NYT 4/11/00: Kolata on Brockovich

[Muckerheide <muckerheide@mediaone.net>]

New York Times
April 11, 2000

 REFLECTIONS
 A Hit Movie Is Rated 'F' in Science

By GINA KOLATA
    It should be no surprise to viewers of the hit movie "Erin
Brockovich" that the science portrayed in the movie is not really
science. After all, this is a major motion picture coming out of
Hollywood. It comes from a fairy tale land where women are abnormally
beautiful, men are lusciously handsome, where sex is unusually
profligate and violence casual and frequent. 

 So if audiences are willing to suspend disbelief in every other
arena, why should anyone care about something so dull as the veracity
of the scientific methodology? 

 Yet many scientists are offended by the movie, and it is worth asking
why. The problem, they say, is not that they cannot enjoy a good yarn
in which virtue triumphs over evil and the little guys win. It is not
that they want to take sides in this litigation from years past. Their
complaint is more subtle: While it is easy to see that the sex and
violence in movies are fantasies, it is hard for any but scientists to
discern when science in movies crosses the line from verity to
hyperbole and indoctrination. 

 And when the movie is based on a true story about a woman who really
was named Erin Brockovich, the questions of what is real and what is
not become further muddled. Scientists suspect that audiences will
decide that the fiction is that Erin Brockovich does not actually look
like Julia Roberts, who plays her, but that they will assume that the
science, of course, is fact. 

 That, to many scientists, spoils the movie. In science, how you reach
a conclusion really matters. It is hard for scientists to enjoy
watching a movie that ignores, as though it is irrelevant, the
hard-won but ultimately glorious knowledge of how to decide when
perceived risks are real and when they are not. 

 In the movie, Ms. Brockovich is a law office file clerk with a high
school education who stumbles upon a group of people in Hinkley,
Calif., who have been visited by a Job-like plague of ailments. Their
illnesses include uterine cancer, breast cancer, Hodgkin's disease,
cancer of the brain stem, gastrointestinal cancer, miscarriages,
chronic nosebleeds, asthma, heart failure and immune system disorders. 

 It turned out that the groundwater in Hinkley was polluted with trace
amounts of chromium (VI), a heavy metal. The polluter was Pacific Gas
& Electric. 

 In the movie, the case was clear. As Ms. Brockovich in the movie
gathered medical histories from more than 600 Hinkley residents, she
never seemed to doubt that every ailment was caused by chromium (VI).
In the end, Pacific Gas & Electric paid $333 million to settle the
case. 

 But, scientists said, the movie encouraged exactly the wrong way to
think about data, elevating individuals' medical histories to the
level of proof and distorting the notion of risk. Scientists, seeing
the evidence that so infuriated Erin Brockovich, would be much more
cautious -- and skeptical. The first question to ask is whether
residents of Hinkley really did have more sickness than people living
elsewhere. And, if so, what illnesses are being discussed? 

 "Everyone has symptoms," said Dr. John C. Bailar III, a professor of
health studies at the University of Chicago. Half the adult population
eventually gets cancer. One out of every 700 children gets cancer
before age 15, he said. Vague complaints, like aches and pains and
difficulty sleeping are ubiquitous. If people look for diseases, they
will find them, simply because illness is so common. 

 The next red flag is the sheer number of diseases. "Any time I see
half a dozen diseases attributed to some exposure, I get very
nervous," Dr. Bailar said. Biological agents, he said, "are very well
targeted." 

 Vinyl chloride has been shown to cause liver cancer, but not asthma.
Asbestos has been shown to cause lung cancer, but not breast cancer or
brain cancer. The list of illnesses that any chemical is known to
cause is very short, said Dr. Stephen Safe, a toxicologist at Texas A
& M University. "The list is not 10,000 diseases," he said. 

 Scientists would also ask if it is even plausible that chromium (VI)
in drinking water was making hundreds of people gravely ill. Of
course, both sides in the litigation that ensued over the Hinkley
groundwater contamination brought in their own scientific experts,
although that was not pursued in the movie, but federal agencies whose
scientists were not involved in the litigation said evidence was
lacking that chromium (VI) in groundwater caused a myriad of health
problems. The chemical's main problem, they said, is that it can cause
lung cancer if workers inhale it as particulates in large doses for
long periods of time. 

 Dr. Lois Swirsky Gold, who directs the carcinogenic potency project
at the University of California at Berkeley, notes that Erin
Brockovich is billed as fiction. So she has one wish for its
audiences. 

 "They should ask, does the science support the conclusion?" she said.
************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html