“Burn Her Anyway!” —and Other Modern Tropes About Corporate Greed

A peasant mob in the old Monty Python movie as Sir Vladimir questions peasants about their desire to burn her:

Sir Vladimir: What makes you think she is a witch?

Peasant 2: Well, she turned me into a newt!

Sir Vladimir: A newt?!

(Peasant 2 pauses & looks around at the man speaking)

Peasant 2: I got better.

(pause)

Peasant 3: Burn her anyway!

That’s the kind of logic that we too often use when declaring a chemical “causes cancer.” The evidence is weak to nonexistent—but if it’s made by a corporation that “puts profits before people,” then the product must be dangerous.

“Profits before people” has become a trope.

In writing, a trope is a common or overused theme or device. In movies, it might be a superhero landing on one knee with bowed head (now that you’ve noticed it, you’ll never unsee it). In speech, a common trope is a line like “I was born ready.” These cliches once worked, but now they’re a lazy shortcut.

Like many tropes, “profits before people” is overused. It was once true, in one notorious industry. The phrase started back in the 1960s when cigarette companies were obfuscating the truth about tobacco and lung cancer to keep cigarette sales up. A 1972 internal memo even emphasized “nicotine satisfaction” to boost sales.

It took years for people to accept the dangers of smoking cigarettes. But today, it would be nearly impossible to get away with the behavior of the cigarette companies. With the rise of the fast moving internet, paid influencers (often paid to hawk other products), click-hungry media, and law firms ready to pounce, information moves fast. If there is even the slightest weak association of your product with harm, no matter the actual evidence of causation, the attacks will begin, and they are difficult to counter.

Weak evidence can come from practically anywhere.

Animal studies: Rodents are sometimes fed hundreds of times the dose any human would ever experience. Their overwhelmed systems can develop cancer, but that’s hardly proof humans would.

Epidemiological studies: These often find correlations, not causation. There are thousands of very close correlations that are nonsense. For example, there is a correlation between per capita consumption of margarine and the divorce rate in Maine. Both declined over a nine-year period. Roosters still claim the sun would not rise unless they crow.

IARC rulings: The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) declares a chemical to be a carcinogen if it has the characteristics (like causing inflammation) associated with carcinogens. That’s like convicting someone of burglary because they regularly go out at night and gloves are found in their car. One study found that IARC’s classifications were no better than a coin flip.

Of course, some chemicals do cause cancer with a long enough exposure. But the evidence of actual causation needs to be strong.

Does it really make sense for a private company to knowingly sell something proven to cause cancer? Before the 1970s, maybe information traveled slowly and was trapped in silos. The justification for a lot of government regulation was that firms possessed “asymmetric information.” That meant that they knew much more about the problems with their products than consumers did—so they could get away with selling defective products.

But, as the excellent book, The Half-Life of Policy Rationales notes, “a bad product review posted on the internet can quickly reach tens of thousands of consumers.” The same goes for an alarming IARC finding or viral study warning people they’re being “poisoned.”

While a solid foundation of serious studies is essential to determine whether a chemical actually causes harm, too often that process is replaced by headlines and moral outrage. It seems to be enough simply to use the old trope about corporations and their profits.

In other words—like the Monty Python peasants shouting—

“Burn her anyway!”