Chromium, Cancer, and the CIA

[Hannah Bell]

CONTROVERSY IS sure to follow the report two weeks ago that drinking water throughout the country is contaminated with traces of hexavalent chromium, the cancer-causing chemical made famous by Erin Brockovich. Questions will be raised...

On the chromium issue, environmentalists point to a 1997 Chinese study that minimized the toxicity of that chemical. After evidence emerged that consultants working for American corporations had influenced its findings, the paper was retracted by the journal where it had been published. But that was only one example of the slanting of chromium science. The story goes much farther back—and it takes an astonishing twist that leads behind the curtains of history’s center stage.

News of a connection between chromium and cancer first emerged in the 1930s...Little was done about the problem during the Second World War—chromium was an essential war material. But with peace came compensation claims from workers afflicted by lung cancer.

The company lawyer turned to Dr. Anthony Lanza, an industrial disease specialist who was busy at the time concealing the cancer dangers of asbestos. For the chromium industry, an asbestos-style cover-up was not an option; too much had already been published. Lanza recommended a company-sponsored study, with the results to be made public. Dr. Willard Machle, who had worked for many years at an industry-sponsored industrial health center, was brought in to lead the research...Machle discovered, of course, what the company already knew...

Four months after publication of his consulting report, he was hired as Assistant Director of the Central Intelligence Agency...

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online.php?id=432