Explore the vast range of titles available.

Asbestos is present in the United States in a multitude of products used in past decades, and in some products that continue to be imported and domestically produced. We have limited information on the hazards posed by some of these individual products and no information at all on most of them. Legal discovery of corporate documents has shed some light on the use of asbestos in some products and exposures from asbestos in others, sometimes adding considerably to what was in the published literature. But liability concerns have motivated corporate efforts to curtail governmental public health guidance on long-recognized hazards to workers. Liability considerations have also evidently led, in the case of asbestos brake linings, to the support of publication in the scientific literature of review articles denying in the 21st century what had been widely accepted and established in health policy in the 20th century. This report is an effort to illustrate the suppression and emergence of scientific knowledge in a climate of regulation and liability. Examples discussed are vinyl-asbestos flooring, feminine hygiene products, automotive friction materials, and asbestos contamination of other minerals such as talc and vermiculite. Global efforts to deal with the hazards of continuing marketing of asbestos products are also discussed.

Background Public health scholarship has uncovered a wide range of strategies used by industry actors to promote their products and influence government regulation. Less is known about the strategies used by non-government organisations to attempt to influence commercial practices. This narrative review applies a political science typology to identify a suite of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ strategies used by NGOs to attempt to influence the commercial determinants of health. Methods We conducted a systematic search in Web of Science, ProQuest and Scopus. Articles were eligible for inclusion if they comprised an empirical study, explicitly sought to examine ‘NGOs’, were in English, and identified at least one NGO strategy aimed at commercial and/or government policy and practice. Results One hundred forty-four studies met the inclusion criteria. Eight industry sectors were identified: extractive, tobacco, food, alcohol, pharmaceuticals, weapons, textiles and asbestos, and a small number of general studies. We identified 18 types of NGO strategies, categorised according to the target (i.e. commercial actor or government actor) and type of interaction with the target (i.e. inside or outside). Of these, five NGO ‘inside’ strategies targeted commercial actors directly: 1) participation in partnerships and multistakeholder initiatives; 2) private meetings and roundtables; 3) engaging with company AGMs and shareholders; 4) collaborations other than partnerships; and 5) litigation. ‘Outside’ strategies targeting commercial actors through the mobilisation of public opinion included 1) monitoring and reporting; 2) protests at industry sites; 3) boycotts; 4) directly engaging the public; and 5) creative use of alternative spaces. Four NGO ‘inside’ strategies directly targeting government actors included: 1) lobbying; 2) drafting legislation, policies and standards; 3) providing technical support and training; and 4) litigation. NGO ‘outside’ strategies targeting government included 1) protests and public campaigns; 2) monitoring and reporting; 3) forum shifting; and 4) proposing and initiating alternative solutions. We identified three types of NGO impact: substantive, procedural, and normative. Conclusion The analysis presents a matrix of NGO strategies used to target commercial and government actors across a range of industry sectors. This framework can be used to guide examination of which NGO strategies are effective and appropriate, and which conditions enable NGO influence.

Strongly grounded in scientific knowledge, the instrument known as occupational exposure limits or threshold limit values has changed government modalities of exposure to hazardous chemicals in workplaces, transforming both the substance of the problem at hand and the power dynamics between the actors involved. Some of the characteristics of this instrument favor the interests of industries at the expense of employees, their representatives, and the authorities in charge of regulating these risks. First, this instrument can be analyzed as a boundary object that has very different uses in space and time. In particular, it is increasingly masking its industrial origins to appear as an instrument that is almost exclusively based on scientific rationale. In the case of asbestos and its substitutes, the use of an instrument relying on scientific expertise generates a specific temporality of implementation that allows manufacturers to take advantage of periods during which regulations are either nonexistent or very loose. Finally, the choice of a technoscientific definition of the issues contributes to shifting the negotiations to a field where companies are in a position of strength and their opponents are weakened.

We are saddened to witness the recent erosion of US international leadership in environmental health. Yale University's environmental performance index rates countries across a range of environmental health programs. In 2018, the United States ranked 27th out of 180 countries (https: // bit.ly/36ip7F0). Controlling for the strong relationship between wealth and environmental programs, the United States now ranks last compared with its affluent peers in Western Europe, Asia/Pacific, and Canada. While the United States ranks high in those areas addressed from the 1970s-for example, air quality, water, and sanitation-it ranks poorly with regard to climate change and other new challenges.

The system through which US government agencies protect the public's health, safety, and environment is being severely challenged. It faces concerted efforts to weaken the laws and regulations that require corporations to limit air and water pollution, clean up land or drinking water they have contaminated, market safe products to consumers, and eliminate workplace hazards. At the same time, there is an exodus of dedicated and experienced civil servants who are frustrated with these new developments. Much effort will be needed to rebuild this system of vital protections.The success of the US regulatory system in safeguarding the public's health is so impressive that we often take it for granted. The work of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to protect us from adulterated food or drugs that are ineffective or unduly dangerous is the model for much of the world. Thanks to the Environmental Protection Agency's strengthened requirements, our air and water have become dramatically cleaner than they were when the agency was established almost 50 years ago. The nation's workers are far safer because of the efforts of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which has reduced both on-the-job injuries and exposures to known hazards such as asbestos and benzene.

The Toxic Substances Control Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the authority to regulate industrial chemicals not covered by other statutes. Today there are more than 83,000 such chemicals. However, the law is widely perceived as weak and outdated, and various stakeholders have called for its reform, citing the EPA's inability to regulate the use of asbestos, among other substances. We analyze the flaws in the act and suggest ways in which the EPA might better position itself to manage chemical risks and protect the public's health. In addition to the new tools and technologies it is adopting, the agency needs new allies-both inside and outside the government-in its efforts to identify and control hazardous chemicals. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Teaching responsibility is hard. Anyone who's ever been a parent understands that truism. It's especially difficult when the very behaviors you want to prevent are sometimes the ones that secretly make you very proud. I recall when my son was in a soccer league for four-year-olds and was trash-talking other children. I didn't want my kid to be namecalling, but I was also quietly pleased that he had the intestinal fortitude to stand up for himself.Assigning responsibility for problems in health care is much more difficult than overcoming a bit of parental ego. If an individual patient is nonadherent with a prescribed course of care, is that the fault ofthe person or the system? Is it because people lack access to resources or education to help them understand and comply with the recommended plan, or is it because they consciously made a bad choice? (As an emergency physician, most ofwhat I see on shift is a manifestation of bad choices, and most of my efforts at patient education center on the phrase \"Don't do that!\") If we focus on systemic factors at the exclusion ofindividual behaviors, proposed solutions may risk toppling public health from the unbiased moral high ground into the abyss of the partisan wars. If we assign responsibility to the individual, we have a different set of problems. If patients with pulmonary disease continue to use tobacco despite multiple admonitions not to do so, to what extent are they still given carte blanche for care? And if assigning responsibility is difficult, learning accountability- the ability to accept the consequences of our actions-is even harder. Bil Keane, the original artist behind the Family Circus comic strip, used to draw two ghostly children in the house called Ida Know and Not Me. Most of us still have them living somewhere in our emotional basements.

The article investigates the issue of asbestos damages compensation in China. Today, China is a major player in the global market of asbestos production and consumption. Therefore, a large number of Chinese workers are employed in the asbestos industries and an even larger number of individuals are exposed to asbestos for non-occupational reasons. Although there is no official data on the numbers of asbestos-related diseases in China, it is estimated that a significant part of the population developed asbestos-related diseases and that there will be an augmentation of those diseases in the future. This article examines the Chinese legal provisions on the prevention, control, and compensation of asbestos related diseases; both in cases of environmental and occupational exposures, and analyzes if and when those provisions are applied. This research shows that although the laws and the regulations enacted by the Chinese government provide protection for those exposed to asbestos dust, and entitle them to some compensation or indemnity where those exposures caused damages, the implementation of those rules is actually very difficult, due to a variety of different reasons. Those reasons can vary from problems in the interpretation and implementation of the laws and regulations, to difficulties in the access to justice and in the adjudication by the courts, regarding occupational and environmental damages. In most of these cases, the consequences of these problems are a poor and inefficient protection of the victims of the asbestos exposures for the damages suffered.

We are grateful to Simon Lester for responding to our piece, 'A pragmatic approach to carbon border measures' (see Simon Lester, \"How the United States can lead the effort to reduce carbon emissions\", 'World Trade Review', (2022) 21(1) pages 121-126) and its companion policy proposal, 'A Green Steel Deal: Towards a pro-jobs, pro-climate Transatlantic cooperation on carbon border measures'. We are heartened to find ourselves broadly in agreement with Lester on the need for WTO rules to offer states greater flexibility to pursue legitimate policy objectives. This agreement is part of a broadening consensus that the WTO Appellate Body interpreted the combination of nondiscrimination rules and exceptions in a narrow and technical fashion that ultimately has made it difficult for governments to comply with their WTO commitments while simultaneously addressing existential threats like climate change. People who hold this general view may differ on how to solve this problem. Our view is that the Appellate Body interpreted the element of 'likeness' in the WTO's non-discrimination rules in an expansive way, disregarding the aim of a government's measure in drawing distinctions among products. At the same time, the Appellate Body suggested in 'EC-Asbestos' that it would interpret non-discrimination treatment standards to permit governments to draw distinctions among products without violating WTO rules. The Appellate Body's reasoning in subsequent disputes left that promise unfulfilled, emphasizing how a government's measure alters the conditions of competition, rather than why it does so. Nondiscrimination principles applicable to the GATT Article XX exceptions through that article's chapeau have extended the difficulty to exceptions. Thus, even if one agrees that the Appellate Body's direction of travel in interpreting the GATT's exceptions - towards broader acceptance of governments' legitimate policy objectives - was correct, one might still feel that the Appellate Body ultimately failed to show sufficient deference to national regulators pursuing legitimate objectives. Our disagreements with Lester are less about WTO law and more about the politics of integrating climate into trade policy.

This article analyzes the effect of the cost that an agency must incur to adopt a new regulation (the \"enactment cost\") on the agency's incentive to invest in expertise. The effect of the enactment cost on agency expertise depends on whether the agency would regulate if it fails to acquire additional information about the regulation's effects. If an uninformed agency would regulate, increasing enactment costs increases agency expertise; if an uninformed agency would retain the status quo, increasing enactment costs decreases agency expertise. These results may influence the behavior of an uninformed overseer, such as a court or legislature, that can manipulate the agency's enactment costs. Such an overseer must balance its interest in influencing agency policy preferences against its interest in increasing agency expertise. The article discusses the implications of these results for various topics in institutional design, including judicial and executive review of agency regulations, structure-and-process theories of congressional oversight, national security, criminal procedure, and constitutional law.