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Book Review
Disasters waiting to happen
N. GOPAL RAJ
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A nuanced argument that accidents are often the cumulative result of warning signs that are deliberately ignored
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FLIRTING WITH DISASTER — Why Accidents are Rarely Accidental: Marc Gerstein with Michael Ellsberg; Sterling Publishing Co. Inc, New York and distributed by Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11, Community Centre, Panchsheel Enclave, New Delhi-110017. Rs. 350.
Far too often, accidents are not acts of implacable Providence but the result of problems and warning signs having been deliberately ignored by human agencies that should have known better. This extremely readable book by management expert Marc Gerstein draws on a wide range of examples, from Space Shuttle accidents and the Hurricane Katrina disaster in the U.S. to the economic crises that overtook many countries in the 1990s.
“The lesson of this book is that while not all disasters are preventable, a surprising number of them are,” writes Gerstein. “In virtually all cases, the damaging aftermath can be substantially reduced by better planning, hard work, and most of all, a mind open to the nature of risk. As with all such difficult and persistent human problems, the question is whether we have the wisdom and will to change.”
According to Greek legend, the god Apollo conferred the gift of prophecy on Cassandra, the beautiful daughter of King Priam of Troy, but with the unfortunate proviso that her prophecies would not be believed. The Trojans paid for their folly in not listening to her by having their city sacked by the Greeks.
Early warning signs
Real life Cassandras in our midst often fare no better. As this book makes clear, it is wise to pay heed to words of warning and recognise early signs of trouble. In both Space Shuttle accidents — that of the Challenger in 1986 and of the Columbia in 2003 — there were clear indications in earlier flights that key systems were not functioning as they should. Again, in both the cases, engineers who best understood the systems in question had in fact loudly voiced their concerns. Yet, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) allowed short-term scheduling goals to override its “safety first” ethos and the engineers found themselves in the extraordinary position of having to prove that the astronauts’ safety was indeed at stake.
Individuals can make the difference. This book points out that Frances Oldham Kelsey, one of four part-time physicians reviewing drug applications for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was instrumental in preventing the drug thalidomide from being marketed in the U.S. in the 1960s, despite pressure from its local manufacturer. Her stand was vindicated when countless deformed babies that were born in Europe and elsewhere were linked to the drug having been taken by pregnant women as a safe sleeping pill and morning sickness medicine. Kelsey was hailed as a hero and President John F. Kennedy awarded her America’s highest civilian medal.
Erosion of ethics
Despite her admirable example, just a few years back the FDA failed in its oversight duties when a new pain-killer known by the brand name Vioxx was introduced. According to Vioxx’s many critics within and outside the government, tens of thousands of people have died unnecessarily because of the drug, remarks Gerstein. The drug was, in the end, withdrawn from the market. Such worrisome problems arise “when regulators are too cozy with those whom they are supposed to regulate,” he observes.
An erosion of an organisation’s ethical standards can lead to its downfall. The book gives the example of Arthur Andersen, the well-known accounting firm that folded up a few years back. The firm’s founder and later his successor had both been known for their insistence on maintaining high professional standards. Even subsequently, the firm had refused to accept work from clients who wanted laxer standards applied. But in the 1990s the accounting firm’s leadership began to go along with “creative accounting” practices and other irregularities that some of its high-flying clients demanded. Andersen’s bottomline probably benefited but at the price of the firm being at the heart of several accounting-related scandals. The end of the road for Andersen came when shady accounting by its star client, the energy company Enron, was exposed.
Resonance
In the present situation where the global financial and economic systems are severely strained, the views expressed in this book about the troubles that beset several Asian and other countries in 1990s will find resonance. “Like the other disasters in this book, these economic collapses resulted from human actions that were driven by human nature. Most significant may have been the pressure exerted by the United States to open up the financial systems of developing countries,” points out Gerstein.
In keeping with the theme of the book, it is worth remembering that there were people who saw the current storm brewing. Several years back, Warren Buffett, one of the world’s richest men, famously called the complex derivatives that set off the current crisis as “financial weapons of mass destruction.” George Soros, another wealthy and shrewd investor, had repeatedly drawn attention to the drawbacks of the global financial system.
Nevertheless what this book terms the “characteristics of greed, self-interest, denial and politics” triumphed over prudence. The consequences of that are now all too self-evident.
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