International Program On Chemical Safety

This book is sponsored by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) but produced within the framework of The Inter-Organization Programme for the Sound Management of Chemicals (IOMC). The IOMC is composed of the above-mentioned sponsoring organizations, plus the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the United show more Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). White letters on a red background on the cover advertise that the International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) is somehow part of this, but I suspect that is a name for the whole process rather than some sort of independent agency. Money for publication came from a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institute of Health, United States of America (NIEHS/NIH/USA), the European Commission (EC), and the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care, Australia (CDHAC). The National Research Center for Environmental Toxicology, Australia (NRCET) arranged meetings. One wonders if there is an UN Working Group on Acronym Shortages, and how the organizations involved managed to agree on what language to speak at meetings, much less actually get anything printed.


A disclaimer on on of the first pages notes that none of the mentioned organizations are actually responsible for anything in the text, the recognition of legal status of disputed territories, or the endorsement of mentioned products. The book costs 108 Swiss francs (75.60 Sw.fr. in developing countries). One wonders why some entrepreneur in a developing country didn't buy a bunch of the books and then resell them for (say) 90 Sw.Fr.


OK, now that the preliminaries are out of the way, what we have here is a voluminous (500+ pages) paperback that apparently took every arsenic study known to the editors, abstracted it, organized the results in categories, and printed it without any attempt to assess the value of the individual works. This makes the book a gold mine for nutbars who want ammunition for the chemical hysteria of the week, since you can easily find a statement that supports any particular harmful effect you want to assign to arsenic.


Example: You want arsenic to cause stillbirths? Page 329 - "A hospital case-controlled study investigated the occurrence of stillbirths in relation to residential proximity to an arsenical pesticide production plant in Texas. An increasing ... trend in the risks of stillbirths was observed." Just edit out that little ellipsis (which was the words "but not significant"), append the words "The World Health organization reports" to the front of the sentence, and you have a ready-made press release for your antiarsenic campaign.


This is not to say that the work is not a valuable reference as a bibliography to studies of arsenic - but it's only a start and it's so easy to use it as an end. (to be fair, if you wanted you could go through the book and cull numerous references to the harmlessness of arsenic, too).


A find it a little disconcerting that this is just one of (number 224, to be exact)numerous studies of "chemicals", ranging from Acetaldehydes (#167) to Xylenes (#190). I can only assume yttrium and zirconium will make the list eventually. Some of the "chemicals" included are "Electromagnetic fields" (#137), "Lasers and optical radiation" (#23), and "Tobacco use" (#211). I suspect organizations like the NRDC have a complete set of these and can trundle out a barrage of "studies" every time there's a slow news week. What a world. show less