Beware Dow Chemical Herbicide Aminopyralid

Mass spraying of pesticides on farms, pictured here in Florida, is putting gardens at risk. Photograph: David R. Frazier/Alamy

Beware of manure fertilizers. If they come from factory farms sprayed with the Dow Chemical herbicide/pesticide aminopyralid (found in products Cleanwave, Milestone vm, Forefront r&p, and Milestone, among others) they will be contaminated. Gardeners in Britain are finding that manure from fields sprayed a year ago still contains the toxic chemical.

Dow,, the company with the lying ad tagline, we bring good things to life. In my head I always add "and we kill them." From the people who brought you Agent Orange, another toxic nightmare.

firedoglake:
Persistent Herbicide In Compost Destroys UK Gardens - Can It Happen Here?

In today's Observer, Caroline Davies describes how this year British gardeners find their fruits and veggies are stunted, deformed, and dying. The culprit: Dow Chemical's persistent herbicide aminopyralid sprayed on grazing land or fodder. The herbicide stayed in the plants the cattle ate, stayed in the cattle (and horse) poop, stayed in the compost produced from the poop, and came out the other end of the process all ready to kill food crops and home gardens.

Problems with the herbicide emerged late last year, when some commercial potato growers reported damaged crops.

[snip]

[T]he herbicide has now entered the food chain. Those affected are demanding an investigation and a ban on the product. They say they have been given no definitive answer as to whether other produce on their gardens and allotments is safe to eat.

It appears that the contamination came from grass treated 12 months ago. Experts say the grass was probably made into silage, then fed to cattle during the winter months. The herbicide remained present in the silage, passed through the animal and into manure that was later sold. Horses fed on hay that had been treated could also be a channel.

It can't happen here?

Well, the EPA has licensed aminopyralid in several products used in the US: Cleanwave, Milestone vm, Forefront r&p, and Milestone.

Observer (uk): Home-grown veg ruined by toxic fertiliser

Gardeners across Britain are reaping a bitter harvest of rotten potatoes, withered salads and deformed tomatoes after an industrial herbicide tainted their soil. Caroline Davies reports on how the food chain became contaminated and talks to the angry allotment owners whose plots have been destroyed

Chemicals and Cancer

The LATimes reports on a new study linking breast cancer to many chemicals common to our environment.

LATimes: Common chemicals are linked to breast cancer
Of the 216 compounds, many in the air, food or everyday items.

LATimes: Chemical carcinogens (list)

Bee Colony Collapse

wikipedia: bees
What's causing the collapse of the honeybee colonies? The theories include genetically-engineered corn, predators, cellphones, and the stress of being corporately farmed. When I read that genetically-modified corn contains a neurotoxin (brain cell killer) that kills honeybees, I thought 'bingo'. Monsanto has killed the honeybees. It all makes sense now. They'll probably manufacture some new chemical to sell us to replace the honeybees.

Brendan Calling: Bees: Closer to Home
The disappearance of the bees hits New Jersey

Quotes from a Newark Star-Ledger article:

[Beekeeper] Tassot and his wife believe they know why their bees have disappeared.

“We have suspicions about pesticides,” he said. “We noticed most of the dead hives are close to cornfields. … And when we asked other beekeepers what was the principle crop near their hives, they said corn, corn, corn.”

Simone, of Morris Township, agrees. “When I spoke with other beekeepers they say all their hives with heavy losses are near cornfields.”

Many farmers in the United States and around the world rely on genetically engineered corn to survive the assault of crop-killing insects. The seeds are coated with a systemic pesticide that is essentially built into the corn as it grows.

One of the chief chemicals used is a neurotoxin called imidacloprid, which is manufactured by the German company Bayer CropScience. Imidacloprid works by blocking a pathway in insect brains that results in an accumulation of a neurotransmitter which, in insects, leads to paralysis and death.

At sublethal doses, however, imidacloprid is toxic to honeybees. In a 2001 article in the Journal of Pesticide Reform, German scientist Eric Zeisstoff wrote that his research “indicated that bees affected by imidacloprid suffer problems with orientation. Bees with a particular level of imidacloprid contamination at 500 meters from the colony did not return to the hive at all.”

der Spiegel(Germany): Are GM Crops Killing Bees?

Independent (uk): Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?
Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for mysterious 'colony collapse' of bees

High Country News: The Silence of the Bees

wikipedia: Colony Collapse Disorder

Frogs and Bees are the Canaries in our Coal Mine

Endangered
They're dying, and no one knows why. Global warming? Pollution? The cumulative effects of the 500 new chemicals which are introduced into our environment every year? Whatever the answer, it's bad news for the planet.

Marin County Coastal Post Online: The Frogs Are Dying

ATLANTA - Ponds and swamps are becoming eerily silent. The familiar melody of ribbits, croaks and chirps is disappearing as a mysterious killer fungus wipes out frog populations around the globe, a phenomenon likened to the extinction of dinosaurs.

Scientists from around the world are meeting Thursday and Friday in Atlanta to organize a worldwide effort to stem the deaths by asking zoos, aquariums and botanical gardens to take in threatened frogs until the fungus can be stopped.

The aim of the group called Amphibian Ark is to prevent the world's more than 6,000 species of frogs, salamanders and wormlike Sicilians from disappearing. Scientists estimate up to 170 species of frogs have become extinct in the past decade from the fungus and other causes, and an additional 1,900 species are threatened.

NYTimes (Feb. 27): Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril

[B]ee losses are ranging from 30 to 60 percent on the West Coast, with some beekeepers on the East Coast and in Texas reporting losses of more than 70 percent; beekeepers consider a loss of up to 20 percent in the offseason to be normal.

NYTimes (Feb. 12): Mystery Disease Is Threat to Bee Colonies

A mysterious illness is killing tens of thousands of honeybee colonies across the country, threatening honey production, the livelihood of beekeepers and possibly crops that need bees for pollination.

Researchers are scrambling to find the cause of the ailment, called colony collapse disorder.

Reports of unusual colony deaths have come from at least 22 states. Some commercial beekeepers have reported losing more than 50 percent of their bees.

Bradenton (FL) Herald: Bees dropping from mystery illness

Little is known, he said, but this: Something seems to be breaking down the bees' immune systems.

Chemlawn Users, Beware

Chemlawn Lawn Spray Gun by Lesco (image rittenhouse.ca)
You might want to print out this article and distribute it to the folks in your neighborhood who have those little chemical treatment flags on their lawns.

London Free Press: Pesticides may affect penis size
A renowned U.S. scientist supports a ban on the chemicals for cosmetic purposes.

A renowned U.S. scientist who has documented fertility and sex changes -- including decreasing penis size -- due to environmental contamination says he wouldn't apply pesticides on his own lawn.

Delivering a special series of lectures this week at the University of Western Ontario, Louis Guillette has been drawn into London's lawn-care debate during question periods and talk-show interviews.

"The use of these compounds just for cosmetic reasons, just because you don't want to make dandelion wine from your yard or whatever, I think is inappropriate," Guillette, who is associate dean for research at the University of Florida, said in a lecture yesterday at UWO's Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Based on his own scientific investigations, Guillette said there's enough evidence pesticides put children, wildlife and the ecosystem at risk.

"Just because you can go buy them at the local stores doesn't meant that is appropriate use," he said.

[]

Penis size of the animals from the polluted lake was smaller than animals from the less-polluted lake.

"This is important because it is not just an alligator story. It is not just a lake story. We know there has been a dramatic increase in penile and genital abnormalities in baby boys," Guillette said.

A followup study by another scientist involving healthy couples with 5,000 healthy babies also found reduced penis size with higher contamination levels.

As Brilliant at Breakfast commented, this explains Tom Delay, who owned a pest control company before he ran for Congress.

We All Live in Chernobyl

Back when the Three Mile Island accident happened, a friend printed up t-shirts that said "We All Live In Pennsylvania", with the nuclear power symbol. Point being, it could happen here. It could happen anywhere that nuclear power plants are allowed to operate. And the wind blows nuclear material far, far from the original site. (Did you know that there are 10 sheep farms in Scotland under quarantine, cannot sell their sheep, because they are still contaminated with nuclear material that the winds blew there from Chernobyl in 1986?)

A good article from Harvey Wasserman, senior advisor to Greenpeace USA, on commondreams.org yesterday about this. He is especially upset about Patrick A. Moore's WaPo editorial in favor of resuming nuclear power plant construction, describing Moore as "[a] bit player in the original founding [of Greenpeace], Moore is cashing in on his stale, marginal association to Greenpeace for the benefit of his polluter-employers."

Did you know that you have no recourse if you are injured or killed by a nuclear disaster? Congress passed legislation to make nuclear power plant operators exempt, and no private insurance company will insure you against nuclear disaster. If it happens, it falls (no pun intended) on us.

Chernobyl Kills While Bought ex-Greenpeacer Shills

The 1986 explosion at the reactor outside Kiev was the world's worst industrial disaster. It spewed at least 200 times more radiation than the bombing of Hiroshima. It's a fitting tombstone for the most expensive technological failure in human history.

Chernobyl happened exactly 20 years ago. But it is 49 since the first commercial reactor opened at Shippingport, Pennsylvania, in 1957.

That day the nuke makers said it was "only a matter of time" before private insurers would protect the public from a Chernobyl or Three Mile Island-style accident, both of which they said were "impossible."

In the meantime, Congress passed the Price-Anderson Act, which shielded reactor makers from liability against what did happen at TMI and Chernobyl, and what could be happening as you read this.

A half-century later, we taxpayers are still holding the bag. Not one private insurer will guarantee you or your family against the financial consequences of a reactor disaster. Check out any US homeowner's insurance policy and you'll see their duck and cover in black and white.

[]

In 1980 I reported extensively from central Pennsylvania on the consequences of the radioactive emissions at Three Mile Island, a year earlier. To this day it is not precisely known how much radiation escaped, or where it went.

But I saw the deformed animals. I spoke to the sick children and their dying parents. America has been fed some big lies lately, but the biggest ever told remains "no one died at Three Mile Island."

A quarter-century later, some 2400 central Pennsylvanians still can't get their day in court. TMI's victims and their families have sued the power company that irradiated them, but the federal courts refuse to hear their case. Why?

[]

n perhaps the saddest line in the entire nuclear debate, Moore has termed the Three Mile Island accident "a success," apparently because it didn't explode like Chernobyl. But in a matter of moments, the TMI melt-down turned a $900 million asset into a $2 billion (or more) liability, with an unknowable final price tag or death toll. Not until 9/11/2001 would there be a similar "success" on our soil.

Moore's service to the nuclear industry is hardly his only calling. He shills for a tawdry crew of corporate eco-thugs, including forest clear-cutters and chemical polluters. In making himself a conduit through which pro-nukers and rich polluters can conjure the Greenpeace name, Moore is merely practicing the oldest profession in phony green garb. But even that won't outlast the killing power of the atomic reactors he and his cohorts are attempting to revive.

Previous posts: Chernobyl (April 26, 2006)

Nauseating

Mr. Yuk
Truthdig: Molly Ivins: The Daily Drip of Special Favors for Special Interests

AUSTIN, Texas—We need to keep up with the daily drip, that endless succession of special favors for special interests performed by Congress, or we’ll never figure out how we got so far behind the eight ball. While the top Bushies lunge about test-driving new wars (great idea—the one we’re having is a bummer, so let’s start another!), Congress just keeps right on cranking out those corporate goodies.

Earlier this month, the House effectively repealed more than 200 state food safety and public health protections. Say, when was the last time you enjoyed a little touch of food poisoning? Coming soon to a stomach near you. What was really impressive about H.R. 4167, the “National Uniformity for Food Act,” is that it was passed without a public hearing.

“The House is trampling crucial health safeguards in every state without so much as a single public hearing,” said Erik Olson, attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “This just proves the old adage, ‘Money talks.’ The food industry spared no expense to ensure passage.”

Thirty-nine attorneys general, plus health, consumer and environmental groups, are opposing the law. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the food industry has spent more than $81 million on campaign contributions to members of Congress since 2000.

The bill would automatically override any state measure that is stronger than federal law, the opposite of what a sensible law would do. The NRDC says state laws protecting consumers from chemical additives, bacteria and ingredients that can trigger allergic reactions would be barred, and that includes alerts about chemical contamination in fish, health protection standards for milk and eggs, and warnings about chemicals or toxins such as arsenic, mercury and lead. Happy eating, all.

Another Battle in the Bushco 'War on Science'

From today's Los Angeles Times:

How Environmentalists Lost the Battle Over TCE

After massive underground plumes of an industrial solvent were discovered in the nation's water supplies, the Environmental Protection Agency mounted a major effort in the 1990s to assess how dangerous the chemical was to human health.

Following four years of study, senior EPA scientists came to an alarming conclusion: The solvent, trichloroethylene, or TCE, was as much as 40 times more likely to cause cancer than the EPA had previously believed.

The preliminary report in 2001 laid the groundwork for tough new standards to limit public exposure to TCE. Instead of triggering any action, however, the assessment set off a high-stakes battle between the EPA and Defense Department, which had more than 1,000 military properties nationwide polluted with TCE.

By 2003, after a prolonged challenge orchestrated by the Pentagon, the EPA lost control of the issue and its TCE assessment was cast aside. As a result, any conclusion about whether millions of Americans were being contaminated by TCE was delayed indefinitely.

[]

The agency's authority and its scientific stature have been eroded under a withering attack on its technical staff by the military and its contractors. Indeed, the Bush administration leadership at the EPA ultimately sided with the military.

After years on the defensive, the Pentagon — with help from NASA and the Energy Department — is taking a far tougher stand in challenging calls for environmental cleanups. It is using its formidable political leverage to demand greater proof that industrial substances cause cancer before ratcheting up costly cleanups at polluted bases.

The military says it is only striving to make smart decisions based on sound science and accuses the EPA of being unduly influenced by left-leaning scientists.

But critics say the defense establishment has manufactured unwarranted scientific doubt, used its powerful role in the executive branch to cause delays and forced a reduction in the margins of protection that traditionally guard public health.

If the EPA's 2001 draft risk assessment was correct, then possibly thousands of the nation's birth defects and cancers every year are due in part to TCE exposure, according to several academic experts.

"It is a World Trade Center in slow motion," said Boston University epidemiologist David Ozonoff, a TCE expert. "You would never notice it."

OSHA Prepared to Sentence At Least 17,000 Workers to Death

In an exceedingly poorly written article in today's Washington Post, we learn (through reading through the lines) that OSHA intends to propose that US workers can be exposed to 5 micrograms of hexavalent chromium per cubic foot of air. This is five times the level proposed by OSHA itself in 2004, and 20 times the level proposed by public health advocates.

The clues:

OSHA has not said what the new limit will be. But sources close to the agency have been told to expect a standard that would allow five times more exposure than it had initially proposed -- a shift that would be a victory for the industry, saving it billions of dollars in upgrades and plant closures.

The decades-old "permissible exposure level" is 52 micrograms per cubic meter of air. On the basis of the few large studies done in recent years, advocates sought a new level of 0.25 micrograms. In 2004, OSHA released a proposed limit of 1 microgram.

According to OSHA, the 1 microgram limit would result in two to nine excess deaths in every 1,000 exposed workers over a 45-year lifetime of work. That is more than the one-death-per-1,000 standard the agency aims for but is reasonable, it said, in light of the high costs and technological challenges involved.

OSHA calculated that a less stringent limit of 5 micrograms per cubic meter would result in 10 to 45 excess deaths per 1,000 workers.

There is no safe level of exposure to a carcinogen. Yet, astoundingly, OSHA is prepared to set the level of exposure to hexavalent chromium at a level which will cause 10 to 45 deaths per 1,000 workers exposed to it. 380,000 US workers are exposed to this metal annually. Based on OSHA's calculations, this means that 3,800 to 17,100 workers will DIE as a result of OSHA's decision to permit high exposures to this dangerous, carcinogenic metal.

And that is based on the research OSHA possessed. This article reveals that industry scientists buried research showing a 5 times greater lung cancer risk from exposure:

[T]he industry conducted a pivotal study that found a fivefold increase in lung cancer deaths from moderate exposures to chromium but never published the results or gave them to OSHA. Company-sponsored scientists later reworked the data in a way that made the risk disappear.

Factoring in the real data, a five times greater risk of lung cancer, OSHA will be sentencing tens of thousands more American workers to occupational, preventable death.

The article:

WaPo: Chromium Evidence Buried, Report Says
Authors Fault Industry Researchers

Scientists working for the chromium industry withheld data about the metal's health risks while the industry campaigned to block strict new limits on the cancer-causing chemical, according to a scientific journal report published yesterday.

Teflon Sticking Inside Us

Teflon was recently banned by the EPA, at least prospectively. It is supposedly going to be eliminated by the year 2015. I say supposedly because the EPA is notorious in not enforcing such bans. Asbestos was first "banned" by the EPA in 1972, but banned again and again over several decades, as follows:

WHEN WERE ASBESTOS PRODUCTS BANNED?
[] The manufacturing of asbestos-containing, spray-applied insulation and fireproofing was banned in 1972. Since 1972, the following bans were placed on asbestos by the EPA:

1973 - Spray-applied materials for fireproofing and insulation

1975 - Molded and wet applied asbestos such as pipe joint insulation

1976 - Asbestos for mechanical system insulation

1978 - Acoustical and decorative applications

1989 - Many other types of non-friable asbestos to be phased out in 3 stages by 1997

1991 - the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals required the EPA to reevaluate the bans. The EPA clarified the restrictions and the following additional items were banned:

1993 - Paper Products, Flooring Felts and New Uses of Asbestos

but reportedly was still being sold as late as 2000. And that's not even getting into vermiculite contaminated with tremolite asbestos, which was sold into this decade.)

EPA tries to curb use of Teflon chemical

In a surprise turn Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency moved to eliminate the production of a suspected carcinogen used in the making of Teflon and other non-stick and non-stain coatings.

The EPA has asked eight manufacturers that use a family of chemicals known as perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, to reduce production 95% by 2010 and to stop using it altogether by 2015.

PFOA, which is found in the blood of more than 95% of Americans, has been tied to cancer and developmental damage in animal studies. It is used in the process that makes water-, stain- and grease-resistant products, everything from microwave popcorn bags to pizza box liners, non-stick cookware to pillows, upholstery to carpets.

Like just about everyone else in this country, I have Teflon pans in my cupboard. I'm putting them away, and getting out my cast iron, after reading this in yesterday's WaPo:

Suspected Carcinogen Found in Cord Blood

BALTIMORE -- A suspected carcinogen used to make Teflon was found in nearly all the umbilical cord blood samples tested by researchers at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The researchers are now trying to determine whether it has harmed the newborns.

Of the 300 newborns tested, perfluorooctanoic acid, was found in the cord blood of 298.

What are the alternatives to Teflon?

What's the Deal With Teflon?

Calphalon One seems to be the most economical non-stick alternative. It's made of infused anodized aluminum, is a little stickier, but contains only aluminum, pressure-cast. Enameled cast iron and stainless steel with copper bottom are also good alternatives.

Empty Calories

Maybe this is why we're all so fat? We're eating more and more to get less and less satisfaction.

From the Guardian.uk (via Common Dreams):

Mineral Levels in Meat and Milk Plummet Over 60 Years
· Study blames the decline on intensive farming
· Food industry contests comparative methods

The mineral content of milk and popular meats has fallen significantly in the past 60 years, according to a new analysis of government records of the chemical composition of everyday food.

[]

The levels of iron recorded in the average rump steak have dropped by 55%, while magnesium fell by 7%. Looking at 15 different meat items, the analysis found that the iron content had fallen on average by 47%. The iron content of milk had dropped by more than 60%, and by more than 50% for cream and eight different cheeses. Milk appears to have lost 2% of its calcium, and 21% of its magnesium too.

Most cheeses showed a fall in magnesium and calcium levels. According to the analysis, cheddar provides 9% less calcium today, 38% less magnesium and 47% less iron, while parmesan shows the steepest drop in nutrients, with magnesium levels down by 70% and iron all gone compared with its content in the years up to 1940.

[]

Scientists at the University of Newcastle's agriculture school have looked at differences in the fat and vitamin composition of milk produced in different farming systems. "We know that the faster grass grows the more you dilute the uptake of trace elements," Gillian Butler, a researcher, said. Another explanation might be that in traditional farming, clover, which is higher in minerals than grass, also played a greater part in feeding animals.

Save the Polar Bears, Save the World

Apparently polar bears are the canaries in the mines for the modern world, as this is my third "polar bears affected by pollution" post recently.

Toxic waste creates hermaphrodite Arctic polar bears

Wildlife researchers have found new evidence that Arctic polar bears, already gravely threatened by the melting of their habitat because of global warming, are being poisoned by chemical compounds commonly used in Europe and North America to reduce the flammability of household furnishings like sofas, clothing and carpets.

A team of scientists from Canada, Alaska, Denmark and Norway is sounding the alarm about the flame retardants, known as polybrominated diphenyls, or PBDEs, saying that significant deposits have recently been found in the fatty tissues of polar bears, especially in eastern Greenland and Norway's Svalbard islands.

Studies are still being carried out on what impact the chemicals might be having on the bears, but tests on laboratory animals such as mice indicate that their effects can be considerable, attacking the sex and thyroid glands, motor skills and brain function.

There is also evidence that compounds similar to the PBDEs have contributed to a surprisingly high rate of hermaphroditism in polar bears. About one in 50 female bears on Svalbard has both male and female sex organs, a phenomenon scientists link directly to the effects of pollution.

"The Arctic is now a chemical sink," declared Colin Butfield, a campaign leader for the Worldwide Fund for Nature, which last month indicated that killer whales in the Arctic were also suffering from elevated levels of contamination with fire retardants as well as other man-made compounds. "Chemicals from products that we use in our homes every day are contaminating Arctic wildlife."

The pollutants are carried northwards from industrialised regions of the US and western Europe on currents and particularly on northbound winds. Contaminated moisture often condenses on arriving in the cold Arctic climes and is then deposited, ready to enter the food chain.

Previous Posts:

USA Poisons the World

Bush Killing Polar Bears

USA Poisons the World

From the LA Times:

Polar Bears Face New Toxic Threat: Flame Retardants

Already imperiled by melting ice and a brew of toxic chemicals, polar bears throughout the Arctic, particularly in remote dens near the North Pole, face an additional threat as flame retardants originating largely in the United States are building up in their bodies, according to an international team of wildlife scientists.

Real Evildoers

From alternet:

The 14 Worst Corporate Evildoers

Caterpillar
Chevron
Coca-Cola
Dow Chemical
DynCorp
Ford Motor Company
KBR (Kellogg, Brown and Root): A Subsidiary of Halliburton Corporation
Lockheed Martin
Monsanto
Nestle USA
Philip Morris USA and Philip Morris International (a.k.a. The Altria Group Inc.)
Pfizer
Suez-Lyonnaise Des Eaux (SLDE)
Wal-Mart

Better Living (?) Through Chemistry

From unknownnews.org, this article summarizes my feelings about eating organic food. Nice idea, but when you get down to it, does it make much of a difference?

Don't eat this, don't eat that!

Our world is totally contaminated.

Our foods -- all of them -- have toxins in them on them. Even the organic foods are contaminated, because the soil is contaminated, and the water. Organic veggies have antibiotics in them, and how do you think it got there? Fertilizer from cows with growth hormones and antibiotics produces plants with antibiotics in them. Even if the farmer gets organic raised cow poop for his garden, farms upstream have runoff, rivers have sewer dumps, and the rain falls on farms and cities, and the runoff from chemical-contaminated rains fill the rivers and water the fields.

The food containers, air, water, all these are infused with chemicals and pollutants and they are inside us too. Each of us carries a heavy "chemical load" before we are even born. None of us are "pure" and chemical free.

You can try to eliminate some of the toxins from your life, but it's futile. For poor folks it's almost impossible. Stress kills, bad food, sugar, sucrose, mercury in vaccines ... We are seeing three-headed toads and other animal mutations, fish are changing sex. I know the wild animals eat organic foods and don't shop at supermarkets or drink Coke, yet they are mutating. What happens to them is going to be happening to us.

[]

For me the answer is to not fret every waking moment over what I eat or don't eat. As for "food safety," in this age that is a relative term, so be reasonable but not phobic.

I will die. My quality of life will go downhill, because decay, entropy, and dissolution is the pattern of what life over time becomes in this world.

I can preoccupy myself endlessly questioning which additives, allergens, foods, or chemicals hurt me the most, and avoid them. You can find out what hurts you the most, and avoid that. When it changes avoid the new irritants. It's endless paranoia for you and endless profits for certain markets.

It's Poison, Poison, I Tell You

From truthout.org, an article originally published in the French paper Le Monde:

We Are All Chemically Contaminated

When one out of two men, one out of three women, today is affected by cancer, it's no exaggeration to talk about an epidemic. Certainly, it's not as visible as the epidemic of the plague. The victims don't die on the street, but the tribute exacted is heavy, with 150,000 deaths a year in France. Risk factors other than chemical substances are implicated (diet, tobacco use ...), but with the evaluation of chemical substances, we know for certain that we can dry up a part of the source of these chronic illnesses. Moreover, it is unacceptable that this public health imperative not be imposed upon the chemical industry.

The volume of chemical substances at a global level has gone from 1 million tons during the 1930s to 400 million tons today! The chemical industry has thus put on the market - without evaluating them - substances that will sometimes be withdrawn once the damage to the population's health is assessed. That's the "proof by people" to demonstrate toxicity that was the rule at the end of many long years. Still, that's only the case for a minority of substances, since for 97% of the substances data is incomplete or nonexistent.

Years ago I read The Politics of Cancer (1978) [updated & released in 1998] by Dr. Samuel Epstein. He argues that all cancer is environmentally caused.

From a review of his book by Robert Weissman:

As Dr. Epstein points out, from 1950 to 1998, the overall incidence of cancer rose about 60 percent, with much higher increases for cancer of some organs. For non-Hodgkins lymphoma and multiple myeloma, the increase has been 200 percent. Breast cancers have increased by 60 percent. Prostate cancer has increased 200 percent. For testicular cancer in men of the ages 28 to 35, there has been a 300 percent increase since 1950.

And don't let anybody fool you into thinking that the cancer rate increase is because the population is getting older -- these rates are age-adjusted. The cancer rates of a group of 50 year old men in 1990, for example, are compared to the cancer rates of a group of men in 1950.

So, why is the cancer establishment losing the war against cancer? "The cancer establishment is fixated on damage control -- diagnosis, treatment and basic genetic research -- and is indifferent, if not sometimes hostile, to cancer prevention -- getting carcinogens out of the environment," Epstein told us recently. "The second factor is conflicts of interests, which are significant when it comes to the National Cancer Institute, but profound and overwhelming when it comes to the American Cancer Society. In the book, I go into great detail on conflicts between the American Cancer Society and the cancer drug industry, the mammography industry, the pesticide industry, and other such industries."

According to Epstein, the outgoing director of the National Cancer Institute left that organization to go to the cancer drug industry. Another NCI director in the 1970s left NCI to go to the American Cancer Society and from there to head up the fiberglass industry (fiberglass is a recognized carcinogen).

Epstein charges that the cancer establishment is misleading people into believing that it is spending a good chunk of its stashed away billions on prevention -- which is untrue.

The Incompetence, The Corruption, The Cronyism: October 6, 2005 edition

The Incompetence

Burn the Katrina debris? Are you kdding? You haven't been allowed to burn leaves in the northeast since I was in high school. For the Bush Administration, deciding whether to pollute another huge swath of America already devastated was easy. Burning is 1) cheaper; 2) more convenient for their corporate contributors; and 3) not their problem! Only ordinary Americans who ingest the chemicals unleashed by the burning of the toxins will suffer. When you understand the cost-benefit analysis, it's so easy to understand!

Where There's Smoke, There's Fire

Well, it's begun. Whatever faint hope we might have had that this time our leaders would try to handle the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast right is fading fast. The latest outrage is a decision by Halliburton and other contractors engaged on a no-bid basis to clean up the aftermath to just get rid of debris the way we would have back in the 19th century -- by burning it. Of course, in the 19th century the debris would have been wood and bricks, not complex organic chemicals like PVC, rubber tire laced with cadmium and nickel, even dioxin waste from the DuPont DeLisle plant, which the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality claims in a press releases had "no leaks or releases" from Katrina. How they can even presume to know that before they have had time to do proper sampling?

The Corruption

The GOP is corrupt, from top to bottom. At the top, former chief procurement officer David Safarian indicted on five counts:

Former Bush Official Indicted in Probe

From my home state, the vice Chairman of the Republican Party was taped in conversations with a criminal defense client about how to hide the guy's drug profits! Our Mittwit, Governor Romney, gets laughs describing himself as a "Republican from Massachusetts" while courting conservatives in South Carolina. Here in Massachusetts, he & his party are the joke. He couldn't win an election against Billy Bulger next year. Hell, he couldn't beat Whitey Bulger.

State Republican Party's embattled vice chairman resigns


To little scumbaggy local officials, like John Gosek, Mayor of Oswego, N.Y, who was taped by FBI agents while offering $250 to have sex with a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old girl.

John Gosek, the man Oswego has known for years


The Cronyism

Ted Stevens has been siphoning money from American taxpayers' pockets into his little pet projects for years. (I've heard that you can't even get a meeting with Stevens unless you've raised $10,000 for him.) Here, money goes from Stevens, head of the powerful Appropriations Committee, to the Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board -- which his son chairs. All this to paint a fish on a plane. Couldn't they have done this without taxpayer dollars? Why are we painting fish on private companies planes?

what is it about alaska and pork?

...a local nonprofit agency, the alaska fisheries marketing board, gave alaska airlines a $500,000 grant to paint the jet. the money came out of about $29 million in federal funding u.s. sen. ted stevens of alaska and his congressional colleagues have appropriated to the marketing board, created in 2003, to promote and enhance the value of alaska seafood. the senator's son, state sen. ben stevens, is chairman of the agency's board of directors. - anchorage daily news

Senator Ted Stevens, feeding at the Senate trough for 36 years.

The Incompetence, The Corruption, The Cronyism: October 4, 2005 edition

The Incompetence:

This qualified for the cronyism, too, but after I read the second article, about Sen. James Imhofe (R. - Dumbf**kistan) I couldn't resist putting it here.

The Environment Is Doomed

Earlier this year, President Bush appointed 66-year-old Sam Bodman to serve as Secretary of Energy, a guy who for more than a decade ran a Texas-based chemical company that spent years on the top-five lists of the country's worst polluters.

And what action will our incompetent Republican Party take to protect the environment? Have the eternally dumb Imhofe (dumber than a bag of hammers and half as useful) have hearings featuring witness Michael Crichton, writer of fiction, testify about it (yes, truth IS stranger than fiction).

Michael Crichton, Novelist, Becomes Senate Witness

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 - His last book, "State of Fear," was published more than nine months ago, but the reviews were still pouring in on Wednesday, even as Michael Crichton folded his 6-foot-9-inch frame into a seat to testify before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

"More silly than scary," the flier dropped off by the Natural Resources Defense Council said.

"Notable mainly for its nuttiness," an analysis from the Brookings Institution said.

"Does not reflect scientific fact," the Union of Concerned Scientists said.

[]

His is an unpopular and contrary stance when measured against the judgment of groups like the National Academy of Sciences. But it was not those organizations that asked Mr. Crichton to Washington to counsel Congress on how to consider diverse scientific opinion when making policy. It was the committee chairman, Senator James M. Inhofe, a plainspoken* Oklahoma Republican who has unabashedly pronounced global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."

In Mr. Crichton, a Harvard medical school graduate who never practiced medicine, he had found a kindred spirit - and a star witness for his committee.

* "Plainspoken" is apparently NYTimesSpeak for "stupid".


The Corruption:

Tom Delay get indicted again, by a different grand jury, for the same conduct, but this time there are two indictments. The man is just a walking ham sandwich. Oh, and this time, if convicted, he could get a life term. And in Texas, life means life.

I Love Me Some Texas Justice


The Cronyism:

Of course, today's crony is Harriet Miers,

a woman who has excelled in endeavors that require networking and shoulder-rubbing and no actual proof of legal expertise. (General counsel? Lest we forget, Mike Brown's first job at FEMA was as general counsel.) (Amy Sullivan)

Even the wingnuts are crying "crony, crony!"

What Julie Myers is to the Department of Homeland Security, Harriet Miers is to the Supreme Court. It's not just that Miers has zero judicial experience. It's that she's so transparently a crony/"diversity" pick while so many other vastly more qualified and impressive candidates went to waste. If this is President Bush's bright idea to buck up his sagging popularity--among conservatives as well as the nation at large--one wonders whom he would have picked in rosier times. Shudder. (Michelle Magalong)

Just talked to a very pro-Bush legal type who says he is ashamed and embarrassed this morning. Says Miers was with an undistinguished law firm; never practiced constitutional law; never argued any big cases; never was on law review; has never written on any of the important legal issues. Says she's not even second rate, but is third rate. Dozens and dozens of women would have been better qualified. Says a crony at FEMA is one thing, but on the high court is something else entirely. Her long history of activity with ABA is not encouraging from a conservative perspective--few conservatives would spend their time that way. In short, he says the pick is “deplorable.” There may be an element of venting here, but thought I'd pass along for what it's worth. It's certainly indicative of the mood right now...(Rich Lowry, National Review Online)

And, really, she's just your average, run-of-the-mill, crooked corporate lawyer:

Miers Led Law Firm Repeatedly Forced to Pay Damages For Defrauding Investors

In case anyone thought Harriet Miers wasn't a corporate-shill-in-White-House-clothing, take a gander at how Miers did her best Ken Lay impression while heading a major Texas corporate law firm. That's right, according to the 5/1/00 newsletter Class Action Reporter, Miers headed Locke, Liddell & Sapp at the time the firm was forced to pay $22 million to settle a suit asserting that "it aided a client in defrauding investors."

The details of the case are both nauseating and highly troubling, considering President Bush is considering putting Miers at the top of America's legal system. Under Miers' leadership, the firm represented the head of a "foreign currency trading company [that] was allegedly a Ponzi scheme." The law-firm admitted that it "knew in March 1998 that $ 8 million in [the company's] losses hadn't been reported to investors" but didn't tell regulators.

This wasn't an isolated incident, either. The Austin American-Statesman reported in 2001 that Miers' lawfirm was forced to pay another $8 million for a similar scheme to defraud investors. The suit, which dealt with actions the firm took under Miers in the late 1990s, was again quite troubling. As the 9/20/00 Texas Lawyer reported, Miers' firm helped a now-convicted con man "defraud investors and allowed the firm's [bank] account to be used as a 'conduit.'" The suit said "money from investors that went into the firm's trust account was deposited into [the con man's] bank accounts and was used to pay for his 'expensive toys.'"

If you think Miers wasn't involved in any of this -- think again. Miers wasn't just any old lawyer at the firm. She was the Managing Partner -- the big cheese.

Environmental Protection Agency Also Run By "Inept Political Hacks"

From skippy:

while our corporate media sleeps...

cover-up: toxic waters 'will make new orleans unsafe for a decade'

toxic chemicals in the new orleans flood waters will make the city unsafe for full human habitation for a decade, a us government official has told the independent on sunday. and, he added, the bush administration is covering up the danger.

...mr kaufman claimed the bush administration was playing down the need for a clean-up: the epa has not been included in the core white house group tackling the crisis. "its budget has been cut and inept political hacks have been put in key positions," mr kaufman said. - the independent

We must remember that Bush's EPA lied to the workers at Ground Zero about environmental hazards from the collapse of the World Trade Center, and that today thousands are sick as a result:

Updated 9/11 Report Examines Failure to Protect Citizens

"Thousands of workers and residents who have been exposed to 9/11-related contamination are now sick," said Joel Shufro, Executive Director, New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. "Many of them might never have been exposed if federal officials had not downplayed the hazard in Lower Manhattan and the importance of wearing appropriate protective equipment at all times. Rescue and recovery workers in the Gulf Coast must not be subjected to the same lack of attention to their potential exposures. Until the post-Katrina air (and the water rescuers are wading in) is proven safe, it should be regarded as hazardous, so rescuers and others exposed should receive necessary training and wear appropriate respiratory protection and skin protection, if it is available. If either the training or the gear is not available, emergency officials should make a very high priority of obtaining it, while providing medical surveillance for workers engaged in the rescue and recovery."

Can You Say Forgery? Fraud? Malfeasance?

The White House’s White-Out Problem

The Bush administration has gotten into the nasty habit of doctoring its reports whenever the facts don’t match its preconceived agenda. Here are some instances of the White House’s magic pen at work:

Cattle Grazing: “The Bush administration altered critical portions of a scientific analysis of the environmental impact of cattle grazing on public lands before announcing relaxed grazing limits on those lands, according to scientists involved in the study…conclusions that the proposed rules might adversely affect water quality and wildlife, including endangered species, were excised and replaced with language justifying less-stringent regulations favored by cattle ranchers.”

Hog Farming: Nationally respected Agriculture Department microbiologist Dr. Zahn discovered that hog farms were emitting drug-resistant airborne bacteria that “if breathed by humans, would make them harder to treat when ill. Zahn presented his findings at a scientific conference in 2000, but the Bush administration stopped him from publishing his data 11 times between September 2001 and April 2002, he said. When Danish researchers sought to learn more about his work, Zahn wasn’t allowed to share his techniques.”

Climate Change: “A White House official who once led the oil industry’s fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents…[The] official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.”

Air Quality at Ground Zero: “In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the White House instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to give the public misleading information, telling New Yorkers it was safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality was not available. That finding is included in a report released Friday by the Office of the Inspector General of the EPA. It noted that some of the agency’s news releases in the weeks after the attack were softened before being released to the public: Reassuring information was added, while cautionary information was deleted.”

Toxicology of Mercury: “The White House and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) made changes to a report from the National Academy of Sciences on the toxicology of mercury, a powerful neurotoxin that is especially dangerous to pregnant women and young children…White House staff made editorial interventions in the report, which was commissioned by Congress to establish the science on the risks associated with mercury. The White House’s alterations downplayed the risks of mercury, replaced specific enumerations of mercury-related harms with bland, general references, and introduced additional emphasis on uncertainty.”

Effectiveness of Condoms: “The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and USAID have removed or revised fact sheets on condoms, excising information about their effectiveness in disease prevention, and promoting abstinence instead.”

Effects of Oil Drilling on the Arctic Refuge: “Interior Secretary Gale Norton substantially altered biological findings from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concerning effects of oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before she transmitted them to Congress, according to documents released October 19 by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.” In one instance, Norton’s defense was that she “simply made an error in her testimony – saying ‘outside’ when she meant to say ‘inside.’”

Abortion: “The removal from a National Cancer Institute website of a scientific analysis concluding that abortions do not increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer. That move, in November 2002, contradicted the broad medical consensus, and members of Congress protested the change. In response, the NCI updated its website to include the conclusion of a panel of experts that induced abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk.”

HIV/AIDS: “During the latter half of 2002, the Administration began removing scientific information, relating to the spread of HIV, from government websites, including those of the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. Much of the information that was removed contracted [sic] claims made by the administration’s abstinence-only agenda.”

Cancer: Earlier this year, “EPA’s guidelines acknowledge[d], for the first time, that children under 2 years of age are 10 times more likely to get cancer from certain chemicals than adults who are similarly exposed. But the White House Office of Management and Budget undermined that acknowledgment by inserting language in the guidelines that make it easy for industry to block EPA from following them when assessing cancer-causing chemicals.”

Stem Cell Research: “[The] Bush administration dismissed Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, a leading cell biologist, and Dr. William May, a prominent medical ethicist, from the President’s Council on Bioethics…[Blackburn] was removed from the panel soon after she objected to a Council report on stem cell research. In an essay in the April 1, 2004, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Blackburn recounted how the dissenting opinion she submitted, which she believes reflects the scientific consensus in America, was not included in the council’s reports even though she had been told the reports would represent the views of all the council’s members.”

Ground-Water: Vice President Dick Cheney’s old company Halliburton “pioneered” an oil-drilling technique that “can contaminate drinking water supplies with carcinogens and is therefore required by law to be regulated by the EPA.” Halliburton has spent years trying to get the federal government to exempt the technique from environmental regulations.” A senior Environmental Protection Agency recently revealed that “the EPA [initially concluded] that the technique can be dangerous to public health, but then [deleted] the conclusion after Cheney’s office demanded it.” Furthermore, six of the seven EPA panel members who decided that the technique was “safe” had all come from the energy industry.

Not to mention the reduction of the requested tobacco penalty from $130 to $10 billion. Talk about a red pen!