Bhopal: no silver linings.I read with interest the article "Lessons Learned? Chemical Plant Safety since Bhopal," by Ernie Hood (2004). I would recommend it to all interested in safety in chemical plants or safety in other fields. As mentioned in the article (Hood 2004), this year is the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal tragedy. An international conference on the 20th anniversary of the tragedy, Bhopal and Its Effects on Process Safety, will be held 1-3 December 2004 at the Indian Institute The Indian Institute in central Oxford, England is located at the north end of Catte Street on the corner with Holywell Street and faching down Broad Street from the east.[1] of Technology in Kanpur, India, with a visit to the Bhopal plant planned on 4 December for those who are interested; details are available online (http://www.iitk.ac.in/infocell/ announce/bhopal). Although the deadline for abstracts has passed, we will still consider outstanding papers. I would also like to comment on the legend for the figure on page A354 of Hood's article (Hood 2004): "A toxic cloud's silver lining silver lining n. A hopeful or comforting prospect in the midst of difficulty. [From the proverb "Every cloud has a silver lining". ?" The question mark does indicate that there are some doubts whether the death of many thousands and the continued suffering of a still larger number should be considered to have a silver lining. In predictable accidents, the large number of deaths produce only untold suffering and not proportionate advantages to the society. The earlier leakages at the Union Carbide Union Carbide Corporation (Union Carbide) is one of the oldest chemical and polymers companies in the United States, and currently has more than 3,800 employees. Bhopal plant were well known and documented in the newspapers, but neither the company nor the government took enough actions to save the city from the expected accident. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Charles Perrow Charles Perrow is a noted organizational theorist and sociologist for some time on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh and recently at Yale University. Perhaps his most famous work is (ISBN 0-07-554799-6) first published in 1972 by Scott. of Yale University Yale University, at New Haven, Conn.; coeducational. Chartered as a collegiate school for men in 1701 largely as a result of the efforts of James Pierpont, it opened at Killingworth (now Clinton) in 1702, moved (1707) to Saybrook (now Old Saybrook), and in 1716 was (Perrow 1999), this is one accident that could not have been worse, contrasting the common cliche "we were lucky it wasn't worse," which is used to describe many other accidents and deliberate actions, such as the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC WTC World Trade Center, see there ) in New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. . If the explosions in the WTC had taken place later in the day, many more people would have been inside the two towers and many more would have died. No one should say the deaths at the WTC and the Pentagon provide a silver lining to the war against terrorism. Terrorist acts were already being conducted in several places in Asia, Spain, Northern Ireland Northern Ireland: see Ireland, Northern. Northern Ireland Part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland occupying the northeastern portion of the island of Ireland. Area: 5,461 sq mi (14,144 sq km). Population (2001): 1,685,267. , Latin America, and other locations, except the world as a whole decided to look the other way and let individual countries respond. Similarly, because the problems caused by fascism were known or could be foreseen, World War II did not have to happen and cause many millions of deaths. The Allies recently observed the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasions of several beaches in France; so many deaths and much misery was not necessary for us to understand what fascism could do. Therefore, I hope that people would reconsider their comments of silver linings on others' sufferings. The use of the question mark indicates that Hood (2004) was not sure of this, and I commend that hesitant punctuation mark. The author declares he has no competing financial interests. REFERENCES Hood E. 2004. Lessons learned? Chemical plant safety since Bhopal. Environ Health Perspect 112:A352-A359. Perrow C. 1999. Normal Accidents. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. J.P. Gupta Department of Chemical Engineering Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India E-mail: jpg@iitk.ac.in Editor's note: The caption referred to by Gupta was written by me, not the author of the article, and I take full responsibility for it. In no way did I intend to trivialize the tragedy at Bhopal. I wanted to make the point that sometimes beneficial lessons may be learned from tragic situations, but my attempt to be "clever" was unfortunate. I regret my choice of wording and that it caused offense. Kimberly Thigpen Tart News Editor, EHP EHP abbr. 1. effective horsepower 2. electric horsepower E-mail: thigpenk@niehs.nih.gov |
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