The following snippet comes from an interview I first heard on a local public radio station:

TRANSCRIPT:

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, I want to go to a very different issue in the last 30 seconds: the government adding formaldehyde to a list of known carcinogens despite years of lobbying from the chemical industry. This report coming out now, just months after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration warned that a hair-care product, Brazilian Blowout Acai Professional Smoothing Solution, contained unacceptable levels of formaldehyde. The government also saying Friday, styrene, which is used in boats, bathtubs and in disposable foam plastic cups and plates, may cause cancer. One of the chief lobbyists against formaldehyde being put on this list were the Koch brothers. Could I get a quick reply from you?

RALPH NADER: The carcinogen aspects, long known, finally recognized by the Food and Drug Administration, opposed by these right-wing lobbyists, the Koch brothers, who, you know, $37 billion worth of money, they’re going to put a lot of it in the campaign. So this will put more spotlight on the Koch brothers, and deservedly so.

The transcript (and a video clip) come from the article Ralph Nader: Koch Brothers Led Fight to Defend Formaldehyde Despite Carcinogenic Evidence on Truth-out.org.

Some people have told me that I should not look a gift horse in the mouth when I see David H. Koch having a cancer research center at MIT named after him because of the money he gave.  Is their a case of irony deprivation running riot through our nation?  Does supporting cancer prevention research balance the selling and promotion of  cancer causing agents to the public?  Would we be better off had the Koch brothers paid their taxes instead of evading them, made less money promoting and selling cancer products, and allowing the NIH to fund the cancer research instead of the Koch brothers funding the research?

If a firefighter commits arson and then heroically helps put out the fire, should we celebrate the heroism even if we know about the arson?  Might we want to disparage the arsonist firefighter in order to concentrate our celebrating on the firefighters who do not also set fires?

As a student at MIT, I did hear the argument from other students that law enforcement should go easy on MIT grads because of all they will contribute to society.  I don’t buy it. Fortunately, I never heard that argument from any of the faculty (who were already making their contributions to society).  Maybe the faculty should have actively argued against that idea rather than merely refraining from promoting it.