=======================Electronic Edition========================
. .
. RACHEL’S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #494 .
. —May 16, 1996— .
. HEADLINES: .
. BILL GAFFEY’S WORK .
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BILL GAFFEY’S WORK
Bill Gaffey’s work is finished. Bill died suddenly of a heart
attack at age 71 on October 6, 1995 in St. Louis. As a result,
his libel lawsuit against RACHEL’S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY,
and its editor, Peter Montague, has been dismissed by a federal
judge.
Gaffey, a mathematician who retired in 1989 as director of
epidemiology for Monsanto, the St. Louis chemical giant, sued
Montague and the Environmental Research Foundation (ERF),
publisher of RACHEL’S, for $4 million in 1991. Gaffey said he
had been defamed in RACHEL’S #171. The suit was scheduled for a
federal jury trial in St. Louis sometime during 1996.
Shortly after he began working for Monsanto in 1979, Gaffey and
one Judith Zack studied workers at a Monsanto plant in Nitro,
West Virginia, who had been exposed to dioxin while manufacturing
Agent Orange for chemical warfare use in Vietnam. In their
study, Gaffey and Zack reported finding no evidence of unusual
cancers among Monsanto workers who had been exposed to dioxin for
many years.[1] In 1980, this was an important finding.
Gaffey’s study was important to Monsanto because the company had
gotten itself into serious trouble at the time. In the early
1980s, Monsanto was facing hundreds of millions, possibly
billions, of dollars in lawsuits by tens of thousands of Vietnam
veterans, and by former Monsanto workers, all claiming they had
been harmed by exposure to Agent Orange, or to the dioxin that it
contains. If all such claims had been sustained in court, it
seems likely that Monsanto would have been bankrupted.[2] Bill
Gaffey admitted under oath that he knew he had been hired in 1979
partly to help defend Monsanto against lawsuits over dioxin.
Monsanto tacitly acknowledged the importance of the Gaffey/Zack
study when, in October, 1980, three years before the study was
published, the company issued a press release headlined, “Study
Fails to Link Agent Orange to Deaths of Industrial Workers.”[3]
No doubt about it, Bill Gaffey’s study was important to Monsanto,
fighting for its life. With help from Gaffey, Monsanto
successfully defended itself against every lawsuit by Vietnam
vets and Monsanto workers who felt they had been harmed by dioxin
exposures. The company was salvaged, and it went on to pioneer
powerful new biocides and genetically-engineered forms of life,
thus rounding out a contribution unique in the annals of American
industry. (See REHW #144, #295, #327, #381, #382, #383, #384,
#434, #454, #483.)
But Gaffey’s work was also important to the federal government.
The Veterans Administration relied in part on Gaffey’s work to
deny medical benefits to tens of thousands of Vietnam veterans
exposed to Agent Orange. (Not until 1992 did the VA reverse its
position on this.) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
relied in part on the Gaffey study to set generous limits on
dioxin exposures for the American public, thus providing minimal
regulation for politically powerful industries such as paper,
oil, and chemicals.[4] EPA now acknowledges that dioxin is a
devilishly potent growth dysregulator and “environmental
hormone,” but in large measure the agency still regulates dioxin
by rules set during the era of Bill Gaffey’s work. (See REHW
#279, #390, #391, #414.) In the mid-1980s, animal studies were
showing dioxin to be breathtakingly toxic, but skeptics (and
those sowing doubt for a living) could always point to the Gaffey
study (and other work sponsored by Monsanto) as evidence that
humans were somehow exempt from harm.
Therefore, it was important news when the veracity of Bill
Gaffey’s work fell under suspicion. During a worker lawsuit
against Monsanto in 1984, plaintiffs’ lawyers discovered that
Gaffey and Zack had classified four workers as “unexposed” to
dioxin when the very same four workers had been classified as
“exposed” to dioxin in a previous Monsanto study co-authored by
Zack.[5] Reluctantly, Zack confirmed this fact under oath.[6]
Thus was it discovered that Gaffey’s data had been cooked.
When an official of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
Cate Jenkins, learned of this in 1990, she immediately sent a
memo to her superiors, attaching a portion of a legal brief about
the Gaffey study (and other studies sponsored by Monsanto),
indicating she believed there was evidence of fraud.[7] Jenkins
has since documented that EPA relied upon Monsanto’s studies to
set national dioxin standards.[4] As an EPA employee, Jenkins is
required by federal law to report any evidence of fraud that she
encounters in her work. (Monsanto officials complained
vigorously to EPA about Jenkins.[8] EPA promptly transferred
Jenkins to an unimportant position with nothing to do. She spent
the next several years in a legal battle of her own against EPA,
finally winning complete exoneration and reinstated to full duty.
See REHW #400 and see our new publication by William Sanjour,
ANNALS OF THE EPA: PART 4–THE MONSANTO INVESTIGATION [Annapolis,
Md.: Environmental Research Foundation, 1996.])
In RACHEL’S #171, we reported on the Jenkins memo and the
accompanying legal brief, and were subsequently sued for $4
million by Gaffey, who said his reputation had been tarnished and
his consulting business damaged. The ATLANTA CONSTITUTION[9] and
the AUSTIN (TEX.) AMERICAN-STATESMAN,[10] among other
newspapers,[11] also reported the allegations of fraud, but were
not sued.
At the time Jenkins wrote her memo, it was already a matter of
debate in the scientific press that Gaffey and Zack had
classified workers as “unexposed” when, in a previous study
co-authored by Zack, the same four workers had been classified as
“exposed.” In NATURE (the British equivalent of SCIENCE magazine
in this country) in 1985 and 1986, a vigorous debate was
conducted over the Gaffey/Zack study and its misclassification of
exposed workers.[12] Neither Zack nor Gaffey chose to join in
this debate, though they were specifically invited by the editors
of NATURE to respond to allegations that they had misclassified
workers.
Did Bill Gaffey’s creative reclassification of four workers make
any difference in the conclusions of the Gaffey/Zack study? It
certainly did. By misclassifying workers, Gaffey was able to say
that no excessive cancers could be found among Monsanto’s Nitro
workers–a complete reversal of the truth.
Properly classifying the four workers would have yielded the
conclusion that lung cancers were significantly elevated among
dioxin-exposed workers at the Monsanto plant–exactly the reverse
of Bill Gaffey’s widely-publicized finding. Ellen Silbergeld of
the Environmental Defense Fund reanalyzed the Gaffey data, after
properly classifying the four workers, and she reported
statistically significant cancers among the exposed workers. My
own analysis of the Gaffey data yielded a similar conclusion.[13]
If Gaffey had not cooked the data, history might have turned out
very differently for Monsanto, for the dioxin-exposed Vietnam
veterans who had to fight for a 15 years for recognition of their
troubles, and for the millions of Americans exposed to dioxin as
a result of EPA’s lax (or non-existent) dioxin regulations.
Today the nation is still being poisoned by dioxin regulations
set partly on the basis of Bill Gaffey’s fraudulent study. Yes,
Bill’s work was extraordinarily important.
As for his claim that RACHEL #171 cost him $4 million in damaged
reputation and lost consulting fees: under oath, Gaffey could not
name a single colleague who had read RACHEL #171, and he could
not document the loss of a single dollar.
In sum, Bill Gaffey’s lawsuit against us was completely without
merit, a classic SLAPP suit (strategic lawsuit against public
participation) –an entirely frivolous action intended merely to
harass and frighten us, and to waste our precious resources.[14]
Instead what it did was reveal how many, many good friends we
have, willing to sacrifice to come to our defense. Now Bill
Gaffey is gone. May the victims of his work grant him
forgiveness, and may he rest forever in the coolest spot there is
in that unspeakable place that he has surely gone to.
–Peter Montague
===============
[1] Judith A. Zack and William R. Gaffey, “A Mortality Study of
Workers Employed at the Monsanto Company Plant in Nitro, West
Virginia,” in Richard E. Tucker, Alvin L. Young, and Allan P.
Gray, editors, HUMAN AND ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS OF CHLORINATED
DIOXINS AND RELATED COMPOUNDS (New York: Plenum Press, 1983) pgs.
575-591.
[2] For example, see: “More Agent Orange suits filed in Chicago;
still others will follow.” CHEMICAL WEEK February 28, 1979, pg.
18.
[3] Dan R. Bishop, “Study Fails to Link Agent Orange to Deaths of
Industrial Workers [press release],” (St. Louis: Monsanto,
October 9, 1980).
[4] Cate Jenkins, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
Characterization and Assessment Division, Regulatory Development
Branch (OS-332), memorandum to John West, Special Agent in
Charge, and Kevin Guarino, Special Agent, Office of Criminal
Investigations, National Enforcement Investigations Center, U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency entitled “Impact of Falsified
Monsanto Human Studies on Dioxin Regulations by EPA and Other
Agencies –January 24, 1991 NIOSH Study Reverses Monsanto Study
Findings and Exposes Certain Fraudulent Methods,” January 24,
1991. And see: Cate Jenkins, U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, Characterization and Assessment Division, Regulatory
Development Branch (OS-332), memorandum to John West, Special
Agent in Charge, and Kevin Guarino, Special Agent, Office of
Criminal Investigations, National Enforcement Investigations
Center, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, entitled “Criminal
Investigation of Monsanto Corporation –Cover-up of Dioxin
Contamination in Products –Falsification of Dioxin Health
Studies,” November 15, 1990.
[5] Judith Zack and Raymond R. Suskind, “The Mortality Experience
of Workers Exposed to Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin in a
Trichlorophenol Process Accident,” JOURNAL OF OCCUPATIONAL
MEDICINE Vol. 22, No. 1 (January, 1980), pgs. 11-14. In this
study, the four workers in question can be found in Table 10,
cases 1, 2, 5, and 7. In the Gaffey/Zack study the same four
workers can be found in Table 11, lines 5, 6, 9 and 22.
[6] James M. Adkins… ET AL v. Monsanto, U.S. District Court,
Southern District of West Virginia (Civil Action No. S1-2098).
Deposition of Judith Zack, March 1, 1984.
[7] Cate Jenkins, “Memo to Raymond Loehr: Newly Revealed Fraud by
Monsanto in an Epidemiological Study Used by EPA to Assess Human
Health Effects from Dioxins,” dated February 23, 1990. At the
time she wrote this memo, Dr. Jenkins was a chemist with the
Waste Characterization Branch (OS 332), Characterization and
Assessment Division, U.S. EPA, 401 M St., SW, Washington, DC
20460. Loehr was Chairperson of the Executive Committee of the
Science Advisory Board (A-101), Office of the Administrator, U.S.
EPA, 401 M St., SW, Washington, DC 20460. The Jenkins memo had
attached to it 25 pages of a brief filed in Case No. 5-88-0420,
in the Appellate Court of Illinois, Fifth District. The author of
the brief was Rex Carr, 412 Missouri Avenue, East St. Louis, IL
62201.
[8] Richard J. Mahoney, CEO, Monsanto Co., letter to William
Reilly, EPA Administrator, March 26, 1990.
[9] Jeff Nesmith and Charles Seabrook, “Dioxin research altered,
EPA says,” ATLANTA CONSTITUTION March 23, 1990, pg A1.
[10] Jeff Nesmith (Cox News Service), “EPA Memo: Dioxin Study
Fraudulent,” AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN March 23, 1990, pg. A6.
[11] For example, see Jeff Nesmith, “Key Dioxin Study a Fraud,
EPA Says,” THE CHARLESTON GAZETTE March 23, 1990, pg. unknown;
and: Jeff Nesmith, “Monsanto altered dioxin study, EPA memo
says.” THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR March 23, 1990, pg. unknown; and:
Jeff Nesmith, “Monsanto Study on Dioxins Called a Fraud by EPA
Memo.” THE ORANGE COUNTY [CALIFORNIA] REGISTER March 23, 1990,
pg. unknown.
[12] See Alistair Hay and Ellen Silbergeld. “Assessing the risk
of dioxin exposure.” NATURE Vol. 315 (May 9, 1985), pgs.
102-103. And: Michael Gough, “Dioxin Exposure at Monsanto,”
NATURE Vol. 318 (December 12, 1985), pg. 504. And: Alistair Hay
and Ellen Silbergeld. “Dioxin Exposure at Monsanto,” NATURE Vol.
320 (April 17, 1986), pg. 569.
[13] In NATURE Vol. 320 (April 17, 1986, pg. 569, Silbergeld
wrote, “A reanalysis of the [Gaffey] data, presented by EKS
[Ellen K. Silbergeld] at the Dioxin 85 Symposium in Bayreuth in
September 1985, indicates an excess mortality due to lung and
bladder cancers.” Silbergeld reported her reanalysis in a paper
at the Fifth International Conference on Dioxin, September 19,
1985, in Bayreuth, Germany. Unfortunately, this paper was never
published and Silbergeld in 1993 did not fulfill a request for a
copy. I reanalyzed the data myself in an unpublished paper:
Peter Montague, THE EFFECT OF CORRECTING CLASSIFICATION ERRORS IN
ZACK/GAFFEY’S STUDY OF THE MORTALITY OF DIOXIN-EXPOSED WORKERS
(Annapolis, Md.: Environmental Research Foundation, November 22,
1993.) Properly classifying the four workers in question yields
the conclusion that lung cancers and cancers of the respiratory
tract were significantly increased (p