Someone give me an idea for a paper

[apologetic]

Napster

 

[purepolly]

"The CDC Tuskegee experiment
Dr Alan Cantwell

In 1932 a medical experiment, conducted by the US Public Health Service, was undertaken on four hundred poor, illiterate Black sharecroppers in Tuskegee, Alabama. All the men had syphilis. The doctors who carried out the experiment lied to the men and their families, telling them only that they were suffering from "bad blood." Under the watchful eye of the government and the medical establishment, the Tuskegee experiment lasted 40 years.

The racist experiment was as simple as it was diabolic. The physicians wanted to know what would happen to the health of these men if treatment for syphilis was withheld. The doctors assured the men they would look after their "bad blood" and provide for all their health care, free of charge.

When a penicillin cure for syphilis became available in the 1940s, the men were not treated because treatment would ruin the medical experiment. Throughout their lives the men never knew they had a serious, life-threatening venereal disease. Some of the men sexually transmitted syphilis to their wives and lovers. Some of the babies born of these infected women were syphilitic. When each man died, the experimenters offered money for funeral and burial expenses with the proviso that the family permit an autopsy at the special hospital involved in the study.

During the Black Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, intense political pressure was put on the government to stop this unethical, racist experiment. In 1972 the syphilis study was finally terminated. The definitive account of the Tuskegee syphilis study appears in Bad Blood by James H. Jones. Martin P. Levine has also reported on this shocking study with genocidal overtones ("Bad Blood," New York Native, February 16, 1987). Levine emphasizes that the Tuskegee experiment was supervised by the CDC, the same government agency that now oversees the AIDS epidemic. (Queer Blood by Dr Cantwell)."

 

[mugs]

John Delorean's attempt to use drugs to keep his car business going.

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: radioouman
Dupont's Teflon (perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA)

While some of the ideas here really didn't relate to a coverup or engineering failure, I decided to pick this topic with the St. Francis dam in a close second. The Dupont story appears to be the most related to a moral issue where a cover up occurred to save money.

Thanks everyone for your ideas. I honestly didn't expect this many great ideas.

 

[fire400]

railroad companies versus semi trucks...

 

[Quasmo]

Write a paper on Martha Stewart, or Rambus. Everyone hates both of those.

 

[Howard]

DDT bans (but not in North America), although I'm not sure if those count as business decisions.

 

[imported_hscorpio]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
They're good...but lots of people will be doing those since they were mentioned as possibilities. Just wanted to see if anyone had any other ideas.

Therac-25 would be a good choice for you. It was a radiation therapy machine that killed some people with massive overdoses of radiation that had to do with some bad engineering/company practices. Its well documented but relatively obscure to most people so you'll probably have a more unique paper than your classmates who will all do the listed cases that everyone knows about.

 

[forrestroche]

I didn't see any mention of the world's worst (to date) ecological disaster:

The Aral Sea in the former Soviet Union.

Not far behind that would fall Chernobyl. 125,000 square miles of land contaminated in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. Thousands dead and still dying, massive leukemia, birth defects, etc...

Come on people!

 

[newmachineoverlord]

Said studies arent use under normal circumstances. The pans have to be heated empty, to 400 degrees C before the chemicals breakdown letting off fumes. That certainly isnt normal use.

Also the POFA, the chemical in Teflon that is suspected to harm humans isnt used in the teflon used in the coating of pots and pans. Its only used in boots/gloves/coats.

Wrong!

There have been numerous accounts of birds killed by teflon products dating back decades.

http://www.ewg.org/reports/toxicteflon/toxictemps.php

"Under ordinary cooking scenarios, Teflon kills birds. A review of the literature and bird owners? accounts of personal experience with Teflon toxicosis shows that Teflon can be lethal at normal cooking temperatures, with no human lapses in judgment or wakefulness.

Bird deaths have been documented during or immediately after the following normal cooking scenarios:

* New Teflon-lined Amana oven was used to bake biscuits at 325°F; all the owner?s baby parrots died [3] [4].
* Four stovetop burners, underlined with Teflon-coated drip pans, were preheated in preparation for Thanksgiving dinner; 14 birds died within 15 minutes [2] [5].
* Nonstick cookie sheet was placed under oven broiler to catch the drippings; 107 chicks died [2].
* Self-cleaning feature on the oven was used; a $2,000 bird died [5].
* Set of Teflon pans, including egg poaching pan, were attributed to seven bird deaths over seven years [6].
* Water burned off a hot pan; more than 55 birds died [7].
* Electric skillet at 300°F and space heater were used simultaneously; pet bird died [8].
* Toaster oven with a non-stick coating was used to prepare food at a normal temperature; bird survived but suffered respiratory distress [9].
* Water being heated for hot cocoa boiled off completely; pet bird died [10].
* Grill plate on gas stove used to prepare food at normal temperatures; two birds died on two separate occasions [11].
DuPont claims that its coating remains intact indefinitely at 500°F [12]. Experiences of consumers whose birds have died from fumes generated at lower temperatures show that this is not the case. In one case researchers at the University of Missouri documented the death of about 1,000 broiler chicks exposed to offgas products from coated heat lamps at 396°F [13].

DuPont also claims that human illness will be produced only in cases involved gross overheating, or burning the food to an inedible state [12]. Yet DuPont's own scientists have concluded that polymer fume fever in humans is possible at 662°F, a temperature easily exceeded when a pan is preheated on a burner or placed beneath a broiler, or in a self-cleaning oven [14]."

http://www.cockatielcottage.net/hazards.html
"Recently, temperatures as low as 285 F have been found to be fatal to birds. Fumes start being emitted as soon as the product starts heating."

 

[bonkers325]

Originally posted by: scott
Great topic. Suggest you submit your finished work for publication in newspapers, magazines, etc.

some relevant search words:

dioxin dumping

superfund cleanup w/ case studies (this is something you can cite as a proper source) Text

Superfund National Priorities List (another to give you a proper footnotable source of pollution locations)

illegal hazardous waste dumping

(companies that generate the waste don't want to pay fees for its disposal so they send tanker trucks out in the desert & on remote mountain roads, open the stop cocks, & let the liquid waste spray out as they drive along. Or tanker boat it onto the ocean & dump into sea. Or offshore production where no laws restrain their waste dumping. Or truck horrible nearly-eternally persistent chemicals from US to Mexico for cheap careless dumping.)

medical waste disposal (where do those severed body parts, exized tumors, etc. go? not always incinerated, sometimes dumped.)

and don't even get started with nuclear waste disposal issues

White House won't tax corporations for Superfund cleanup (but they generated the waste that needs the cleaning up)

the government is trying to PERSUADE corporations to take responsibility for the waste they generate, not punish them even further by taxing them. if they got taxed in addition to the millions of dollars that are spent cleaning up their mess, then corporations would never report the problem in the first place

 

[Kwatt]

I caught a show about this on History Channel a few months ago.