Jock McCulloch (1945-2018): A Tribute.

Jock William McCulloch, who died at Melbourne, Australia, in January 2018, was one of the foremost historians of occupational health of his generation. This tribute reviews his career and oeuvre, which was tragically ended by his death from mesothelioma.

Criminality and Asbestos in Industry.

Criminal prosecutions of individuals in the asbestos industry are reviewed, particularly the case of asbestos owner-executive Stephan Schmidheiny. Italian courts sentenced Schmidheiny to sixteen to eighteen years in jail for creating an environmental disaster causing three thousand deaths. The convictions were overturned on a technicality, and a murder case against Schmidheiny has started.

The export of hazardous industries in 2015.

In the 1970s, there were many reports of toxic hazards at corporate subsidiaries in the developing world that were no longer tolerated in the corporations' "home" countries. Following the chemical disaster in Bhopal, India, in 1984, leading corporations then announced that they applied uniform standards of worker and environmental protection worldwide. With globalization, corporations should also be obliged to take responsibility for their separate supplier, contractor and distributor companies, and licensees of their technology.

The case for a global ban on asbestos.

Background: All forms of asbestos are now banned in 52 countries. Safer products have replaced many materials that once were made with it. Nonetheless, many countries still use, import, and export asbestos and asbestos-containing products, and in those that have banned other forms of asbestos, the so-called "controlled use" of chrysotile asbestos is often exempted from the ban.

Code of Sustainable Practice in Occupational and Environmental Health and Safety for Corporations.

At a conference held at Stony Brook University in December 2007, "Dangerous Trade: Histories of Industrial Hazard across a Globalizing World," participants endorsed a Code of Sustainable Practice in Occupational and Environmental Health and Safety for Corporations. The Code outlines practices that would ensure corporations enact the highest health and environmentally protective measures in all the locations in which they operate. Corporations should observe international guidelines on occupational exposure to air contaminants, plant safety, air and water pollutant releases, hazardous waste disposal practices, remediation of polluted sites, public disclosure of toxic releases, product hazard labeling, sale of products for specific uses, storage and transport of toxic intermediates and products, corporate safety and health auditing, and corporate environmental auditing.

WTO confidential: the case of asbestos.

The World Trade Organization (WTO), established in 1995, adjudicates "trade disputes" between member nations in cases with human rights, cultural, environmental, and public health significance. Throughout the resolution process and even after a case's conclusion, little of what happens is made accessible to the public. However, it is one thing to criticize the WTO for its lack of transparency from outside the process and another to critically examine what was withheld from disclosure and what dangers that presents.

FIOH-sponsored newsletter misrepresents asbestos hazards in Zimbabwe.

The Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH) has received support from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labor Office (ILO) to publish the African Newsletter on Occupational Health and Safety. The African Newsletter on Occupational Health and Safety should not be a medium for industry propaganda, or the source of misinformation among the workers of Africa. Instead, FIOH should provide the same level of scientific information in Africa that it does in Finland and other developed countries.

Asbestos products, hazards, and regulation.

Asbestos is present in the United States in a multitude of products used in past decades, and in some products that continue to be imported and domestically produced. We have limited information on the hazards posed by some of these individual products and no information at all on most of them. Legal discovery of corporate documents has shed some light on the use of asbestos in some products and exposures from asbestos in others, sometimes adding considerably to what was in the published literature.

Vinyl chloride: a case study of data suppression and misrepresentation.

When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its 2000 update of the toxicological effects of vinyl chloride (VC), it was concerned with two issues: the classification of VC as a carcinogen and the numerical estimate of its potency.

The crisis in U.S. and international cancer policy.

The incidence of cancer in the United States and other major industrialized nations has escalated to epidemic proportions over recent decades, and greater increases are expected. While smoking is the single largest cause of cancer, the incidence of childhood cancers and a wide range of predominantly non-smoking-related cancers in men and women has increased greatly. This modern epidemic does not reflect lack of resources of the U.

WTO confidential: the case of asbestos. World Trade Organization.

The World Trade Organization (WTO), created in 1995, adjudicates "trade disputes" between member nations in cases with great human rights, cultural, environmental, and public health significance. Throughout the process of dispute resolution and even after a case is concluded, very little of what happens is made accessible to the public. However, it is one thing to criticize the WTO for its lack of transparency from outside the process, and another to critically examine what was withheld from disclosure and what dangers that presents.

The International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH) and its influence on international organizations.

The ICOH has played a key role in the development of some scientific documents and policy recommendations, but it has not always been scientifically objective, particularly in regard to asbestos and other fibers and some chemicals and pesticides. Many ICOH members are employees of corporations or consultants to industry, serving multinational corporate interests to influence public health policy in the guise of a professional scientific organization. ICOH members' conflicts of interest with the public health dominate the organization and damage the standing of the ICOH.