How Everyday Products Make People Sick: Toxins at Home and in the Workplace
by Paul D. Blanc MD
List Price:
Our Price: $3.90
You Save: $16.05 (80%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Paul D. Blanc MDEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-01-03
ISBN: 0520248821
Number of pages: 385
Publisher: University of California Press
Book Reviews of How Everyday Products Make People Sick: Toxins at Home and in the Workplace
Book Review: Important Part of Emerging Literature on "True Cost"
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought and read this book together with Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Power and I recommend both of them. This one is written from an occupational health perspective, and provides superb history on "the industrial disease" while "Exposed" is more from a public policy perspective.
The author mentions, and I plan to sign up for if I can, the Center for Disease Control (CDC)"Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report."
The author who started out focusing on workplace toxicity, also covers household toxicity, most alarming of which was paint emitting toxic vapors.
The author laments the manner in which the government, think tanks, and corporations are all doing a slow roll on toxicity, ignoring it, covering it up, or delaying action on it. The The Precautionary Principle in the 20th Century: Late Lessons from Early Warnings is nowhere to be found, in part because of The Republican War on Science.
Among the threats covered:
· Acids
· Arsenic
· Asbestor
· Chlorine
· Dyes
· Fibers (Asthma)
· Fumes from Metal (Lung collapse)
· Glue
· Lead
· Manganese
· Oil
· Plastics (Liver Cancer)
· Solvents (Benzine)
· Toxic Gases
The author is authoritative and not at all over-bearing in laying out the case against an ignorances of toxicity that is assuredly not in the public interest. He addresses neurological impacts as the most subtle and most frightening and most cummulative in nature.
His bottom line is that the pharmaceutical, industrial materials, and household goods industries are not doing enough testing and not getting enogh oversight. From this book one can easily see the varied government agencies nominally responsible for public health being phased out as was the Office of Technology Assessment.
The author notes that emerging toxins are of real concern, but that dollars and attention are being consumed by SARS, West Nile, and other biological threats (diseases are coming together and mutating in animal hosts, then jumping to human hosts, and becoming drug resistant more quickly).
Microwave popcorn lung caught my attention. As convenient as it is to use, the microwave evidently enhances toxicity of some substances, and we literally have no menu to follow in avoiding this.
My one disappointment is the lack of a table of toxic products, a lack of dollar figures, mortality and disability figures. I believe that a second edition of this book could be much improved, and as one reviewer notes, the rich history in the book given a higher profile.
The notes and index are superb and the book overall is of sufficient value to the public to warrant five stars. This is an important work.
See also:
Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy
High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health
Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health
Manufacture of Evil: Ethics, Evolution, and the Industrial System
Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin
An Enormous Crime: The Definitive Account of American POWs Abandoned in Southeast Asia
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq
The federal government, at the political level in both Congress and the Executive, cannot be trusted to act in the public interest. Wall Street is beginning to realize that that the "true cost" of corrupting the government has been the hollowing out of America's population, and in my view, it will be the fund managers at Wall Street who must recognize the value of public health, just as the rich in NYC realized in the 1920's that disease is indiscriminate.
Excellent book.
Summary of How Everyday Products Make People Sick: Toxins at Home and in the Workplace
This book reveals the hidden health dangers in many of the seemingly innocent products we encounter every day--a tube of glue in a kitchen drawer, a bottle of bleach in the laundry room, a rayon scarf on a closet shelf, a brass knob on the front door, a wood plank on an outdoor deck. A compelling exposé, written by a physician with extensive experience in public health and illustrated with disturbing case histories, How Everyday Products Make People Sick is a rich and meticulously documented account of injury and illness across different time periods, places, and technologies. It presents a picture not of one exceptional or corrupt industry but rather of how run-of-the-mill manufacturing processes and consumer marketing expose workers and the general public alike to toxic hazards. More troubling still, even when such hazards are recognized, calls for their control are routinely ignored. Written for a wide audience, it offers a critical and disquieting perspective on the relationship between industrial development and its adverse health consequences.Among the surprisingly common hazards discussed in How Everyday Products Make People Sick:
* Glue and rubber cement
* Chlorine bleach
* Rayon and other synthetic textiles
* Welding and other metal fumes
* Wood preservatives
* Gasoline additives
Personal Health Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Personal Health Books
Before Your Pregnancy: A 90 Day Guide for Couples on How to Prepare for a Healthy Conceptionby Amy Ogle, Lisa Mazzullo
Ballantine Books; Published: 2002-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.95
Price in other shops:
Maternity Nursing (Book with CD-ROM)by Deitra Leonard Lowdermilk RNC PhD FAAN, Shannon E. Perry RN PhD FAAN
Mosby; Published: 2002-07-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.50
Price in other shops:
Freckles (Library of Indiana Classics)by Gene Stratton-Porter
Indiana University Press; Published: 1986-03-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.78
Price in other shops:
The Lupus Book: A Guide for Patients and Their Familiesby Daniel J Wallace.
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2005-06-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.64
Price in other shops:
The Lupus Book: A Guide for Patients and Their Familiesby Daniel J. Wallace
Oxford University Press; Published: 2000-01-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.01
Price in other shops:
Top 100 Baby Pureesby Annabel Karmel
Random House; Published: 2005-09-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.39
Adult Development and Agingby William Hoyer, Paul Roodin
NA; McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; Published: 2008-07-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $84.25
Eating Well for Optimum Health: The Essential Guide to Bringing Health and Pleasure Back to Eatingby Andrew Weil
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 2001-03-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.10
Price in other shops:
RealAge: Are You as Young as You Can Be?by Michael F. Roizen
Harper Paperbacks; Published: 2001-04-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.11
Price in other shops:
Complete Idiot's Guide to Walking for Healthby Erika Peters
Alpha; Published: 2001-02-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $51.04
Similar Books and other products
Food Additives: A Shopper's Guide To What's Safe & What's Notby Christine Hoza Farlow
KISS For Health Publishing; Published: 2007-07-28; Perfect Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.25
Price in other shops:
Home Safe Homeby Debra Lynn Dadd
Tarcher; Published: 1997-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.94
Price in other shops:
Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Powerby Mark Schapiro
Chelsea Green Publishing; Published: 2009-02-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.46
Price in other shops:
What's Toxic, What's Notby Gary Ginsberg, Brian Toal
Berkley Trade; Published: 2006-12-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
What's Toxic, What's Notby Gary Ginsberg, Brian Toal
Berkley Trade; Published: 2006-12-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.99
Price in other shops:
Slow Death by Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Thingsby Rick Smith, Bruce Lourie
Counterpoint; Published: 2010-01-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.13
Price in other shops:
The Body Toxic: How the Hazardous Chemistry of Everyday Things Threatens Our Health and Well-beingby Nena Baker
North Point Press; Published: 2009-07-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.84
Price in other shops:
Slow Death by Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Thingsby Rick Smith, Bruce Lourie
Counterpoint; Published: 2011-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.99
Price in other shops:
Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industryby Stacy Malkan
New Society Publishers; Published: 2007-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.50
Price in other shops:
The Hundred-Year Lie: How to Protect Yourself from the Chemicals That Are Destroying Your Healthby Randall Fitzgerald
Plume; Published: 2007-06-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.44
Price in other shops: