In the 1920's two employees of GM discovered that the addition of tetraethyllead - TEL- to gasoline would reduce engine 'knock'. When TEL first began to be sold there were immediately health issues for the workers handling it. People went mad. Tossed themselves out of windows. Died 'mysteriously'. The financial backers of TEL devised a brand new tactic of deceit for commercial profit. They hired a scientist Dr. Robert Kehoe to make the claim that there was no proof that TEL was harmful. As TEL was a brand new additive in a technical sense that was true. The data had yet to be collected. The courts had a choice they could either put the burden of proof on those who were introducing lead into our environment or they could put the burden of proof on those who were claiming that TEL would be harmful. To the vast detriment of generations of humans and other animals to come the courts sided with the money
It would take sixty years to stop industry from adding TEL to gasoline. During that time the lead contamination in the environment - globally - was raised by hundreds of times. Billions of tons of lead was dispersed into the environment. Once lead was no longer added to gasoline within ten years the lead levels in the blood of our babies and our children dropped by 80%.
The Kehoe Paradigm or the Kehoe Rule states that the burden of proof is on those who claim harm is being done. This stands in stark contrast to the Precautionary Principle which says that when there is doubt about the safety of a product the burden of proof is on those who would profit. This becomes doubly absurd and obscene when you consider the following. Those who profit should be the ones to pay out of the simple and obvious rule of equity. That they are also invariably the only ones who can afford to pay for the requisite testing is the doubly so part. Or at least would be for any sane society. i.e. One interested in limiting the damage it does to itself and its citizens.
Industry in the U.S. has used the Kehoe paradigm to block the regulation of asbestos, cigarettes, pesticides, CFC's, coal power's connection to acid rain, nuclear power's connection to cancer, to name a few. Today of course there are the doubts over GMOs as well as the neonicotinoid pesticides and the disappearance of the bees. Most famously and very likely most dangerously of all the energy industry is using the very same tactic over the burning of fossil fuels and its link to climate change.
Taken from here
It would take sixty years to stop industry from adding TEL to gasoline. During that time the lead contamination in the environment - globally - was raised by hundreds of times. Billions of tons of lead was dispersed into the environment. Once lead was no longer added to gasoline within ten years the lead levels in the blood of our babies and our children dropped by 80%.
The Kehoe Paradigm or the Kehoe Rule states that the burden of proof is on those who claim harm is being done. This stands in stark contrast to the Precautionary Principle which says that when there is doubt about the safety of a product the burden of proof is on those who would profit. This becomes doubly absurd and obscene when you consider the following. Those who profit should be the ones to pay out of the simple and obvious rule of equity. That they are also invariably the only ones who can afford to pay for the requisite testing is the doubly so part. Or at least would be for any sane society. i.e. One interested in limiting the damage it does to itself and its citizens.
Industry in the U.S. has used the Kehoe paradigm to block the regulation of asbestos, cigarettes, pesticides, CFC's, coal power's connection to acid rain, nuclear power's connection to cancer, to name a few. Today of course there are the doubts over GMOs as well as the neonicotinoid pesticides and the disappearance of the bees. Most famously and very likely most dangerously of all the energy industry is using the very same tactic over the burning of fossil fuels and its link to climate change.
Taken from here
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