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00:00:38 20 years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency grew out of public concern with contamination of the environment.

00:00:45 The wonder drugs and powerful chemicals and products that had changed the way we lived

00:00:50 were found to sometimes disturb the delicate balance of nature and health and harm as well as help our world.

00:00:57 The risks as well as the benefits had to be taken into consideration.

00:01:01 America demanded it. A first step, the EPA was to study, determine, and enforce safe levels of chemicals in the environment.

00:01:13 In 1986, the people of California took the latest stride in this effort and voted into law a fundamental change

00:01:20 in how they are protected from toxic chemicals in their environment and drinking water supplies and food and drug products.

00:01:27 Proposition 65, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxics Enforcement Act,

00:01:32 addresses chemicals known to cause cancer and reproductive toxicity.

00:01:37 Dischargers are responsible for proving their releases are safe.

00:01:41 Products containing the chemicals must be labeled as such.

00:01:44 Citizens may enforce the law by bringing lawsuits without having to demonstrate damage.

00:01:51 From the beginning, Proposition 65 was outlined as a classic industry versus environmentalist battle,

00:01:58 but the issues and the science are much more complex than that.

00:02:02 On this story, as with so many other environmental stories,

00:02:06 reporters had to sort through conflicting statements and interpretations of toxicology

00:02:11 that editors and the public wanted to see in terms of black and white.

00:02:15 In these stories, the responsibility for accuracy is equal to the power of the press to shape the public's perception of risk.

00:02:24 In an effort to clarify and position the ongoing elements of the complex Proposition 65 story,

00:02:30 the Foundation for American Communications brought together journalists, scientists, administrators,

00:02:36 and special interest groups from throughout the nation to discuss the problems of environmental reporting.

00:02:43 Environmental issues, if you really get into them, are difficult.

00:02:49 They don't lend themselves to short, easy-to-understand explanations,

00:02:56 and so the tendency is to avoid explaining the context of the issue.

00:03:03 I think there's a certain paranoia around chemicals and chemical problems,

00:03:10 and the media needs to try to sort out the paranoia from the real issues, and there are real issues.

00:03:16 They tend to quote the old, on the one hand, this, and on the other hand, that.

00:03:20 If the truth is in the middle, that's fine, but a lot of times the truth is not in the middle,

00:03:24 and reporters aren't as good as they might be at saying so, when in fact one side is right and the other side is wrong.

00:03:30 And we treat the all-terrain vehicle the same way as we treat dioxin. They're very different.

00:03:36 The group discussed how to solve the problems of environmental reporting as well.

00:03:42 I think you need to keep any kind of environmental risk you're reporting about, put that into perspective,

00:03:48 so that the person understands what it means to inhale this particular chemical

00:03:53 versus anything they might encounter in a typical day's journey through life.

00:03:59 The truth is, not all opinions are of equal weight.

00:04:02 The best thing that journalists can do there is to test knowledge claims by always asking for the evidence.

00:04:09 If there's going to be improvement in environmental reporting, it would be in trying to teach the public about uncertainty.

00:04:16 When it comes to chemicals and environmental issues, usually industry knows more about it,

00:04:20 knows more about a particular chemical or substance than anyone,

00:04:23 because they're the ones who did all the studies to decide whether it was worth marketing.

00:04:26 I think that reporters have to start to deal with the way they shape public perceptions of risk.

00:04:36 Frank McCullough, the managing editor of the San Francisco Examiner,

00:04:39 put the importance of the Proposition 65 environmental story in perspective.

00:04:44 I think probably Proposition 65's coverage poses about as difficult a problem as we're all going to face in maybe the next two or three years.

00:04:52 It's going to be, I think, by all counts, over that period of time, the biggest running story we have.

00:04:59 There'll be other bigger individual stories, but taken over a period of several years,

00:05:04 I think it'll be the biggest, most complex, most difficult, and most prone to error story that we're going to have to cover.

00:05:11 It's going to take a lot of hard work, a lot of intelligent application,

00:05:18 and I think maybe above all, a lot of patience with each other,

00:05:23 us as journalists with our sources and our sources with us as journalists,

00:05:28 that we're going to do what we have to do for the public in these months and this year ahead.

00:05:35 Sandra Blakeslee is a science reporter who regularly contributes to the New York Times and other publications.

00:05:41 She serves as the science advisor to FACS.

00:05:44 She outlined the audience and the elements the journalist needs to consider when reporting environmental and scientific stories.

00:05:51 A lot of people want zero risk, and they seem to think that it's the regulator's responsibility,

00:05:58 the government's responsibility, the manufacturer's responsibility to have zero risk.

00:06:02 And I think when you're writing this story, you should think about that response.

00:06:07 One of my favorite examples of this is RoboCop.

00:06:10 It has a fantastic scene in it that I think captures a lot of the public attitudes about toxic chemicals,

00:06:16 where the bad guy is running along in a car and it bumps into a barrel and says,

00:06:22 toxic waste, and the guy falls out of the car and his skin melts.

00:06:27 And it was just beautifully captured.

00:06:29 I think that's really what a lot of people have in the back of their mind.

00:06:31 Toxic, oh my God, it's going to make my skin fall off.

00:06:35 And as you know, if you deal in the science, that a lot of toxic substances in very, very small exposures are not that dangerous.

00:06:45 Many of them are.

00:06:46 I mean, we don't know.

00:06:49 I would have some questions if I were writing this story.

00:06:51 And that's this whole new issue of the animal tests, toxicity, and whether you can extrapolate from animal data to human data.

00:06:59 Then I'd like to ask the business interests, when they first heard about this law, when it was first passed,

00:07:07 and they started looking at their products, what did they find?

00:07:11 Is there dioxin in the diapers?

00:07:14 In the worst case from all these companies, what did they actually find that they would have to label?

00:07:23 From the environmentalists, I'd like to ask them to tell me what they think the truest risks are, the highest risk.

00:07:31 Which chemicals, what are the most dangerous chemicals or exposures that they're worried about?

00:07:38 I'd also like to know how industry is supposed to prove that a substance does not prove significant risk, which is always put in quotes.

00:07:48 There's no definition, and I'd like to know how they define it, and if they were going to advise industry to do this, how they would advise them.

00:07:55 From the politicians, I'd like to know what both sides have been lobbying them about.

00:08:01 What are the real public risks?

00:08:02 What are the health issues?

00:08:03 What are both sides saying?

00:08:04 What are the economic arguments and so forth?

00:08:08 As a citizen, I'd like to know if it was implemented, how is it going to affect me?

00:08:11 Is it going to make me more frightened?

00:08:13 Is it going to help me make better decisions?

00:08:16 And as a reporter, I'd like all the speakers today to tell me how to cover this story with specific advice,

00:08:23 and how they think, you know, what kind of questions I should be asking on this subject.

00:08:37 As the environmental reporter to the San Jose Mercury News, Mitchell Benson has covered Proposition 65 since its inception.

00:08:45 He reported on the past coverage and looked forward to issues in future reporting as the law takes effect.

00:08:51 No one knew what Prop 65 would do.

00:08:53 It made it very difficult for us as journalists to write about what will happen if Prop 65 became law, because no one knew what would happen.

00:09:02 Now we're in big trouble as journalists, because now it has passed, and now we have to deal with something that is very complex, as everyone said.

00:09:11 And a lot of the coverage turned out to be political coverage.

00:09:15 I know I personally covered it pretty much as a race.

00:09:18 We did a lot of coverage of who was contributing to where, a lot of coverage of where the campaign financing was coming from,

00:09:25 because I think to some extent you get an idea of when you know who's supporting a particular piece of legislation or who's opposing it,

00:09:33 you have some idea of who would benefit and who would hurt.

00:09:38 If there's one thing I picked up from covering Prop 65, it was an ability to develop good sources in business and industry.

00:09:47 And I think that sometimes environmental reporters, for whatever reason, shy away from really getting into developing good sources.

00:09:54 It's a lot easier to develop sources with environmentalists who are usually more quick to call you.

00:09:59 Industry in general does not want to call newspapers with stories.

00:10:04 They're usually more reserved.

00:10:05 But in this case, the coalition that was fighting Prop 65 knew they had quite a challenge on their hands.

00:10:12 They were very aggressive in getting out to the media and saying, can we come out and meet with you?

00:10:15 Can we send you this videotape?

00:10:17 Can we send you that report?

00:10:18 And I think it helped develop strong sources and relationships in the business community that will continue to serve you, both on Prop 65 and in other issues.

00:10:29 In any event, after Prop 65 became law, there were other stories to get at.

00:10:34 For one thing, you had to deal with the budget.

00:10:37 What was the governor going to put into the budget to help enforce Prop 65 and help develop the regulations?

00:10:44 Another interesting story is that we heard a lot before Prop 65 from the companies that would be affected by it,

00:10:52 the companies that use chemicals and manufacture chemicals, the agribusiness industry, about what a weight this would be.

00:10:59 But what we didn't hear from was all the people who would make out like bandits afterwards and how all the big law firms in the state were gearing up.

00:11:08 A lot of them were hiring more attorneys.

00:11:09 A lot of them were seeking out environmental specialists, consulting firms, environmental consulting firms, geological consulting firms.

00:11:17 They were all running around like mad hiring on more people to deal with what would be a gold rush of opportunity, as one geological consultant termed it.

00:11:27 And that's something that I think is a story that can be followed up on because there may be problems in the future if you get unqualified people in these very technical areas.

00:11:39 Another interesting point is the very controversial bounty hunter provision of the law,

00:11:44 which allows individuals to file suit if the district attorney or the appropriate law enforcement agency will not.

00:11:54 What happens as local jurisdictions, people in local jurisdictions start filing lawsuit after lawsuit?

00:12:01 Will it clog up the legal system?

00:12:03 Will they be spurious lawsuits?

00:12:05 Will they be legitimate lawsuits?

00:12:07 I think that's an important issue to follow.

00:12:09 A couple of quick other ideas.

00:12:14 Some of the things I learned, some of the ways I write stories now that I learned from covering Prop 65.

00:12:21 One is that I'm very careful about putting cancer estimates into perspective.

00:12:29 Quite often you'll hear that just the background risk of living in the United States today is that everyone faces a one in four chance of contracting cancer in their lifetime.

00:12:41 And I think that whenever you do a story that talks about increased cancers or increased cancer deaths because of an air pollutant or a water pollutant,

00:12:49 I think it's important to put that in perspective.

00:12:52 And if they're saying that it's ex-additional cancer cases, you need to put that into perspective in terms of what the average risk is

00:12:59 because I don't think people realize that they're facing a one in four risk just from living their day-to-day lives.

00:13:05 And the other thing is I heard a lot of complaints about how much it costs to recertify or to certify certain chemicals

00:13:12 in place of chemicals that have been taken off of the list or put on the list to be banned.

00:13:18 What have you heard from the agriculture community?

00:13:21 Mainly that the big push now from agriculture is on trying to get substances exempt that are on foods that are being sold as opposed to residual pesticides.

00:13:33 They filed a motion with the science advisory panel of Prop 65 asking that a whole bunch of substances that would be found on food and beverages be exempt

00:13:44 because they're already covered by other laws.

00:13:47 That's mainly what they're concentrating on now is how to be able to get their products into the stores

00:13:54 without having to put signs on the grocery store window or put little stamps on every sun-kissed orange saying,

00:14:00 caution, this contains 222450 or whatever.

00:14:07 I've heard a lot in the agricultural field and the business side of the technology of testing

00:14:13 and how our capabilities of monitoring residues and so forth are so much greater now in many areas than we ever have had before.

00:14:22 Have you noticed much coverage that puts that into perspective?

00:14:26 That's one of the big concerns that's raised regarding groundwater contamination.

00:14:30 Now that there's technology out that can measure in the parts per billion whereas 10 years ago it was only parts per million.

00:14:38 And talking to instrumentation salesmen who say that parts per trillion is just around the corner as a very common testing level.

00:14:46 And the concern is that the technology has gotten ahead of the ability to understand what the significance of those levels are.

00:14:54 The goal of any story, print or broadcast, is clear communication.

00:14:59 In a story like Proposition 65, concerned with the risks related to chemical exposure,

00:15:05 the story is emotional as well as scientific, legal, political and environmental.

00:15:13 Dr. Park Dietz is a professor of law and psychiatry at the University of Virginia.

00:15:18 He lectures on health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health

00:15:23 and is a consultant to the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit.

00:15:28 He joined the FACS conference to discuss the public fear of science and technology,

00:15:33 the perception of risk from chemicals and toxics and the journalist's role in the public's understanding of risk.

00:15:39 Where I really want to focus most of what I have to say comes after the news account is created.

00:15:45 It comes between the news accounts and the public perceptions.

00:15:49 Because the public, unlike journalists, cannot be expected on the average

00:15:56 to have as much knowledge or as great analytic skills to be able to process those news accounts.

00:16:03 If you stop to think about rates of illiteracy, if you stop to think about mental disorder,

00:16:10 which I'll talk more about, if you stop to think about the time people take to form judgments about issues of this kind,

00:16:21 I don't think you'll have to think very long to realize that it is not passing through much of a filter of knowledge and analytic skills

00:16:29 as the news creates public perceptions in the bulk of the public.

00:16:34 Now, where these filters of public knowledge and public analytic skills are thin and permeable,

00:16:41 the power of journalists to mold through news accounts public perceptions is enormous.

00:16:50 The only thing that stands in the way of journalists creating public perception

00:16:56 is the fact that there are multiple journalists working at it,

00:17:00 who ought to be pluralistic about it if this is to work,

00:17:05 and the fact that bias and irrationality will make it that no matter what message you print,

00:17:10 it won't be the one that's received.

00:17:14 But there are things you can do to try to improve the odds that what you print and state is the message that's heard.

00:17:22 First of all, because there are great potential sources of bias and irrationality as the public form their perceptions,

00:17:30 it means that issue selection has greater importance than just about anything else that goes on.

00:17:40 What hits the agenda is what will become the source of irrational beliefs.

00:17:46 Well, how do things hit the agenda?

00:17:49 These sources put them on the agenda.

00:17:52 Journalists select from the menu the sources provide to create that agenda.

00:17:56 Once again, your power to create the perceptions.

00:18:00 Now, one of the phenomena that's most striking to me as I look at examples of how this process works

00:18:08 is probably a principle that's familiar to all of you,

00:18:11 and that is that bad news is more memorable than good news.

00:18:15 I think that gives us a problem because it means it's hard to have balanced coverage

00:18:20 if it's not the case that truth is the determinant of what hits the agenda rather than bad news.

00:18:28 I want to share with you some of what we've learned in recent years about the extremes

00:18:34 with respect to irrationality and the public.

00:18:37 There are now very good data based on, for the first time,

00:18:41 reliable measures of mental disorder in the population.

00:18:45 The principle study that really gives us some hard data was published in 1984,

00:18:50 and the most extraordinary thing discovered here is that of a selected group of mental disorders studied,

00:18:58 in three cities the proportion of the adult population that had these disorders

00:19:03 was 29% in New Haven, 38% in Baltimore, and 31% in St. Louis.

00:19:09 Now, only 1% to 2% of that are people who are so out of touch with reality

00:19:15 that the distortions are off the chart.

00:19:18 But on the order of 10% of the population have anxiety disorders that make them generally fearful,

00:19:26 fearful of all sorts of things that are not actually true threats

00:19:32 or that are perceived in a way that is distorted.

00:19:37 You're all familiar with the concept of phobia and irrational fear.

00:19:43 Well, it's named after Phobos, the Greek god, who was one of the early environmental hazards

00:19:50 because what Phobos would do would be jump out of the woods and scare unsuspecting mortals.

00:19:59 That's what continues to happen, jumping out of the newsprint to scare unsuspecting mortals.

00:20:05 And I worry about those unsuspecting mortals who, without much background knowledge or analytic skills,

00:20:11 have trouble, have genuine difficulty getting a balanced view.

00:20:17 Because of the difficulty they have, it seems to me that the standard for reporting complex risk information

00:20:26 ought to have in it somehow, putting things in perspective.

00:20:32 Now, when information is put in perspective, it's much easier for people to cope with.

00:20:39 How to get a balanced story, how to make these public perceptions get it right, is the challenge you face.

00:20:46 Now, with respect to Prop 65 specifically, I think one of the interesting issues is

00:20:52 how much it differs from the way economists would suggest things be done.

00:20:59 The bounty hunter provision is extraordinary in giving an entirely new kind of financial incentive structure.

00:21:06 I'd be real interested to see comparable incentive structures for catching murderers,

00:21:11 to use comparable incentive structures for negligent government officials who design highways in ways that kill people.

00:21:19 There are lots of ways these could be used.

00:21:22 How come they're being used just in this way?

00:21:28 Let me close by suggesting something to you.

00:21:32 Imagine, if you will, that there are, around America, groups of people who are concerned about mind pollution

00:21:39 and how the press and the media control their psychology, control their thinking, set their agendas, do things to their mind.

00:21:47 Then imagine that these groups organize, and some of them get sophisticated help and do a very good job at it.

00:21:53 Now, the next stage requires some suspension of disbelief.

00:21:57 The advocacy groups get a very large microphone and manage to bring their concerns to everyone's attention.

00:22:03 Now, that can't happen because you can control what gets to public attention.

00:22:07 But if you couldn't, if that could all get to public attention anyway,

00:22:11 and if there could be legislation that gave a bounty every time someone could show

00:22:16 that someone had done something irresponsible in the media or on the air,

00:22:22 and that could require labeling of every element of a broadcast that could possibly be damaging to the mind,

00:22:30 how are you going to respond to that?

00:22:33 And then you give a reward to those who point out when you failed to properly label.

00:22:40 That would be difficult, wouldn't it?

00:22:42 And I think that's how industry fears this is going to go for them,

00:22:46 a lot of difficulty figuring out how they're going to respond to it.

00:22:51 Let me stop my comments and take a couple minutes to answer questions you may have.

00:22:57 Yes?

00:22:58 There's a very strong argument that the whole function of Prop 65, like any regulatory activity, is to alleviate public fears.

00:23:07 That is that the end result is an assurance that we have resolved these scientific questions

00:23:12 with regard to the safety of your food, and there is some means being created to gather together all of that

00:23:19 and to have some degree of expertise review it and provide the public with some kind of assurance

00:23:25 that no, you're not going to die from eating apples or whatever.

00:23:29 Is there no such effect at all?

00:23:31 I don't see Prop 65 giving the bounty money to researchers to study these things

00:23:36 and resolve the scientific issues, but to the extent that compliance requires

00:23:41 that what's in products be changed, there can be benefits.

00:23:46 Indeed, if it were limited to only the things that really mattered,

00:23:50 that would no longer show up in products, that would maximize the positive impact.

00:23:57 But when that's extended to things that aren't the same degree of hazard,

00:24:01 when everyone is afraid to eat everything they have, when there's no choice left

00:24:05 because there won't be anything left to eat if you've got more than 200 things labeled,

00:24:10 I don't see how that reassures the public.

00:24:15 I don't quite understand your premise.

00:24:17 Our job is to inform, and if we're good in our job, we give the facts.

00:24:22 We don't tell people what to do.

00:24:24 Now, if there's this perceived or there's actual 20% of mentally ill individuals

00:24:30 who misinterpret that, we can't segment our writing to just the population

00:24:35 that's going to, let's say, use it for that information purpose

00:24:39 and not take a negative or other type of reaction toward it.

00:24:44 Right. Now, first let me say that all people have irrationality operating within them.

00:24:51 It is universal.

00:24:53 We differ in the degree of it, and we differ on what topics were irrational.

00:24:58 Of course you can't target your news only to the rational.

00:25:01 There'd be no one to write for.

00:25:06 But what you can do is help to cut through some sources of irrationality

00:25:12 with such things as putting risk information in perspective.

00:25:16 How does this risk compare to other risks with which people are familiar?

00:25:21 That can help them make their decisions.

00:25:24 What doesn't help reduce irrational responses is sensationalism,

00:25:30 and the reason for that on any level is that emotions distort perceptions.

00:25:40 At the heart of environmental stories is science, the determination of true risk.

00:25:45 Advocates and opponents look to toxicologists to define clearly

00:25:49 the risk of exposure to people, the environment, and food.

00:25:52 But science is not perfect, and test results are subject to interpretation.

00:25:57 Scientific terms are used freely, often inaccurately,

00:26:00 and without clarification can sensationalize a report.

00:26:06 Toxicity, for example, refers simply to the ability of a chemical to cause damage.

00:26:12 A chemical can have acute or chronic toxicity

00:26:15 depending on whether the reaction occurs immediately after one dose

00:26:19 or over months or years from repeated exposures.

00:26:24 A hazard is the chance that a chemical can do harm under specific exposures,

00:26:29 and a risk is the probability of a particular injury under specific conditions of exposure.

00:26:35 Reproductive toxins encompass not only teratogens or chemicals that cause birth defects,

00:26:41 but chemicals that cause problems in fertilization, sexual response, and lowered sperm count as well.

00:26:49 Confusion also exists between so-called good natural chemicals and dangerous synthetic ones.

00:26:56 In fact, toxicity knows no such delineation.

00:26:59 Aflatoxin, the natural toxin in peanut butter, is more acutely toxic than DDT.

00:27:08 Ralph Ballard directs the toxicology program in the Department of Biological Sciences at San Jose State University.

00:27:15 He outlined the tenets and questions of the science of toxicology central to understanding environmental issues.

00:27:23 What the toxicologist deals with is really dose-response curves.

00:27:27 What this dose-response curve means is that if you look at the incidence in a population of a particular effect,

00:27:35 and this doesn't make any difference whether you're dealing at the cellular level, whether you're dealing with an organism,

00:27:39 or you're killing people, or killing bugs, or killing bacteria.

00:27:42 It doesn't make any difference.

00:27:44 If you take this and look at the percent of the population dying or the percent of the pathology in the population,

00:27:52 as you go up in percentage, you get up to 100%.

00:27:56 Now, if you take your dose...

00:27:57 A problem arises in developing the threshold of a chemical, the dose below which there is no effect.

00:28:04 Toxicologists use math combined with certain assumptions and test results of higher doses to determine effects of low doses.

00:28:13 Now, what comes with cancer testing?

00:28:17 I say to you, look, if you drink...

00:28:22 We give rats 10,000 bottles, the equivalent of 10,000 bottles of pop with saccharin in it.

00:28:32 That sounds like a pretty ridiculous experiment, but why are we doing that?

00:28:36 The reason we're doing that is we can't test down here.

00:28:43 It's too many animals.

00:28:45 The other thing we can do is to increase the dose up to where we're sure we're up here.

00:28:53 So what we do is to run the dose up so high that we're sure we're up here on the curve.

00:29:00 However, this makes some assumptions.

00:29:03 One of the assumptions this makes is that all the animals will respond at the very high dose as they do at the very low dose.

00:29:13 That's where the controversy is coming in.

00:29:15 Many deny this, and many feel that once you load it up, you're dealing with an entirely different situation.

00:29:22 This brings up another problem in this.

00:29:28 What are you basing your data on?

00:29:31 Are you basing it on animal studies?

00:29:33 Are you basing it on human studies?

00:29:34 Are you basing it on epidemiology?

00:29:36 Epidemiology is the study of instance of illness in human population.

00:29:41 Animal studies are not always accurate because humans and animal test species have different sensitivities to chemicals.

00:29:48 If we take, say, the toxicity of a chemical as one to the human and look at the sensitivity of the animal,

00:29:56 we find that in the rat, the rat is much less sensitive to saccharin than the human.

00:30:05 Vinyl chloride, which causes a liver cancer, the rat is much less sensitive.

00:30:12 Benzene, which can cause leukemia, is much less sensitive.

00:30:18 But then you do deal with aflatoxin B1, which is this material found in peanut butter.

00:30:23 It's five times as sensitive.

00:30:26 The problem is, what is your database?

00:30:29 What are you doing?

00:30:30 Are you assuming that the animal studies can be uniformly extrapolated to humans?

00:30:38 In terms of cancer, this is an interesting problem because everybody says,

00:30:46 we're dealing with a carcinogen.

00:30:48 Holy mackerel, this thing causes cancer and we've got to really be careful about it.

00:30:53 If we say this is a carcinogen, what are the criteria we're using?

00:30:59 We can be using one of several types of studies.

00:31:02 We can be using epidemiological studies or we can be dealing with animal studies.

00:31:08 Are we dealing in terms of mutagenesis?

00:31:12 Mutagenesis is a nice term.

00:31:15 The assumption here is that if you damage the DNA,

00:31:21 you're going to in some way damage the cell itself.

00:31:25 If you have a cell that has its DNA damaged,

00:31:30 then this damaged DNA can then cause what would be a mutation.

00:31:36 This mutation will then cause a malfunction of the cell,

00:31:40 which can appear as a tumor genic cell.

00:31:44 This was the basis of Ames.

00:31:46 The value of Ames' test was that he was able to say,

00:31:51 if we have in these bacteria chemicals that cause changes in the DNA or mutations,

00:32:00 then these are potential carcinogens.

00:32:03 He did studies in which he took known carcinogens and ran them through his test

00:32:07 and found, sure enough, there was a correlation.

00:32:10 That sounds well and good,

00:32:13 but the problem is just how much value is that correlation.

00:32:19 The other thing you should be aware of is that

00:32:22 if you're talking about chemicals that cause cancer,

00:32:26 there's a difference in potency.

00:32:27 If you look at saccharin,

00:32:29 the dose per day in grams produced tumors is about one gram of saccharin.

00:32:35 Carbon tetrachloride, one hundredth of a gram.

00:32:38 Dimethylnitrosamine, which was found in the bacon,

00:32:41 one one-thousandth of a gram.

00:32:43 And aflatoxin found in peanut butter, one millionth of a gram.

00:32:48 What does it mean if we use a reporter?

00:32:50 It means if we use a reporter,

00:32:51 somebody says there's a carcinogen you want to know,

00:32:55 then what is the potency of this?

00:32:58 Where does this fit in the scheme of things?

00:33:00 Is this person saying that something is a natural chemical versus a man-made?

00:33:06 Is the person using toxics in a rather loose manner?

00:33:10 Have they confused acute and chronic?

00:33:12 Are they really basing their conclusions on?

00:33:15 What are they basing their conclusions on?

00:33:17 If they're looking at a chemical carcinogen,

00:33:19 is it epidemiological studies, mutagenesis, or animal studies?

00:33:23 Have the limitations of these been taken into consideration?

00:33:26 Purported toxic risks should be kept in perspective

00:33:30 with lifetime risks from known hazards

00:33:32 such as hurricanes, lightning, and PCBs in drinking water.

00:33:37 Dr. Ballard closed with a quote from antiquity.

00:33:40 And then finally, there was a gentleman, Parasalsus,

00:33:43 that some years back that stated something

00:33:46 that has been fundamental forever in toxicology,

00:33:48 and this is all substances are poisonous.

00:33:51 There is none which is not a poison.

00:33:54 The right dose differentiates a poison from a remedy.

00:34:00 How much does it cost and how long does it take

00:34:03 to study any particular chemical for its carcinogenic effects?

00:34:08 If you're going to do a rat study,

00:34:11 and you're going to do a lifetime rat study,

00:34:14 you're talking about anywhere from half a million

00:34:17 to a million dollars in cost.

00:34:20 If you're going to do an Ames test,

00:34:22 you're talking about $15,000 to $16,000,

00:34:27 maybe about 72 hours.

00:34:31 So if you're talking about some of the other tests,

00:34:34 you're talking about a week or so.

00:34:36 If you're talking about rodent studies,

00:34:38 you're talking anywhere from two to three years.

00:34:40 If you're talking about epidemiological studies,

00:34:42 you can be talking about 30, 40 years.

00:34:45 Isn't there some scientific basis for looking at man-made chemicals

00:34:50 because you can control those and natural chemicals?

00:34:54 People do know about the carcinogenic effects.

00:34:57 They do make their choices.

00:34:59 So there is a distinction in the public's mind

00:35:02 where the scientists are trying to meld the two

00:35:06 and the public wants one controlled

00:35:08 because they feel that it is controllable.

00:35:11 I think this point is a point that really concerns a lot of people.

00:35:16 But the problem with this is,

00:35:18 and this was addressed by the previous speaker,

00:35:20 is that there are benefits from these chemicals.

00:35:23 Now, I think there's what's called the risk-benefit analysis

00:35:28 so that if you can say,

00:35:30 okay, I don't want to run the risk of having birth defects from aspirin,

00:35:36 so I'm not going to take aspirin.

00:35:38 Well, then there's the problem of some cardiovascular protection from aspirin.

00:35:43 So there's always a tradeoff,

00:35:45 and I think what has to be recognized by the public

00:35:48 is that it isn't absolute.

00:35:50 We're not dealing in black and white.

00:35:52 There isn't a good guy and a bad guy.

00:35:54 There's always a tradeoff in these things.

00:35:59 Throughout the campaign for Proposition 65,

00:36:02 issues divided along the lines of business concerns

00:36:05 and environmental interests.

00:36:07 Now, as the law takes effect,

00:36:09 each side seeks to define the protection demanded by the voters.

00:36:12 Some industries, especially food and drug producers,

00:36:15 point to maintenance of FDA regulations already in effect,

00:36:19 holding that these have created the safest food supply in the world

00:36:23 and that the potential cost of different labeling requirements

00:36:26 for 50 states would be an unintended cost,

00:36:29 ultimately borne by the public.

00:36:33 Before the vote, two voices spoke most clearly

00:36:36 for the interests of environmentalists and business.

00:36:39 David Rowe, senior attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund,

00:36:42 is the principal co-author of the law.

00:36:44 Michelle Korash is with the law firm of Morrison & Forrester.

00:36:48 She served as general counsel to the Environmental Protection Agency

00:36:52 under the Carter administration

00:36:54 and is now counsel to the Environmental Working Group,

00:36:57 which is a coalition of California business and agricultural communities.

00:37:01 Since the passage of Proposition 65 in 1986,

00:37:05 the two groups have come together

00:37:07 in an effort to create clear, reasonable regulations

00:37:10 as the law goes into effect.

00:37:12 What I thought I'd do is talk very briefly about three things.

00:37:15 What the law actually says,

00:37:17 what some of the missed issues were during the campaign,

00:37:21 and what some of the key issues are right now.

00:37:25 Proposition 65 is not really so different in what it says

00:37:31 or in the kinds of definitions and terms that it uses,

00:37:35 except that there are a couple of key exceptions.

00:37:38 In answer to the question, what chemicals, there is a list.

00:37:43 And of course there are arguments,

00:37:45 and there will continue to be arguments about what should go on the list.

00:37:48 This is the list of chemicals known to the state

00:37:51 that cause cancer or reproductive toxicity.

00:37:54 For those known carcinogens and known reproductive toxins,

00:37:58 the law says we have a safety valve, we have an escape clause.

00:38:03 You can get out from under this law.

00:38:05 You don't have to obey it if you stay within a level

00:38:08 which represents no significant risk.

00:38:11 But who sets that level? Up to you.

00:38:16 Burden of proof on you,

00:38:18 the person who is exposing someone to one of these chemicals.

00:38:22 And that, of course, is a major difference

00:38:26 from the other laws that we're familiar with.

00:38:29 Because of this burden of proof, under this law,

00:38:33 there is a very high incentive for industry to come in and sit down

00:38:38 and write clear regulations that do draw bright lines.

00:38:43 The first campaign was the campaign over the initiative itself,

00:38:48 the ballot campaign.

00:38:50 But please be aware that there is a second campaign,

00:38:53 just as intense and just as well-funded as the first campaign,

00:38:57 that is going on now.

00:38:59 Because even more than with most laws,

00:39:02 a great deal rides on the regulations to implement Proposition 65.

00:39:11 How they're written and what they say will make an enormous difference.

00:39:17 Now, in terms of missed issues during the campaign,

00:39:21 there, of course, is a strong temptation to paint this law

00:39:25 as the law that industry has always been afraid of.

00:39:29 Interestingly enough, that's not what the public ad campaign said.

00:39:32 This is an issue that nobody really picked up on.

00:39:34 The public ad campaign said this law is too weak.

00:39:36 It has too many exceptions.

00:39:38 During the campaign, the first campaign,

00:39:42 the key question to the opponents was,

00:39:46 what are you worried about?

00:39:48 This law only applies to things that you know cause cancer

00:39:51 and that you knowingly expose people to or put into the drinking water.

00:39:55 Are you doing that?

00:39:58 Yes or no, and if so, where?

00:40:02 In terms of now, in terms of the second campaign that's going on now,

00:40:08 let me offer you what I think are the present key questions.

00:40:14 One is, what are the actual exposures?

00:40:17 And number two, do you know how much is too much?

00:40:24 The reason that this question gets interesting

00:40:27 is because it seems to be something that people still want to avoid.

00:40:32 The grocery manufacturers of America,

00:40:35 which claims to represent 90% of all of the products in your supermarket,

00:40:41 have asked for a blanket exemption for all foods, drugs, and cosmetics of all kinds

00:40:49 on the grounds that there is a Food and Drug Administration

00:40:51 that takes care of those things.

00:40:54 And then the third question would be, where there are bright lines,

00:41:00 where there are numbers, clear cutoffs that say above this is too much

00:41:05 and below it is fine, are those numbers actually based on science?

00:41:11 And of course, there's an enormous difference

00:41:13 between what paid flax will tell you is safe

00:41:17 and what a major corporation is willing to go to court to defend as safe.

00:41:25 Proposition 65 offers you a window, even a focusing lens,

00:41:31 into some of the most fundamental issues of toxic science,

00:41:34 toxic law, and protection of the public health

00:41:38 that are out there and have been out there for 20 years.

00:41:42 And all I really want to leave you with is to urge you

00:41:45 to ask those key questions and use this lens for all it's worth

00:41:50 because it will show you more and quicker what's going on

00:41:54 than you've been able to find out for quite some time.

00:41:57 Thank you.

00:41:59 I think it might be useful just to very quickly summarize what underlay our concerns

00:42:10 because you will see that those concerns remain

00:42:13 and that those concerns can be addressed

00:42:16 without doing any damage to what people voted for

00:42:20 and indeed in a way that's very consistent with what people voted for.

00:42:25 First, our concern was that Proposition 65,

00:42:29 if it's not defined and refined through regulation,

00:42:33 has the potential, not the certainty,

00:42:36 but the potential for imposing exceedingly costly

00:42:41 and more importantly unintended prohibitions,

00:42:46 prohibitions which are not necessary to protect public health

00:42:50 and which could discourage or even prevent business activity.

00:42:56 It's the unintended regulations that we're focusing on.

00:43:02 That worried us then, it worries us now.

00:43:05 Second, without regulations defining and refining Proposition 65,

00:43:11 businesses don't know what they have to do to comply with it

00:43:17 and as I'm sure you know, uncertainty is even more hostile to business activity

00:43:25 than is costly regulation, far more so.

00:43:29 That worried us then, it worries us today.

00:43:33 And third, and you'll see a certain familiar theme here,

00:43:37 unless regulations are adopted

00:43:40 which address the hundreds of ambiguities in the law's requirements,

00:43:46 those ambiguities will be resolved through litigation in enforcement actions

00:43:52 brought by plaintiff's lawyers

00:43:56 and they will have to be resolved in most instances by juries.

00:44:01 Litigation is an even greater threat to business activity

00:44:06 than either uncertainty or expensive regulation.

00:44:12 Now, let me tell you what's going on in the business community

00:44:15 because I think there's some misunderstanding of that completely.

00:44:22 I read a lot in the newspapers, there's a phrase that I see all the time

00:44:26 which is people trying to torpedo the initiative.

00:44:29 That seems to be sort of the favorite way of describing

00:44:34 and of characterizing most actions taken by people in the business community.

00:44:39 That's not what I see.

00:44:42 The people I work with aren't talking about lawsuits to overturn Proposition 65.

00:44:48 This is the law now.

00:44:51 The voters have something in mind.

00:44:53 We don't question that and we're not trying to undo it.

00:44:57 I've attended dozens of meetings in individual companies

00:45:02 and they're all turning themselves inside out,

00:45:05 trying to figure out what they've got to do to comply and how to get it done.

00:45:10 They want to know ahead of time what's going to be regarded as satisfactory.

00:45:16 It doesn't do us any good to find out after the jury has decided

00:45:19 that we've violated, that we've picked the wrong number.

00:45:24 The numbers are all over the place.

00:45:28 We could talk about this all day and night and let me stop there

00:45:35 by saying that the one thing that David and I agree on

00:45:40 is that we've got to try to answer these questions through regulations.

00:45:48 I think we recognize the inevitability of not completely succeeding in that task

00:45:55 and that leaves the business community in a very uncomfortable,

00:46:01 untenable situation in which the answers will come through litigation.

00:46:08 The story that I think you will want to follow is what those lawsuits look like.

00:46:13 When you cover them, remember that a lawsuit under Proposition 65

00:46:18 does not necessarily have to have anything to do with human health.

00:46:23 I urge you as those suits come along to really explore them

00:46:28 and look at whether they are or are not the kinds of suits

00:46:35 that were contemplated by the voters and indeed by the authors of the initiative.

00:46:46 As Undersecretary for the Department of Health and Welfare for the State of California,

00:46:50 Tom Warriner directs the implementation of Proposition 65.

00:46:54 His job is to balance all of the issues to reflect the desires of the people of California

00:47:00 who made the Proposition law.

00:47:02 When I took the job on, I saw three things that had to be done.

00:47:06 One, a list had to be created of the chemicals that are carcinogens,

00:47:11 reproductive toxicants, known carcinogens, reproductive toxicants.

00:47:15 The list is not identical with the list that some people thought we should have put out,

00:47:19 but it reflects the Science Advisory Panel's best judgment of those chemicals

00:47:23 that ought to be regulated as known carcinogens and known reproductive toxicants.

00:47:29 The next issue that we had to deal with was the question of what we do with exposures.

00:47:35 I've sort of taken a kind of simplistic approach.

00:47:38 We put together a book like this, and this book was intended,

00:47:42 and it will be done over again when the regs are in final form,

00:47:45 to allow a person to open a book, find out the list of chemicals that are subject to the proposition,

00:47:51 find out what is an exposure within the meaning of the proposition,

00:47:54 and find out the level at which the proposition attaches to chemicals,

00:47:58 commonly attaches to chemicals, and if they were exposing people above that level,

00:48:03 then how they might go about giving warnings.

00:48:07 Under California law, to create a regulation takes many months,

00:48:11 and we are allowed to issue emergency regulations so as to cut short some of the time.

00:48:17 We adopted a policy of having groups put together to help us

00:48:23 so that we could develop regulations that were as much based upon consensus as possible.

00:48:28 Our goal has been to minimize reinventing the wheel,

00:48:32 and the science panel has helped us a lot to bridge the gap between what existing standards may be appropriate

00:48:38 to use for the measurement as to when you do or do not give a warning,

00:48:42 and we expect to use more of that.

00:48:45 I have no doubt that everything that we do will not receive the total approval of everybody.

00:48:51 What we are going to do is try to put together a common-sense approach,

00:48:55 and that's been the governor's instructions to me all along,

00:48:58 and that's come up with regulations, come up with something which reflects decent science

00:49:03 and some kind of predictability and certainty

00:49:06 so that people will have a chance to know in advance what the rules are.

00:49:10 Can people sue if they object to the state's definition of reasonable or of risk levels,

00:49:19 or do your regulations essentially preempt the field as far as these bounty suits and so on

00:49:26 that try to determine significant risk?

00:49:29 Two ways occur to me in which the regulation might be challenged.

00:49:32 The California law provides a vehicle for an individual

00:49:35 who believes an administrative regulation is inappropriate to challenge the regulation

00:49:40 by basically challenging the agency that issued the regulation,

00:49:44 and then a judge reviews the regulation and reviews the underlying statute

00:49:48 and makes a decision as to whether the regulation is consistent with the law

00:49:52 and whether the procedures that accompany the issuing of a regulation have been complied with.

00:49:57 Now, a person might also weight and challenge somebody who relied on the regulation,

00:50:01 and as part of that challenge they could attack the regulation as well.

00:50:09 As environmental writer for the San Francisco Chronicle,

00:50:12 it has been Elliot Derringer's job to bring meaning to the politics and science of these issues to the public.

00:50:18 I don't think that we really can separate the science from the politics,

00:50:22 and I think maybe it's a mistake to try.

00:50:25 I think Prop 65 is perhaps an excellent example of an area where the two intersect

00:50:32 and where what we need to be focusing on is the intersection of the two.

00:50:37 It's pretty clear that this is an area of great scientific uncertainty,

00:50:42 and when you deal with an area like that,

00:50:45 it's easy to see how scientific views can be set in a political context.

00:50:51 That's not to say that a scientist is being paid by someone to take a particular view or a different view,

00:50:57 but you have experts on both sides of an issue, a scientific issue,

00:51:03 and obviously there are people who are willing to latch on to those experts and present them as the last word.

00:51:11 It's important for us to remember that nobody really corners the market on the science,

00:51:18 particularly in an area as unsettled as this,

00:51:21 and we have to remember that the process the public is going through in adopting an initiative

00:51:29 and in enacting a law is trying to insert itself, trying to insert public values into a process,

00:51:36 a policy formulation process that to some degree is guided by science,

00:51:40 but which has to obviously involve a great deal more than the science.

00:51:45 Reporting on Prop 65 really offers us a good prism to look at two conflicting sets of views.

00:51:55 On the one hand, some people would like us to believe that we're being bombarded daily by carcinogens,

00:52:02 man-made carcinogens, that our body can't cope with.

00:52:06 On the other hand, there are other people who would like us to believe that we're so bombarded by natural carcinogens,

00:52:12 the additional dose of synthetic carcinogens is trivial.

00:52:19 I don't really feel that anybody can muster conclusive scientific evidence on either side.

00:52:26 I think we need to keep that in mind as we try to report these issues.

00:52:32 What does that mean in day-to-day reporting?

00:52:35 I think obviously this is one of the most challenging issues I've had to cover.

00:52:41 I don't know that there's any other issue on which it is as helpful to do your homework.

00:52:47 You do need to understand the science, and in order to ask the right questions of people,

00:52:54 you really have to spend a little time educating yourself.

00:52:58 That's not always easy in the world of daily journalism,

00:53:02 but I think to provide the kind of depth that the issue demands, it's essential.

00:53:08 It also means, I think, that we need to be skeptical of what people say.

00:53:12 Just because someone can stand a scientist before us and present a point of view with scientific evidence to support it,

00:53:23 one has to be skeptical of that.

00:53:26 I think it's helpful to try to keep a long memory on these things

00:53:32 and contrast how people's positions change as the circumstances change.

00:53:39 Before the election, we heard from industry that this law was going to cover thousands of chemicals.

00:53:46 Not too long after the initiative passed, we heard, no, actually it only applies to a handful.

00:53:53 I think both sides have been crying wolf to a degree,

00:53:57 and I think it's up to us to try to differentiate the claims from what is really out there.

00:54:06 The final session of the conference was a frank, open discussion among journalists and the speakers of the day

00:54:14 to share opinions and techniques on the coverage of environmental issues and serving the needs of the public.

00:54:20 Given the difference of understanding, the level of understanding among people,

00:54:27 how do you try to address that in articles?

00:54:30 Do you mention toxic waste in the lead and just leave it at that?

00:54:33 Or do you, in the second paragraph, go into toluene and benzene and different toxicity requirements, etc.?

00:54:39 As a rule, I try to keep the specific chemical names and the numbers to a minimum,

00:54:43 because I think it turns off both the editors and the readers.

00:54:46 I think in the interest of accessibility, I will refer to something as an industrial solvent.

00:54:52 I won't necessarily use its chemical name.

00:54:54 Maybe somewhere in the story I'll use the name, but I certainly won't repeat it over and over again.

00:54:58 And nowhere in the first or second graph will you find a long string of chemical names.

00:55:03 I wonder what is most useful to you in terms of information,

00:55:08 what you would have liked that you didn't get during the Prop 65 controversy or maybe now,

00:55:13 and also who you do turn to, who you do find most reliable.

00:55:17 What does you the most good and who do you turn to that you can trust?

00:55:21 I'm glad you brought that up because it reminded me of something else I wanted to mention.

00:55:25 Michelle Korash was talking about this 400-page document they had delivered to the Health and Welfare Agency.

00:55:31 It seems unfortunate that when a large coalition of business interests

00:55:36 submits a 400-page document to a state agency that they would not think to hold a briefing of some sort.

00:55:43 There was no attempt on that part.

00:55:45 And yet reporters are, for the most part, kinds of lazy Pavlovian dogs

00:55:51 who will gladly respond to an announcement of a press conference

00:55:55 and will gladly react to statements being made at a press conference.

00:55:59 But to give them a 400-page report to read on a Wednesday afternoon, that's asking a little bit too much.

00:56:05 And unless you understand the psyche of the reporter,

00:56:08 unless you understand that reporters want good stories,

00:56:11 and a good story could be generated out of an industry group saying,

00:56:15 hey, we want to have an hour, hour and a half briefing where we explain this whole thing to you.

00:56:19 Jeff Greenfield is from ABC, and Jeff gives a speech every now and then at fax conferences

00:56:25 where he says one of the problems with covering an issue like this

00:56:28 is that it's almost irresistible to stand up, the lady with her baby crying,

00:56:33 worrying about some toxic exposure.

00:56:36 And this story, I think, has that lure.

00:56:39 How do you cover a story like this for TV?

00:56:41 I tend to think that television broadcast is quite interested in the visual aspect of it.

00:56:48 I think that's the medium.

00:56:50 That's the demand on the medium, and people respond to that demand.

00:56:55 I might add that I think the first thing that we do in the morning when we get to the office

00:56:59 is we read the newspapers, all of us, and we get our leads from the newspapers.

00:57:05 And that's perhaps a little unfair, but that's the way we do it.

00:57:10 I'd just like to talk about the speech on public impressions to fed the psychiatrist

00:57:20 and the fact that there's 20 percent of the public out there that's sort of crazy

00:57:23 so that maybe we have to be careful what we write because of them.

00:57:27 Myself, I believe that advocacy stories or stories breaking hard news stories

00:57:32 in this field and the way people respond are useful.

00:57:35 And I think the public that provides the vote plus one, which decides these issues,

00:57:40 is very sophisticated in its response to them.

00:57:44 And if there's some evidence to the contrary, I would like to hear it.

00:57:51 I have an anecdote where when I was working in Kansas City,

00:57:54 a woman called one day and said that she was furious because the Kansas City Times

00:57:59 had reported that her daughter was attending one of the best secondary schools in the state.

00:58:06 And this woman was furious that the Kansas City Times would call her daughter's school secondary.

00:58:10 And I didn't really understand what the woman was talking about.

00:58:15 And she was complaining because she said she has a next-door neighbor

00:58:19 who's constantly harping because her next-door neighbor's daughter goes to a parochial school

00:58:23 and this is always one of the best schools.

00:58:25 And when I explained to the woman that secondary is just a description of the level,

00:58:30 primary, secondary, et cetera, she said, oh, now I understand.

00:58:34 And I think that's maybe a silly anecdote, but A, it's true, and B, I think it signifies

00:58:39 that you can try—the point is to just keep trying to explain these things

00:58:44 but don't ever expect to get them explained, but that doesn't mean you give up.

00:58:49 Reporting environmental issues is not an easy proposition.

00:58:54 It requires time and effort to gain the background needed to tell the story with accuracy.

00:58:59 It is incumbent upon news sources as well as reporters to speak clearly and with understanding

00:59:05 so that information reaches the public without sensationalizing risk.

00:59:09 Some of the guidelines for environmental reporting developed at the FACS conference include

00:59:15 Take the time to get to know the characters of the story—

00:59:18 scientists, lawmakers and enforcers, environmentalists, and business interests.

00:59:25 Use resources at hand. Compare notes with political and economic journalists.

00:59:29 See how they view the story.

00:59:33 Get the background of the issues. Understand the basics of science,

00:59:36 the history of environmental issues, the workings of legislation and enforcement,

00:59:41 and the potential use and abuse of civil law.

00:59:45 Include the uncertainty and transitory nature of the issues as part of the report.

00:59:51 Keep in mind the public's fear of chemicals and put them in perspective.

00:59:55 One part per million is comparable to a drop of water in an Olympic-sized pool.

01:00:01 And remember that the press and news sources play a critical role in protecting

01:00:06 and enhancing the health of all Americans through sound public information.

01:00:11 That's a challenge for all of us.