astronauts that what we know, and that in turn is it warranted negligible media comes, as it did to Challenger at mainly determined by the mass 11:39:12 a.m. Eastern Standard attention? By humane standards, of media. Imagine the results of a course not. By U.S. foreign policy Time on January 28th. national poll that asked: Since that awesome moment, and mass media standards, yes. • 1. How many teams played in the East Timor is but an extreme George Salzman is a theoretical Super Bowl in New Orleans? [2] example of the distortion of our physicist who teaches at the University • 2. How many astronauts died in perceptions nurtured by the mass of Massachusetts in Boston, and a the Challenger explosion? [7] media. In a recent article in the veteran member of Science for the • 3. How many Americans are February /March Utne Reader, Noam People. homeless? [possibly over 3,000,000] continued on page 31

March/April 1986 27 The Dialectical Biologist "Organisms ore by Richard Levins and both Richard Lewontin Harvard University Press the 1985 subjects and reviewed bv Michael Filiskv objects an there be a Marxist science? of This is the central question of Levins and Lewontin's evolution." C book. The answer the authors provide is a conditional "yes." If Marxism means a strict adherence to a party line, then a science based on it will probably fail. But if the approach is of the wholes they make up. In phenomena in the world, concerning one of dialectics as pioneered by contrast, dialectics is an interpenetra­ itself only with the projections of Marx and especially Engels, then a tion of part and whole. The properties multidimensional objects on fixed Marxist science can be a powerful of parts alter the nature of the whole planes of low dimensionality.... Of tool for solving problems that have and are themselves altered by being course, some objects, like spheres, resisted the more traditional scientific fragments of a totality. "Part makes are the same in all projections, so method. whole and whole makes part," the the reductionist strategy sometimes The Dialectical Biologist gathers authors explain. succeeds." together previously published essays Dialectics assumes all systems to The first two sections of The of various lengths, subjects, and be heterogeneous at every level. Dialectical Biologist, "On Evolution" tones. Only the final conclusion Rules derived from observations at and "On Analysis," seem to have was newly written for this volume. one level of a system might not been written primarily for specialists Most of the essays originally apply to any other level or to any in evolution, ecology, and statistical appeared in publications not widely other system. For example, the analysis. They are far more technical read by biologists. rules that apply to the workings of in language and in detail than the Since the essays are independent the endocrine system might not final section, but no less dialectical of one another, it is possible to skip explain human social interactions. in approach. around without sacrificing continuity. A reductionist biologist might start The three essays on evolution It would be a good idea for anyone a study of some aspect of human challenge the traditional belief that needing a firmer understanding of behavior by assuming a hormonal species evolve by solving problems the meaning of dialectics to start cause and confine the search to posed by the environment. According with the conclusion. correlations between blood hormone to this view, environmental niches Levins and Lewontin offer dialectics levels and behavior. The dialectical somehow predate the animals or as the alternative to Cartesian approach would look into social, plants that eventually fill them. In reductionism, which sees the world developmental, dietary, and other the dialectical view, individual as made of parts with intrinsic environmental factors, as well as living organisms are the parts and properties that determine the nature physiology. Most important, the the environment is thew hole. While dialectical biologist would avoid it is true that species of animals and Michael Filisky is a member of the confusing correlation with causality. plants do change with time to better Sociobiology Study Group of SftP. In the authors' view, reductionism fit their environments, they also Formerly a research assistant at oversimplifies, extrapolating univer­ alter the environment as they Harvard's Museum of Comparative sal rules from limited observations. change. Oxygen fills the atmosphere Zoology, he is now assistant curator They claim this world view "captures because green plants put it there. of education at the New England a particularly impoverished shadow Evolution is a dynamic process Aquarium in Boston, Massachusetts. of the actual relations among resulting from the interpenetration

28 Science for the People Our Issues Never Grow Old I

Special Issue on Babies March/Apri11984 Military Use of the Space of the individual and the environment, organization of health care is directly Shuttle an economic enterprise and only where each individual is also part September/October 1983 of every other individual's environ­ secondarily influenced by people's ment. health needs. The New Eugenics May/June 1983 "On Analysis" contains both the This section also includes a heaviest and the lightest reading in convincing argument against reduc­ the book. One essay, "Dialectics tionist sociobiological explanations and Reductionism in Ecology," of human behavior. For Levins and includes pages of equations that Lewontin, the question of human sent me back to my textbooks. Such nature is simply the wrong question. advanced mathematics are required The incredible diversity of human by the complicated nature of com­ behavior argues against a search munity ecology. As reward for for some uniform and universal working through this essay, the human way of being. The search for reader can enjoy "Isadore Nabi on this uniformity reminds the authors the Tendencies of Motion", which is of some pre-Darwinian Platonic both a parody of a turgid scientific idealism, in which differences paper (conclusions: plants grow up, among individuals are subordinated apples fall down, London is sinking, to some ideal form which characterizes and drowning men move upward the essence of human nature. 3/7 of the time and downward 4/7 of Perhaps the finest essay in The the time) and an exchange of letters Dialectical Biologist, "The Problem to the editor of Nature questioning of Lysenkoism," contains, in less Back Issues list available Individual copies 52.50 each the identity of the paper's author, than 34 pages, a history lesson, a one Isadore Nabi. Is this really a COMPLETE SET OF clear political analysis, a firm BACK ISSUES only $35 pseudonym for Lewontin and others warning against the dangers of Send payment with order to: or, as listed on page 3165 of dogmatism and a note of hope.for a American Men and Women of Science for the People rationally political science. It IS the Science, a distinguished scientist story ofT. D. Lysenko, the Soviet 897 Main St.. Cambridge, MA 02139 from someplace called Cochabamba plant breeder whose belief in the University? inheritance of acquired character­ Of the three sections of The istics contradicted the emerging Dialectical Biologist, the third, genetic theory. Lysenko's belief "Science as a Social Product and became policy under Stalin. After Medicine lor a the Social Product of Science," is detailing some of the conditions the most accessible and immediately that led to the rise of Lysenkoism useful to nonspecialists. It includes and warning against such abuses of Material World clear, insightful applications ofthe science in the name of politics, the dialectical approach to the problems authors go on to describe positive Practical. Progressive. of health care, applied biology for ways that politics can influence Politically sound. We the Third World, agricultural research, science. One major success is the and the dangers of pesticides. In demystify economic field of community ecology, a double-talk and give you "The Commoditization of Science" complex systems analysis that the authors trace many of the resulted from a conscious application straightforward analyses negative social results of scientific of the Marxist world view. of the U.S. economy. research to the status of science in The weakness of The Dialectical the West as a valuable (and profit­ Biologist is that the ideas that unify able) commodity. the essays into a solid and useful tlellan & Se11se [The commoditization of science] book are not always apparent. A stands between the powerful insights hostile reader might feel that the THE POLITICAL TOOL YOU HAVE of science and corresponding advances raison d'etre of this volume is BEEN LOOKING FOR. in human welfare, often producing merely the recycling by Levins and 10 issuesf$16 results that contradict the stated Lewontin of old work for new purposes. The continuation of hunger royalties. But thoughtful people SEND CHECK TO: in the modern world is not the result interested in the problems that Dollars & S.nM of an intractable problem thwarting 38 Union Sq., Somerville, MA 02143 our best efforts to feed people. arise when science and politics Rather, agriculture in the capitalist meet (or fail to meet) will see the world is directly concerned with authors' point and be grateful that nom•------profit and only indirectly concerned these essays have been brought address ------with feeding people. Similarly, the together in a single volume. 9

March/April 1986 29 World Population and need for solutions that move recommendations presented in Development beyond the purely High Tech Hazards resulted Gigi M. Berardi, editor technological. -Gary Keenan from a two-year study by over a dozen environmental health Rowman & Allanheld. 1985 scientists, chemical engineers, High Tech and Toxlcs physicians, policy analysts, The problem of hunger A Guide for Local Communities and researchers. The author occupies the public's attention by Susan Sherry and California's Golden Empire with renewed importance, due Health Planning Center are in part to the famine conditions Conference on Alternative State and Local available to assist communities Policies. 2000 Flonda Ave . NW. in Africa and the celebrity Wash1ngton. DC 20009. 519.95 (539.95 for in developing local toxics relief campaigns in Britain and bus1nesses) plus 10% postage/handling. policies. Call 916/731-5050 for the U.S. Closer to home, the 1986 more information. economic crisis in the farming states and a growing Conceived as a practical malnourished, homeless class guide for local officials and X-Rays in our cities have shown that community leaders, this 470- Health Effects of Common hunger is not simply a function page book offers new solutions Exams of drought, primitive for the emerging problems of John W. Gofman and Egan O'Connor technology or overcentralized chemical pollution by high-tech planning (though these may industries. "All of us-citizens, Sierra Club Books. 1985 play a part). Hunger is government, and industry alike, primarily a problem of power. and especially the local Gofman and O'Connor have Its complexities are examined communities that may be compiled a resource for both from a wide range of affected-must seek solutions patient and physician on the perspectives in Gigi Berardi's to this problem," says author varieties of risk encountered in anthology. Susan Sherry. specific x-ray tests. They The perspectives vary widely Following the economic examine a number of myths in political and scientific promise of high tech, 37 states about x-ray diagnosis, content. George F. Will starts now house clusters of high-tech establishing at the outset of the off the volume with some industries. The largest centers book that they believe such simplistic observations on the are in California, procedures have great value, need for increased Massachusetts, Connecticut, though the value is not their technological efficiency, while Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, focus. Cornell historian Walter New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, The authors do present much Lafeber ends the book with a North Carolina, and Texas. information on risks, with plea for the inalienable rights California's Silicon Valley, chapters devoted to ways of of people in Central America to home to the largest minimizing risks. There are free themselves from foreign concentration of high-tech tables of doses from common domination, as the U.S. did over firms in the country, also exams such as dental x-rays, two hundred years ago. In contains more Superfund mammographies and between, such writers as Lester hazardous waste sites than any angiographies. While the tables Brown, Susan George, Frances other area in the U.S. Eighteen are highly technical, the lay Moore Lappe and Jane Brody of its 19 Superfund sites are reader is given detailed explore how and why hunger high-tech related. instructions on their use. has persisted in the face of High tech isn't clean or risk­ Children's risk factors are also rapid technical innovation. free. Vast quantities of covered at length, as the young The number of authors and hazardous substances­ are more vulnerable to the enormity of the topic precludes solvents, acids, bases, metals, hazards of overexposure. any definitive answers. It also and gases-are consumed and Risk can be further makes the book a slow read; the wastes generated in the compounded by the type of variety of sources, from op-ed manufacture of semiconductors, exam. For example, the lifetime columns to detailed studies computers, scientific chance of getting cancer with charts and graphs, keeps instruments, and resulting from one full-mouth the tone of the anthology communications equipment. dental exam at age ten is 1 in constantly shifting. The editor's Hazardous chemicals have 900 for males, 1 in 1400 for brief introductions to each reached the air, soil, and water females. This is a higher risk chapter lend some continuity. supplies through leakage, than a full skull exam. Despite the divergence of views discharge, disposal, and fires. Gofman and O'Connor have in the book, it portrays a clear The findings and given parents, and all

30 Science for the People continued from page 27

Chomsky cites example after example of deliberate omissions and/or prospective patients, the Altman combines a rational, distortions, consistent with U.S. information they need to ask perceptive analysis of the foreign policy, commited by the appropriate questions when a epidemic's impact New York Times,-not the least physician calls for x-ray internationally with a moving respectable daily. exams. Their contribution to account of what AIDS means to It is not only the news media, but increasing doctor-patient him: the friends lost, questions the entire dominant cultural and communication and of personal risk, ideological milieu that threatens accountability may prove reconsideration of sexual and the wisdom of our collective national invaluable. The authors emotional needs. judgments. Again and again, one calculate that up to 51,000 While Altman clearly hears the theme of technological cancers could be prevented per recognizes that AIDS is not a rescue. The most blatant, absurd, year simply by lowering x-ray "gay disease", he traces the and inhumane example is that doses by 2/3, which should still history of gayness itself as space research will make human yield good diagnoses. Their disease, an idea that still holds survival possible, not on earth views deserve wide sway in much of society despite where it is already hopeless, but in consideration and debate. -GK the American Medical space colonies, which will be Association's 1973 decision to engineered for longterm survival. stop classifying homosexuality AIDS In the Mind of America The idea of technological rescue as illness. Thus, the developing grows out of: (1) a realization of the by Dennis Altman conception of AIDS, which power of science and technology, Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1986 Altman describes with great (2) an arrogance in manipulating insight, reflects conscious and the natural world-supposedly How does one live in the unconscious biases in research, without disaster-because of that midst of an epidemic? For all medicine, and perhaps most sense of power, and (3) a false belief too many of us, the answer lies notably, the media. that social and economic problems in building defenses that isolate In Canada, doctors involved can be solved technically, that us from any sense of in the early stages of society can be engineered. responsibility or participation. recognizing the appearance of a Our very consciousness, our We create a category, "victim", new syndrome were noting the ability as a people to choose wisely and focus on how those so "homosexual and bisexual what to think about is being eroded. characterized deviate from practices" of patients. In the After each dramatic tragedy or near ourselves or our idea of U.S., the preferred description tragedy-Three Mile Island, Bhopal, normal. was "homosexual and bisexual Seveso, Challenger-massive media If we see an epidemic in men". The difference is subtle, coverage directs the national con­ terms of retribution for but it was a factor in the course sciousness to focus on some small deviation, the "wages of sin", of public reaction to the new problem: a malfunctioning valve, a whether the sin is drug use or disease. These dying people gauge that failed to register, a sodomy or darker skin, how were perceived as sick because rubber seal that became too cold to does that affect the public of who they were, not what they retain its flexibility, an easily commitment to curing the did. comprehensible problem. epidemic? Do we act out of a Altman puts in historical Millions of school children are compassion tainted with smug perspective the cynical being conditioned to aspire to be superiority? Do we use the exploitation of fears in the astronauts. How easy it will be for tragic circumstances to mass media, most notoriously many of them to accept the idea of question our culture's tendency exemplified by Life Magazine's survival-in-space, and to dismiss to push minorities into social, "Now No One is Safe" cover even the possibility of making the economic and intellectual story last year. He recounts Earth a good habitat. The choice of ghettoes, then blame the ghetto medieval fears about Christa McAuliffe, an attractive dwellers for the problems they homosexuality's link to the schoolteacher, was far from innocent. encounter? plague and the similarity of The real tragedy of Challenger is Dennis Altman's AIDS in the reactions to the appearance (or not the loss of life in its explosion, Mind of America confronts recognition) of syphilis in terrible though that is, but that it is these and other difficult, Europe in the 16th century. widely perceived as tragedy and is sometimes ambiguous issues The cure for AIDS may very used to obscure our perception of around Acquired Immune well be years away. But we need what the world might be if human Deficiency Syndrome. A another healing, in the mind of intelligence and compassion were professor of political science in America as much as the body. directed to solving social problems. Australia, and a gay writer Altman's book is a good place to How many of us know the number with substantial connections to start. of homeless, hungry, destitute the gay activist community, -Gary Keenan people who live within a ten-mile radius of us? 9

March/April I 986 31 Seabrook Don't let Them Flip the Switch

by Sharon Tracy Greenfield. Massachusetts he Seabrook. New Hampshire nuclear power plant is sched­ uled to switch on by October Join the T31. No Nukes Construction is more than 95% complete. The first load of nuclear fuel arrived at the site on February No Dump 5, and loading is planned for this June. But cost overruns-from a $1 Coalition billion estimate for two plants to current $4.5 billion estimates to complete only one-and local resis­ tance to emergency evacuation plan approval will delay startup of the Seabrook nuke. Many people believe the nuke is unsafe and, if activated, could destroy New England's east coast. The New Hampshire Clamshell, an opponent since 1976, is calling on people from New England in an urgent effort to prevent the nuke's activation. Their goal is to create a political climate which, in concert with the efforts of other organizations, applying some pressure. Since fish. individuals, and elected officials, New Hampshire has no statewide Thermal pollution will also harm will make it impossible to turn on referendum, local town warrant the ocean environment. The nuke is the nuke. articles opposing both production supposed to be cooled with ocean One new element in the political and disposal of nuclear waste will water that's piped back into the sea and nuclear equation is the selection be voted on throughout the state an average of 39 degrees warmer, of southwest New Hampshire as a early this spring. Warrant supporters changing the ocean ecology. And to potential disposal site for highly contend that if New Hampshire kill the algae encouraged by the radioactive commercial and military turns on the nuke, the state's warm water in the cooling tunnels, nuclear waste. Even though Governor position in refusing the dump will six million gallons of chlorine will Sununu, along with almost every­ be seriously weakened, since Seabrook be flushed through them constant­ one else in New Hampshire, opposes would be the state's only producer ly. Claiming that these pollutants the dump, he and his business and of high-level radioactive waste. pose no environmental hazard, the political cronies still want to start Other environmental hazards are NRC recently granted the request up the Seabrook nuke. on Seabrook's horizon. The ocean for a speedy licensing process from To help business and government will certainly be polluted in three Public Service Company (PSCo), officials understand the connection different ways: radioactively, chemi­ owners of the nuke. between the generation of radioactive cally, and thermally. Radioactive Before licensing, federal authorities waste at the nuclear plant and the releases from the plant, even if kept must approve evacuation plans for need to dispose of that waste, within the absurdly high limits set all towns within a 10-mile radius of citizens and local officials are by the Nuclear Regulatory Commis­ the Seabrook plant, and PSCo must sion (NRC), will creep into the food stage a full-scale emergency drill Sharon Tracy edited the Clamshell chain, as they have at other oceanside to test the plans. Governor Sununu News and River Valley Voice, and nukes. This will damage the liveli­ upset residents of the 17 New is an organizer in the environ­ hoods of those who fish for a living Hampshire towns in the evacuation mental movement. and the health of those who eat the zone when he approved PSCo's

32 Science for the People WASHINGTON: Phil Bereano, 13B Loew Hall, FH-40, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195. (206) 543-9037 AUSTRALIA: Lesley Rogers, Pharmacology proposed plan and sent it to the Dept., Monash University, Clayton, Victoria Federal Emergency Planning Admin­ 3168, Australia. Janna Thompson, istration without allowing those Philosophy Dept., La Trobe University, towns to assess the evacuation Bundoora, Victoria, Australia. Brian Martin, plans themselves. The towns have Applied Mathematics, Faculty of Science, ANU, PO Box 4, Canberra, ACT 2600, refused to participate in the drills Australia. Tony Dolk, 17 Hampden St., and will continue to challenge Ashfield, NSW, Australia Sununu's actions. In Massachusetts, the six towns CONTACTS BELGIUM: Gerard Vatenduc, Cahiers Galilee, Place Galilee 6-7, B-1348 Louvain­ in the evacuation zone did have a la-Neuve, Belgium say. Newburyport and Amesbury NATIONAL OFFICE: Science for the refused to cooperate with PSCo's People, 897 Main St., Cambridge, MA BELIZE: Jng. Wilfreda Guerrero, Ministry of plans. Massachusetts officials did 02139. (617) 547-0370 Public Works, Belmopan, Belize, Central America not submit an evacuation proposal CALIFORNIA: Bay Area Chapter, cjo to the federal government, scrubbing Dave Kadlecek, Box 390871, Mountain CANADA: Ontario: Science for the PSCo's evacuation drill on February View, CA 94039. (415) 960-3639 People, Box 25, Station A, 26. Scarborough,Ontario, Canada MIK 5B9. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Miriam Struck Quebec: Bob Cedegren, Dept. of The state has not said when, if and Scott Schneider, 806 Houston Ave., Biochemistry, University of Montreal, Takoma Park, MD 20912. (301) 585-1513. ever, it will participate in such a Montreal 101, Quebec, Canada. British test. According to the Boston Globe, Walda Katz Fishman, 6617 Millwood Rd., Columbia: Jim Fraser, 84B East lith Ave., the Massachusetts Attorney General's Bethesda, MD 20817. (301) 320-4034 Vancouver, British Columbia V5T 2B6, Office recommended that the state FLORIDA: Bob Broedel, Progressive Canada Technology, Box 20049, Tallahassee, FL seek a commitment from Seabrook's DENMARK: Susse Georg and Jorgen owners to protect summertime 32316. (904) 576-4906 Bansler, Stigardsvej 2, DK-2000, beach populations from a possible IOWA: Paul C. Nelson, 604 Hodge, Ames, Copenhagen, Daneland 01-629945 lA 50010. (515) 232-2527 accident, either by shutting down EL SALVADOR: Ricardo A. Navarro, the plant in the summer or by MARYLAND: Pat Loy, 3553 Chesterfield Centro salvadoreno de Tecnologia providing shelters. The Seabrook Ave., Baltimore, MD 21213 Apropriada, Apdo 1892, san salvador, El plant can't receive an operating Salvador, Central America MASSACHUSETTS: Boston Chapter, 897 license without the approval of Main St., Cambridge, MA 02139. (617) 547- ENGLAND: British Society for Social Massachusetts. 0370 Responsibility in Science, 25 Horsell Rd., Massachusetts has another lever­ London N5 IXL, England. Tel. 01-607-9615 age to prevent turning on Seabrook's MICHIGAN: Ann Arbor Chapter, 4318 switch. The high-level nuclear Michigan Union, Ann Arbor, Ml 48109. INDIA: M.P. Parameswaran, Parishad (313) 761-7960. Alan Maki, 1693 Leonard Bhavan, Trivandrum 695-001, Kerala, India waste dump proposed for southwest St. N.W., Grand Rapids, Ml 49504 New Hampshire is only 25 miles IRELAND: Hugh Dobbs, 28 Viewmont from the Quabbin Reservoir, Boston's MINNESOTA: The January Society, Box Park, Waterford, Eire. 051-75757 3680, Minneapolis, MN 55403. (612) 721- water supply, and the Connecticut ISRAEL: Dr. Najwa Makhoul, Jerusalem 5753 River. Since seepage is common at Institute for the Study of Science, 6 Bnai nuclear waste dumps-ask folks in MISSOURI: Peter Downs, 4201 A Russell, Brith St., Jerusalem 95146, Israel St. Louis, MO 63110 Hanford, Washington and West ITALY: Michelangelo DeMaria, Via Valley, New York-a lot of people NEW HAMPSHIRE: Val Dusek, Box 133, Giannutri 2, 00141, Rome, Italy Durham, NH 03824. (603) 868-5153 will be endangered by the dump. JAPAN: Genda GUutsu-Shi Kenkyo-Kai, 2- Ten truckloads a day of high-level NEW YORK: Red Schiller, 382 Third St., 26 Kand-Jinbo Cho, Chiyoda-Ky, Tokyo 101, waste, over 3,000 each year, will Apt. 3, Brooklyn, NY 11215. (212) 788-6996. Japan Stony Brook Chapter, Box 435, E. travel New England highways. MEXICO: Salvador Jara-Guerro, Privada Setauket, NY 11733. (516) 246-5053 Without the Seabrook nuke, the Tepeyac-120-INT, Col. Ventura Puente, case for a New Hampshire dumpsite NORTH CAROLINA: Douglas Bell, 2402 Morelia, Mexico will be much weaker. Glendale Ave., Durham, NC 27704. (919) NICARAGUA: New World Agriculture 471-9729 Now is the time to prevent Group, Apdo 3082, Managua, Nicaragua, loading and activation of the OREGON: Sheila Smith, 925 NW Merrie Central America. Tel. 61320 Seabrook nuke, and siting of the Dr., Corvalis, OR 97330 high-level waste dump. Join the SWITZERLAND: Bruno Vitale, 8 Rue Des RHODE ISLAND: Carolyn Accola, 245 Bugnons, CH-1217, Meyrin, Switzerland. Clamshell Alliance at a rally on President Ave., Providence, Rl 02906. (401) Tel. (022) 82-50-18 April 12, 1986 at New Hampshire's 272-6959 Hampton Beach State Park and say WEST GERMANY: Forum fur Medizin Und TEXAS: Ed Cervenka, 3506 Manchaca Gesundheitpolitik, Gneisenaustr., 2 No Nukes, No Dump. Organizations #211, Austin, TX 78704. (512) 44 7-9481 Mehnighof, 100 Berlin 61, West Germany. are invited to cosponsor this event. Wechsel Wirkung, Gneisenaustr., D-1000 VERMONT: Steve Cavrak, Academic Time is short; act now. Contact the Berlin 61, West Germany Clamshell Alliance at Box .734, Computing Center, University of Vermont. Concord, NH 03301, or call603/224- Burlington, VT 05405. (802) 658-2387; WEST INDIES: Noel Thomas, Mt. Moritz, 656-3190 Grenada 4163. 9

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