How Industries Fight Safety Standards
By Myron Levin has just an outstanding report on how the power saw industry fights against implementing already existing technology that would reduce finger injuries from table saws to zero. In short, an Oregon inventor came up with a table saw design that would stop immediately on contact with anything but wood. If you touch a running saw, it leaves you with the equivalent of a paper cut. He figured the saw industry would adopt it immediately. He was wrong. Instead, the saw industry has spent the last decade fighting tooth and nail against it because they fear that if anyone adopts it, their liability will go up and lawsuits will follow.
To reiterate, corporations put profits before people’s hands and lives and there is no hyperbole in that statement at all.