Toxic Safety - by Alissa Cordner (Paperback)

About the Book

Marketed as a life-saving advancement, flame retardants are now mired in controversy. Alissa Cordner describes how stakeholders use scientific evidence to support nonscientific goals. Toxic Safety demonstrates that while all parties interested in health issues use science to support their claims, they do not compete on a level playing field.

Book Synopsis

Initially marketed as a life-saving advancement, flame retardants are now mired in controversy. Some argue that data show the chemicals are unsafe while others continue to support their use. The tactics of each side have far-reaching consequences for how we interpret new scientific discoveries.

An experienced environmental sociologist, Alissa Cordner conducts more than a hundred interviews with activists, scientists, regulators, and industry professionals to isolate the social, scientific, economic, and political forces influencing environmental health policy today. Introducing "strategic science translation," she describes how stakeholders use scientific evidence to support nonscientific goals and construct "conceptual risk formulas" to shape risk assessment and the interpretation of empirical evidence. A revelatory text for public-health advocates, Toxic Safety demonstrates that while all parties interested in health issues use science to support their claims, they do not compete on a level playing field and even good intentions can have deleterious effects.

Review Quotes

Toxic Safety is an excellent contribution to environmental and medical social science, and it will be of interest to scholars in sociology, anthropology, and environmental studies. It is also and important resource for activists involved in civic movements for environmental health and environmental justice and for anyone motivated to build a society free of toxic substances.-- "American Journal of Sociology"

Toxic Safety is expansive and detailed; it is well written, and the story is told with clarity and conviction; and it sheds considerable light on the history of the flame retardant industry and the conflicting interests surrounding the use and regulation of flame retardant chemicals, as well as the limitations of science in environmental policymaking. This is an essential book for environmental sociologists interested in risk and environmental policy.--R. Scott Frey "Contemporary Sociology"

Toxic Safety makes an important contribution to questions about how we regulate environmental chemicals and how stakeholders shape this process. The book will be of interest to a range of readers, including environmental sociologists, public health advocates, and those interested in the politics of flame retardants and environmental health. It could usefully be assigned in advanced undergraduate courses and graduate seminars that address environmental politics.--Rachel Washburn "Medical Anthropology Quarterly"

An important contribution to the scholarship of toxic risk. In particular, the innovative methodology and detailed methodological appendix will be enormously valuable for graduate students and established scholars alike.-- "Social Science Journal"

An important, well-documented, and well-told account. Recommended.-- "Choice"

How could a class of chemicals as dangerous to health and limited in usefulness as flame retardants have become as widespread as they have? How could scientists, advocates, legislators, firefighters, and others mount an effective campaign to curb their use? Toxic Safety tells this story with great finesse, while setting the bar for research on chemical controversy. Cordner's notion of 'strategic science translation' and her elaboration of multiple approaches to risk will be standards for future environmental and public health scholars.--Phil Brown, author of Toxic Exposures: Contested Illnesses and the Environmental Health Movement

The flame retardant controversy serves as a fascinating case study of how scientific policies are made. Toxic Safety is a well-researched, well-organized, and well-written real-life example of how science contributes to policy.--Julie Herbstman, Columbia University

About the Author

Alissa Cordner is assistant professor of sociology at Whitman College and coauthor (with Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Elizabeth A. Bennett, Peter Klein, and Stephanie Savell) of The Civic Imagination: Making a Difference in American Political Life (2014).