The Formaldehyde story, revealed in the new book
"TOXIC DECEPTION -- How the Chemical Industry Manipulates Science, Bends the
Law, and Endangers Your Health", by Dan Fagin and Marianne Lavelle, two
award-winning investigative reporters.  Here's what REH writes about it (see
                http://www.monitor.net/rachel/r553.html
                http://www.monitor.net/rachel/r554.html ):

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The keystone of the formaldehyde strategy was to get new data
that cast doubt on the CIIT study.  Once there is doubt, the
regulatory process slows to a crawl or stops entirely.  And
scientific doubt is relatively easy to create.  In this case, the
Formaldehyde Institute hired a small laboratory to conduct a new
rat inhalation study.  They limited the concentration of
formaldehyde to 3 parts per million (ppm) whereas the CIIT study
had used 15 ppm.  EPA scientists said they believed even 15 ppm
was too low, but the Formaldehyde Institute used 3 ppm and got
what it wanted.  In 1980, long before the 3 ppm study was
completed, the Institute issued a press release saying, "A new
study indicates there should be no chronic health effect from
exposure to the level of formaldehyde normally encountered in the
home."  When the study was published three years later, it showed
that, even at 3 ppm, rats suffered from "severe sinus problems"
and had early signs of cancer in their cells.  Furthermore, they
had decreased body and liver weights --sure signs of ill effects.
The Formaldehyde Institute did not issue a press release about
these unwanted findings.

The Formaldehyde Institute then entered into a contract with the
National Cancer Institute (NCI) to conduct a joint study of
26,000 workers exposed to formaldehyde.  The study eventually
showed a 30% increase in lung cancer deaths among workers exposed
to formaldehyde, but the Institute put its own "spin" on the
results and got the NCI to go along: the excess cancers may have
been caused by something besides formaldehyde, the NCI concluded.
(The study design made it impossible to rule out other causes.)
Formaldehyde was thus seemingly exonerated.

What was never revealed (until TOXIC DECEPTION told the story)
was that the contract between the Formaldehyde Institute and NCI
contained the following clauses:

** The Formaldehyde Institute, not NCI, would select which
workers that would be studied;

** NCI researchers were denied access to the raw data: job
histories, death certificates, information about plants,
processes or exposures --in sum, the basic data needed to conduct
and evaluate such a study.

Thus NCI had no way to judge the accuracy or the reliability of
the data being handed them by the Institute, and no way to check
what assumptions and judgments had been made in gathering the
data.

Despite this, NCI helped the Institute explain away the 30%
cancer increase that the study revealed.  It was a clear
demonstration of the raw power of the corporation over a federal
agency's science.

In 10,000s of individuals, urea-formaldehyde has caused flu-like
symptoms, rashes, and neurological illnesses.  In some people, it
triggers multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), a life-long,
debilitating sensitivity to many other chemicals, including
fragrances and perfumes. In recent years, scientists have
confirmed that formaldehyde causes rare nasal tumors in mice and
in industrial workers exposed to high levels of formaldehyde gas.
It is also linked to brain tumors in people exposed to it on the
job (embalmers and anatomists).  It is ranked as a "probable
human carcinogen" in humans, and we are all widely exposed to it
through cabinets, furniture, walls and flooring.

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