David Egilman is the Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health (IJOEH). A YouTube “selfie” interview provides some insight into Dr. Egilman’s motivations and editorial agenda. Previous posts have chronicled Egilman’s testimonial adventures because of his propensity to surface in litigations of interest. See, e.g., “David Egilman’s Methodology for Divining Causation” (Sept. 6, 2012); “Egilman Petitions the Supreme Court for Review of His Own Exclusion in Newkirk v. Conagra Foods” (Dec. 13, 2012).
Dr. Egilman has used his editorial role at the IJOEH to disseminate his litigation positions. Several of his articles are little more than his litigation reports, filed in various cases, ranging from occupational dust disease claims to pharmaceutical off-target effect claims. A recent issue of the IJOEH has yet another article of this ilk, which scatters invective across several litigations. David Egilman, Tess Bird[1], and Caroline Lee[2], “Dust diseases and the legacy of corporate manipulation of science and law, 20 Internat’l J. Occup. & Envt’l Health 115 (2014).
The article mostly concerns Egilman’s allegations that companies influenced the scientific, medical, and governmental understanding and perception of asbestos hazards. I will defer to others to address his allegations with respect to asbestos. The article, however, in its Abstract, takes broader aim at other exposures, in particular, silica:
“Knowledge that asbestos and silica were hazardous to health became public several decades after the industry knew of the health concerns. This delay was largely influenced by the interests of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MetLife) and other asbestos mining and product manufacturing companies.”
Egilman at 115, Abstract (emphasis added).
In their Abstract, the authors further proclaim their purpose
“To understand the ongoing corporate influence on the science and politics of asbestos and silica exposure, including litigation defense strategies related to historical manipulation of science.”
Egilman at 115. I demur for the time being with respect to asbestos, but the authors’ claims about silica are never supported in their article. A brief review of two monographs by Frederick L. Hoffman should be sufficient to condemn the authors’ carelessness to the dustbin of occupational history. Frederick L. Hoffman, Mortality from Respiratory Diseases in the Dusty Trades; Dep’t of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (1918); The Problem of Dust Phthisis in the Granite Stone Industry; Dep’t of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (1922). The bibliographies in both these monographs documents the widespread interest in, and awareness of, the occupational hazards of silica dusts, going back into the 19th century, among the media, the labor movement, and the non-industrial scientific community.
Not surprisingly, the authors’ conclusions are stated only in terms of asbestos hazards, knowledge, and company conduct:
“Conclusions: Asbestos product companies would like the public to believe that there was a legitimate debate surrounding the dangers of asbestos during the twentieth century, particularly regarding the link to cancer, which delayed adequate regulation. The asbestos–cancer link was not a legitimate contestation of science; rather the companies directly manipulated the scientific literature. There is evidence that industry manipulation of scientific literature remains a continuing problem today, resulting in inadequate regulation and compensation and perpetuating otherwise preventable worker and consumer injuries and deaths.”
The authors note that Rutherford Johnstone’s 1960 “seminal” textbook relied upon a study (Braun and Truan), which study Egilman attacks as corrupted by industry influence. Rutherford Johnstone & Seward E. Miller, Occupational Diseases and Industrial Medicine 328 (Philadelphia 1960). According to the Egilman, Rutherford Johnstone was the official American Medical Asociation’s consultant for occupational disease questions, which explains why he was providing answers to questions submitted to the Journal of the American Medical Association, on silica and asbestos issues. The authors note that Johnstone, in 1961, asserted that there was no epidemiologic evidence that asbestos causes lung cancer among American workers, which view reflects Johnstone’s reliance upon the Braun-Truan study. The authors fail, however, to note that Johnstone also opined that
“There is no epidemiological evidence that silicosis, resulting from undue exposure to free silica produces cancer of the lung.”
Rutherford T. Johnstone, “Silicosis and Cancer,” 176 J. Am. Med. Ass’n 81, 81 (1961). Neither the authors nor anyone else has ever shown that Johnstone was misled by any industry group with respect to his silica/lung cancer opinion.
Some of the Egilman’s scholarship is quite careless. For instance, he, along with his employees, assert that
“By the mid 1940s, the international scientific community had recognized the link between asbestos and cancer.10–18”
Readers should review all the endnotes, 10 – 18, but endnote 12 is especially interesting:
“12 Macklin MT, Macklin CC. Does chronic irritation cause primary carcinoma of the human lung? Arch Path. 1940;30:924–55.”
As I have noted before, the Macklins, and especially Dr. Madge Macklin, brought a great deal of rigor and skepticism to broad claims about the causation of lung cancer. See “Silicosis, Lung Cancer, and Evidence-Based Medicine in North America” (July 4, 2014). This citation and others do not appear to support the sweep of Egilman and his student authors’ claim.
The next mention of silica occurs in the context of an allegation that corporations (presumably not plaintiffs’ lawyers’ law firm corporations) have worked to “disguise” health concerns and influence governmental policy about several products, materials, including silica:
“During the last several decades, researchers in a wide spectrum of fields have documented the direct and purposeful efforts of corporations to disguise public health concerns and affect government policies, particularly in the tobacco, alcohol, silica, and asbestos industries, and more recently, the pharmaceutical, chemical, and ultra-processed food and drink industries.79,73”
Egilman at 121.
The authors’ citations, however, do not support any such allegation about silica. Endnote 73[3] is an article by Egilman, and others, on Vioxx; and endnote 79[4] is an article about alcohol, tobacco, and foods. In the very next sentence, the authors further claim that:
“Corporate-funded ‘objective science’ leading to the corruption of scientific literature remains a major problem.65,68,69,71,73,75,80–86”
Once again, none of the endnotes (65, 68, 69, 71, 75, and 80-86) supports the authors’ claim that anyone in the mining, milling, or marketing of crystalline silica has funded science in a way that led to the corruption of the scientific literature. Not surprisingly, the authors ignore the frauds perpetuated by litigation industry players. See, e.g., In re Silica Products Liab. Lit., 398 F. Supp. 2d 563 (S.D. Tex. 2005) (federal trial judge rebukes the litigation industry for fraudulent claiming in MDL 1553).
[1] The article acknowledges that Ms. Bird and Ms. Lee were employees of Dr. Egilman. Ms. Bird appears now to be a student in the U.K., studying medical anthropology. Ms. Bird, and Ms. Lee, appeared on earlier works by Egilman. See, e.g., David S Egilman, Tess Bird, and Caroline Lee, “MetLife and its corporate allies: dust diseases and the manipulation of science,” 19 Internat’l J. Occup. & Envt’l Health 287 (2013); David Steven Egilman, Emily Laura Ardolino, Samantha Howe, and Tess Bird, “Deconstructing a state-of-the-art review of the asbestos brake industry,” 21 New Solutions 545 (2011).
[2] Ms. Lee appears to have been employed for Egilman’s litigation consulting firm, Never Again Consulting, from 2011 until August 2013, when she entered the University of Maryland law school.
[3] Krumholz HM, Ross JS, Presler AH, Egilman DS. What have we learnt from Vioxx. Br Med J. 2007;334(7585):120–3.
[4] Moodie R, Stuckler D, Montiero C, Sheron N, Neal B, Thamarangsi T, et al. Profits and pandemics: prevention of harmful effects of tobacco, alcohol, and ultra-processed food and drink industries. Lancet. 2013;381:670–79.
