ARE WE PAYING FOR THE ERA OF PROGRESS WITH OUR LIVES AND HEALTH?
Below is the forward by Michael R. Lemov, former counsel to the House Commerce Committee for motor vehicle and product safety, written for my new book, coming out next month.
Murder Inc.: How Unregulated Industry Kills or Injures Thousands of Americans Every Year... and What You Can Do About It
will be available March 18, 2020 everywhere books are sold.
The 20th century—and, so far, the 21st—have been, by most measures, a triumph of new and improved products, industrial progress, and marketplace innovation. We have some better and faster motor vehicles, mostly purer foods and drugs, and millions of new, efficient homes to live in. But are they really better, newer, and faster? What is the downside—to our health, safety, and lives—of this forward march of our civilization? How can we have the benefits and not pay for them with our lives and health?
This is the issue squarely put by Dr. Gerald Goldhaber in this book. The author is highly qualified to make that judgment. He is a teacher, lecturer, and expert advisor to government and industry in the analysis and disclosure to the consumer of the use and safety of home, workplace, and consumer products.
His answer to the question of our real progress is a qualified yes, but with major warnings about hidden dangers and a new threat to the worker, consumer, and the environment due to the aggressive deregulation efforts of the current administration.
Why do some companies produce products that are poorly designed and often flat-out dangerous? Why does the government have to be a revolving door for the industries it is supposed to be watching on our behalf? Why are the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and other safety agencies generally underfunded and unable to adequately protect workers and consumers? Is it partially our own fault as consumers and voters?
The author suggests answers to these questions in this book. We are partly to blame. But he offers a methodology for the three groups (manufacturers, government, and consumers) involved in product safety production, use, and warnings to reduce the dangers in the future.
Murder, Inc. educates purchasers, workers, and users to take steps to protect themselves and, hopefully, induce companies to use proactive production methods and recognize that the public wants safer products and will pay for them.
Dr. Goldhaber closes with an appeal to all parties to work together in a “triad” of cooperation to reduce death and injury on the roads, in the home, in the workplace, and in the environment. He notes that principled disclosure by manufacturers would be a major step. It is an approach that the author suggests is essential since it appears the government is exposing all of us to greater risk and injury.
This review of the safety of the products we use daily is a book for our times. We need to read and understand it. While we benefit from this era of progress, we are all at great risk, especially when our government is determined to let us down.
Michael R. Lemov, former counsel to the House Commerce Committee for motor vehicle and product safety, is the author of Car Safety Wars: One Hundred Years of Technology, Politics, and Death (Fairleigh Dickinson Press, 2015) and People’s Warrior: John Moss and the Fight for Freedom of Information and Consumer Rights (Fairleigh Dickinson Press, 2011). Mr. Lemov is currently a Member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Auto Safety and was the primary author of the Consumer Product Safety Act.
