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Summary: Warning: This Book May Be Hazardous to Your Blood Pressure.
Review: Let me say right up front that I am a steadfast supporter of the free market. However, it serves neither the free market nor humanity when giant corporations are run by people who are no better than mass murderers. Exaggeration? Read this book and see if you still think so. I read "Fatal Deception" because a friend of mine and his wife acquired a vacation cabin in Libby, Montana a few years back. When newspaper reports began appearing about the widespread asbestos poisoning there, I asked if that was the same town. "Yep," he replied with a disgusted sigh. "We call it our own little Three Mile Island, Montana." (Fortunately, the relative who'd given them the cabin later demanded it back.)The straightforward language, excellent pacing, and suspense-building structure of "Fatal Deception" make it a hard book to put down. Author Michael Bowker skillfully weaves heartwrenching victims' stories with damning excerpts from documents proving that for over sixty years the asbestos industry and the U.S. government concealed scientific evidence that would have prevented thousands of agonizing deaths. At least as far back as the 1930s, industry higher-ups knew that exposure to asbestos was extremely dangerous. Yet not only did they fail to warn their workers, they brazenly lied and assured them all that dust they were breathing and taking home on their clothes was harmless. Faced with growing medical evidence to the contrary, the asbestos companies conspired in a long-lasting cover-up that successfully hid the truth from the public so that asbestos workers and their families wouldn't discover the dangers to which they were exposing themselves. The industry had help in this cover-up, of course, from good old Uncle Sam. "Fatal Deception" is not merely a sickening portrait of coldblooded corporate greed, but a wake-up call that vividly illustrates why the U.S. government will never behave with integrity until Americans stop electing politicians willing to prostitute themselves to whichever special-interest groups stick the most money down their pants. Angry? You bet I am. By the time you finish this book, you will be, too.
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Summary: The writing leaves something to be desired.
Review: The story told in this book is shocking and should be more widely known - unfortunately the writing in this book is disjointed and poorly organized. After a while, I became bored simply because there was no continuous thread in the book leading me forward - just an assemblage of anecdotes with no real cumulative effect. This is a shame because the story should be far more riveting than it is - and it would be, if told by a more skillful writer - for instance, if this book had been written by Jonathan Harr, author of "A Civil Action."
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Summary: The information in this book surprised me.
Review: This book caught my attention because my husband just died of mesothelioma. I wondered how he got it because he did not work around asbestos. I learned from the book that, contrary to my assumption, asbestos has not been banned because of the powerful influence of the asbestos industry on Congress. The book reported that many products contain asbestos - things like brake pads, floor tile, shingles, insulation that my husband came in contact with because he was a "do-it-yourselfer". And the book outraged me in describing how many companies that mined or manufactured asbestos products knew of the dangers to their employees and did nothing to protect them. The book was very informative and well documented and yet it was a real horror story of big business completely disregarding human life in the search for the almighty dollar.
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