David Rosner has testified that the companies continued to use children in their ads years after medical literature made it clear the paints were a health threat.

01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, January 18, 2006

BY PETER B. LORD
Journal Environment Writer

PROVIDENCE -- A Columbia University historian testified yesterday that he did not necessarily want to see four paint companies lose the nuisance suit being brought by the state, but he did want to see them acknowledge their roles in the "sordid" business of selling lead-based paints years ago that continue to poison children today.

"I have very strong opinions about these companies and what they did in the past," said David Rosner, the state's second to last witness in a trial that began three months ago. "I think there should be some acknowledgement of it."

Rosner coauthored Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution, a book documenting how the chemical and lead industries made and marketed lead-based paints and deadly ingredients of polyvinyl chloride.

Rosner insisted yesterday he had no stake in the outcome of the trial.

Paint company lawyers worked most of the day to discredit Rosner's previous testimony and his credibility.

Rosner testified last week the companies continued to use children in their ads years after medical literature made it clear the paints were a health threat.

Yesterday, lawyer Peter Bleakley, representing Atlantic Richfield, got Rosner to back off his allegation that lead-pigment marketers visited Newport decades ago to sell their paints.

Bleakley also insisted Rosner had no evidence to support his contention that the companies believed their lead-pigment marketing was a success.

Rosner said that the campaign was repeatedly touted at meetings of a so-called Lead Industries Association.

"It was stated over and over again in their presence and the companies never seemed to object," Rosner responded. "I don't see the legal distinction."

Bleakley asked Rosner if his testimony reflected the core values of the American Historical Association. Rosner said it did.

Rosner acknowledged he was being paid $400 an hour for his testimony.

And under a long series of questions from Bleakley, Rosner agreed he had no specific knowledge about how much lead pigment an Atlantic Richfield predecessor (Anaconda Copper) manufactured, how much it sold in Rhode Island or whether any of the company's pigments were ever used in Rhode Island.

Lawyer Donald Scott, representing NL Industries, asked why Rosner's research hadn't extended to several federal agencies who recommended in the 1920s and 1930s that lead-based paints be used on schools and other public buildings.

Rosner also said he was unaware of two columns that ran in The Providence Journal in 1929 and 1931 under the byline of Dr. D. L. Richardson, who was described as superintendent of Providence City Hospital.

In one article, Richardson said lead poisoning in children was primarily caused by "perverted" appetites that caused them to eat "dirt, coal, cloth and hair."

Rosner said he had read similar articles in other newspapers, but had not done a thorough survey of historic Providence Journal articles because in New York City they are only available on microfilm that can only be searched one page at a time.

Yesterday's proceedings were delayed while the lawyers argued over a dispute that arose last Friday.

Lawyer Paul Michael Pohl, representing Sherwin Williams, objected to an old advertisement the state sought to introduce, saying it was a fake and totally unjustified.

The ad was withdrawn as evidence.

But Judge Michael A. Silverstein said Pohl's use of the work "fake" transcended all the bounds that have been followed in the trial. And he said Pohl was too intelligent and successful to have used the word inadvertently.

Silverstein instructed the jury that use of the word "fake" should never have been verbalized and to "say the state knowingly used an improper exhibit is inappropriate."

Later, lawyers for all four defendants -- Sherwin Williams, NL Industries, Atlantic Richfield and Millenium Holdings -- moved to sever their cases and demanded a mistrial because of the judge's instructions to the jury.

Silverstein overruled them all.

plord@projo.com / (401) 277-8036