Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Over the past four years, the UNEP has been leading a new initiative aimed at developing a strategic approach to international chemicals management or SAICM. The UNEP Governing Council views this as a continuation of international efforts (e.g., the more recent Stockholm Convention on POP and the Rotterdam Convention on PIC) to address environmental as well as human health consequences of production and consumption of chemicals. The Rio Summit and Johannesburg Summit plans of implementation both UNCED Plan of Implementation (Agenda 21, Chapter 19) and that of WSSD advocated for a strategic approach to international chemicals management. UNEP expects that an international conference to be held in 2005 at which an agreement on the strategic approach will be finalized and signed. At the first preparatory meeting held in November 2003, representatives from 127 countries met to discuss the need for a strategic approach; goal and objectives, principles and scope, and other matters pertaining to an international agreement. The purpose of this paper is to [a] evaluate the rationale for SAICM in the larger context of sustainable development; [b] analyze the linkages between prior international efforts related to international chemicals management and the current SAICM initiative; and [c] assess the extent to which there is a convergence or divergence of views held by participants to date on a SAICM. The paper will conclude with the both the prospects of developing an effective SAICM as well as its future success.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: When the breast cancer movement burst onto the national political scene in the early 1990s, it was the National Breast Cancer Coalition (NBCC) and its biomedical agenda that captured the media’s imagination and the lion’s share of attention. Outside the NBCC, however, feminist cancer and breast cancer organizations were pursuing the environmental angle from a number of different directions. In Long Island, in Massachusetts, and in the San Francisco Bay Area, potent syntheses of breast cancer and environmental activism gained momentum. This paper examines that synthesis and the political synergies it produced, paying particular attention to the dilemmas faced by the environmental wing of the breast cancer movement as it sought to challenge the closely allied chemical and pharmaceutical industries without abandoning biomedicine.

Beginning with an historical analysis of how the feminist cancer and environmental justice movements coalesced, in the San Francisco Bay Area, around the concept of the cancer industry and the discourse of prevention, I argue that the environmental wing of the feminist cancer movement faced a different set of conditions and constraints than did the environmental justice movement and that these differences resulted from the dual subject position of feminist cancer activists, the polysemous character of synthetic chemicals, and the growing significance of the risk of future possibilities in the present practices of both activists and industries.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the US chemical industry ? as represented by the Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA) ? successfully lobbied Washington to discontinue the production of chemical arms and later sign and ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). This rare example of an industry using its influence in pursuit of a patently altruistic policy that eschews continued government investment in privately-manufactured chemical weapons flies in the face of our common understanding of how the Military Industrial Complex operates. The actions of the US chemical industry are even more striking when compared with those of the US biotech and pharmaceutical industries, who used their influence to persuade Washington to pull out of negotiations over strengthening the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). Relying on new primary research into scientific and industrial publications, this paper will compare how these two industries have sought to influence US arms control policy. It will demonstrate that the explanation for these dramatically different attitudes towards arms control lies with the relationship that these industries have built with government, particularly in regards to their dealings with regulatory agencies, and the negative public image the chemical industry acquired during its interaction with the US government during the Vietnam War.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Detailed surveys of sexual abuse histories were given to a population of incarcerated women for which there were almost 400 usable surveys. In addition to the self-reported detailed sexual abuse data, demographic data on race, age, educational attainment, marital status, number of children, and the caretaker of the children while the women were in prison were available for the majority of the sample. Additionally, data were collected on whether the woman had a history of drug, alcohol, or drug and alcohol additions. The goal of this paper is to present data on how demographic variables and alcohol and drug histories of incarcerated women are and are not related to their sexual abuse histories.

Publication Type: Poster
Abstract: During World War I, the United States faced severe shortages in synthetic dyestuffs, pharmaceuticals, and high explosives—chemicals manufactured almost entirely in Germany prior to 1914. In the xenophobic, charged atmosphere during and after the war, American industrialists and government officials attempted to foster the growth of a domestic industry through policies that included protectionism, war mobilization, and confiscation of German chemical property in the United States. In Germany, the Americans found their wartime enemy, an imposing economic rival, and a model of a successful industry to emulate.

Because Germany was so closely identified with synthetic organic chemicals, Americans working to build a domestic industry portrayed their efforts as patriotic, and the infant domestic industry received unusual political support. While creating a fertile economy for developing the industry, however, the policies could do little to help American manufacturers and scientists overcome the Germans’ 40-year accumulation of technical know-how and expertise. This story shows the struggles of a nation with an underdeveloped economic sector trying to catch up with a nation with a powerful head start in this “high tech” sector of the late 1800s and early 1900s. One also sees in this story the deliberate steps American policymakers took to break the pre-war global network in synthetic dyes and pharmaceuticals; they consciously embraced autarky and isolationism as they faced the postwar world.