"This book explains the public relations campaign undertaken by the lead industry to persuade Americans to use its deadly product in painting walls, toys, furniture, and other objects in America's homes despite a wealth of information that children were at risk for serious brain damage and death from ingesting this poison. It describes how European and American plastics industries worked together to keep secret the cancer-producing potential of one of its key ingredients, vinyl chloride monomer, the basic building block of polyvinyl chloride. Terrified that public knowledge would lead to bans or strict regulation, the industry planned an elaborate deception of the government agency responsible for protecting the health of the workforce."--BOOK JACKET.