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PARTISAN REVIEW
Programme, and the International Labour Organization. For
example, food colorings considered safe here are banned in some
European countries, and several additives considered safe in Europe
are banned in the United States;* the discrepancies in regulations
are manifold and exist with respect to a wide range of pharma–
ceuticals, chemicals, and medical supplies. Generally, the standards
recommended by the international agencies reflect a regulatory level
that is less stringent than that in
~ffect
in the United States* * - and
that is too high in the sense of being unenforceable - for the Third
World countries.
Strangely, the
Mother Jones
article did not investigate, or even
refer to, these conflicts in standards, nor did it investigate regulatory
policies within the Third World countries.
If
they had, they would
have found that many of the countries that rhetorically condemned
the "dumping" of banned American products were actually aware of
and had approved the sale of these products within their borders;
even more ironically, several Third World countries were and are
themselves manufacturing and exporting products - in particular,
pesticides - that they were publicly condemning American firms for
exporting.
In other words, there was a sharp contradiction between actual
policy positions that existed, and still exist, in Third World countries
with respect to this issue, and the manner in which these policies
were perceived and reported here. The
Mother Jones
article - on
which the
Circle oj Poison,
the PBS-aired film "For Export Only," a
Newsweek
article, and a "Lou Grant" television program apparently
were later based -did not adequately investigate , or investigate at
all, the realities of existing regulatory policies in Third World
countries. R ather, it exploited the sensational elements of the issue
and took the provincial and patronizing stance that American stan–
dards constituted an absolute of sorts, and that the Third World
countries were incapable of determining standards for themselves .
By taking this position, potential international pressure and public
attention were drawn away from the serious problems that currently
exist because of the relative laxity of regulatory measures within the
• Sometimes the regulations are an exact reversal of each other; for example, we
ban red food coloring #2 and recommend red #40 as the substitute , while Canada
and England, among others, accept red #2 but ban red #40.
•• For example, WHO recommends DDT and dieldrin, both of which were
restricted for use in the United States in the early 1970s.
