In Case You Need Reminding That Corporations And Lobby Groups Have Always Been Horrible Shitbags

Last Updated on: 25th November 2016, 10:22 am

Weird Universe dug up this letter from 1977 written by a Robert K. Phillips, who at the time served as Executive Secretary of the United States National Peach Council. The issue at hand was a possible ban on a chemical called DBCP, which had been found to cause sterility in male workers who came in contact with it. It was ultimately banned anyway by 1979, hopefully in part because of the balls on this guy (which would be kind of ironic.), but also because in exchange for not giving you kids, it would give you cancer.

To: Dr. Eula Bingham, Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health

Recently we received the interesting DOL news release concerning worker exposure to DBCP.

It appears to us that you and Secretary Marshall may have overreacted, or at least that is your public posture.

While involuntary sterility caused by a manufactured chemical may be bad, it is not necessarily so. After all, there are many people who are now paying to have themselves sterilized to assure they will no longer be able to become parents.

How many of the workers who have become sterile were of an age that they would have been likely to have children anyway? How many were past the age when they would want to have children? These, too, are important questions.

If possible sterility is the main problem, couldn’t workers who were old enough that they no longer wanted to have children accept such positions voluntarily? They could know the situation, and it wouldn’t matter. Or could workers be advised of the situation, and some might volunteer for such work posts as an alternative to planned surgery for a vasectomy or tubal ligation, or as a means of getting around religious bans on birth control when they want no more children.

We do believe in safety in the work place, Dr. Bingham, but there can be good as well as bad sides to a situation.

Above all, please don’t try to get a ban on the manufacture and sale of the chemical DBCP, because that would cause some losses of agricultural production which would be serious.

Sincerely,

Robert K. Phillips
Executive Secretary, National Peach Council

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2 Comments

  1. Holy shit. That’s um jaw-droppingly horrible. I’m getting some serious Erin Brockovich thoughts, you know the seen where they’re all like the water’s fine, and then she says “we brought this water in special for you folks” and they all sort of put it down and kind of back away.

    1. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the movie, but I remember that scene either from you describing it before or from a documentary I watched on her. I think it might have been that episode of American Justice, but I can’t remember for sure.

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