The scope of sexual harassment is staggering. It ranges from propositions and sexual innuendo to rape. It is just as pervasive in universities as in blue collar jobs, in police forces as in acting schools, in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as in unions The Women’s Legal Defense Fund estimates that “more...
Archive - August 2023
The Politics of Cancer is his contribution to the debate over the future of the environmental health movement. In it he has pulled together a monumental amount of information on specific carcinogens, on the scientific background to cancer, and on the “scientific” and “non-scientific” opposition to regulation. He...
Cancer research in this country has become a bureaucracy and an industry, and certain avenues of research languish because of this. Cancer prevention and its research are not in the interests of the medical establishment, and cause contradictions in our economic system. This article will examine the broad issue of...
As the concern about the risks of modern technology to people and the environment has been translated into legislation, a basic idea has emerged - that the best way to evaluate such a risk is to compare it with the associated benefits. This is known as risk/benefit assessment.
Cancer is both a scientific and a political issue. It is a scientific issue because it is a heavily researched disease — one whose most basic characteristics are still being uncovered and one about which honest and less-than-honest differences of opinion exist among scientists. It is fundamentally a political issue...
The spraying of herbicides violated the spirit of treaties outlawing chemical warfare. Technological blindness and cynicism promoted a method of war which was not only destructive, but accomplished little militarily. There is proposed legislation in the U.S. Congress to build a new variety of nerve gas projectile, the...
One of the most significant by-products of the economic recession currently affecting almost all industrialized countries is that it has eclipsed much of the concern expressed at the beginning of the decade about the destructive impact of current patterns of technological growth. It is almost ten years since a set of...
Death on the Job is a relatively short (196 pages) reference for workers, health professionals, and lay advocates, summarizing what everyone — industry, government, unions — is doing about occupational health and why. Berman's original research and radical perspective combine to make this a valuable work for those of...
Overall, Brian Martin's book provides a valuable tool for demonstrating how scientific work is tied up in social and political forces. The book should be of particular value in academic courses which deal with the nature of the scientific process and I hope it will serve as a model for analyses of topics such as...
Support to the traditional systems of science and technology in the third world countries has often been attacked as a reactionary attempt to hold back the national progress and to go back in history. These attacks originate from vested interests as well as well-meaning radical groups. Movements to defend the...