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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Christina E. Morgan, BA, Dept Environmental & Occupational Health, George Washington University, 2100 M Street NW, Suite 203, Washington, DC 20037, 202-994-7993, eohcem@gwumc.edu and Celeste Monforton, MPH, Department of Environmental & Occupational Health, The George Washington University/School of Public Health and Health Services, 2100 M Street NW, Suite 203, Washington, DC 20037.

For decades, corporations, trade associations and other opponents of protective (and potentially costly) workplace health standards have relied upon numerous strategies to prevent, delay, and even obstruct regulatory processes intended to safeguard the health and safety of workers. Previously confidential materials made available through litigation and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests now showcase many of these deplorable tactics. Using excerpts from internal memoranda, meeting minutes, and written correspondence from a variety of industries, including tobacco, asbestos, beryllium, chromium, mining, and trucking, this poster presentation will shed light upon what takes place behind industries' closed doors.

The poster, a creative multi-media collage entitled In Their Own Words, will be guided by the artistic principle of allowing the documents to speak for themselves. Those who experience In Their Own Words may be perplexed, frustrated, angered, or even amused by the recurring themes that emerge in the industries' documents. Ultimately, our goal is to promote awareness of efforts to manufacture uncertainty about scientific evidence in order to inspire public health professionals and other proponents of worker safety and health to reject efforts to subvert health-protective workplace standards.

Learning Objectives: