Beyond reputation: debate on the role of corporate influence in occupational and environmental medicine.

In his article in this issue, Tee Guidotti casts recent works addressing corporate influence on occupational medicine as "collective act[s] of disparagement ... undertaken ... for political reasons." We move beyond the question of reputation to address key conflicts in the history of occupational medicine, including the American Occupational Medical Association's historical role in weakening the beryllium standard and the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine's recent efforts to limit the extent of the Family Medical Leave Act. The corporate practice of externalizing health and safety costs makes industry influence an important ongoing topic of debate in occupational and environmental medicine.