Forging his way through the predictable UK media censorship: Dr Andrew Wakefield Responds to Measles Outbreak in Swansea
Entries in Toxic Pollution (97)
Video Of Romney Claiming A Boston Coal Plant Kills People
October 17, 2012 Gov. Romney is the flip flopper in Chief. Here he is claiming a Boston based coal plant kills people. Now he claims to be the champion of coal.
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http://www.usaprogressive.com/2012/10/video-of-romney-claiming-boston-coal.html
S. D. Wells -- The $3 billion Human Genome Project was supposed to find the root causes of all diseases, but turned out to be a scientific boondoggle
September 12, 2012 To ferret out the genetic roots of common diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's and then generate treatments" was the true goal of the 10-year, $3 billion human genome project, or was it? Geneticists who were paid a very pretty penny to study the genetics of disease are claiming they are "back to square one" in knowing where to look for the roots of these diseases, including heart disease and diabetes. But are any of them really diseases at all?
Most diseases are actually contagious, infectious and/or genetic defects, but the four leading causes of death in America, for the most part, are not. So what's the real deal? In June 2000, President Clinton announced that the genome project would "Revolutionize the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of most, IF NOT ALL, human diseases." He then added, "You will see a complete transformation in therapeutic medicine." Remember that Clinton is the man who balanced the national budget.
"Genomics is a way to do science, not medicine," said Harold Varmus, former president of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, who became director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Both organizations pay their presidents and CEO's massive salaries and bonuses, using up most of the public donated monies for administrative costs, all while burying cures for disease (http://just-say-no-to-chemo.blogspot.com). Varmus claims the findings have explained only a small part of the risk of getting a disease, and that scientists now fear even those could be "statistical illusions." (http://www.cancer.gov/aboutnci/director)
Read more.. http://www.naturalnews.com/037167_Human_Genome_Project_scientific_failure_disease.html
Tom Philpott - Are Our Oceans on a Collision Course?
June 6, 2012 Back in 2006, a team of scientists from Canada, the United States, Sweden, and Panama published a landmark report [1]in the prestigious journal Science on the state of the oceans. The researchers highlighted what they called an "ongoing erosion of diversity" in sea-life that, if left unchecked, would lead to the "collapse of all taxa currently being fished by the mid-21st century."
Stripped of scientese, what the report described was the real possibility of the ocean as a vast, fetid grey zone, not quite dead but no longer able to provide a significant amount of food to humanity. And not in some unimaginably distant future, but rather in just four short decades, around the time when your aughts-era infant will reach middle age.
When the report dropped, it grabbed attention in the eco-foodie world like a great white shark sunning its dorsal fin in the shallows of a crowded beach. I was just beginning to write about food politics at the time, and the Science study jolted me from my land-locked fixations and opened the ocean as a rich and urgent topic.
Not only do the oceans cover more than two-thirds of the planet, but they're also home to 90 percent of the planet's living biomass. [2] Snuffing out their astonishing biodiversity would have unpredictable consequences for we creatures who dwell on the earth's relatively rare swaths of dry land. Surely, I thought at the time, the Science paper would spark a global push to heal what ails that murky, saline region that surrounds us.
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http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/06/oceans-still-headed-disaster
John Raymond - Indian Point: Still America’s Most Dangerous Nuclear Plant?
June 4, 2012 “Shut it down! Shut it down! Shut it down!” rang through the cavernous grand ballroom of the Doubletree Hotel in Tarrytown, NY, last week when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staged an Orwellian charade promoted as an “open house” held to reassure the public that the Indian Point nuclear power plant was, as the New York Post headlined the following day, “Still Safe!”
The NRC’s annual “safety assessment” of the plant, which sits on the Hudson River 30 miles north of New York City, was based on 11,000 hours of ”inspection activities.” It found that Indian Point performed “within expected regulatory bounds” and the 25 matters that do require attention but “no additional NRC oversight,” are ‘low risk’, or have “very low safety significance.”
“So,” the Post mused, “will this finally silence the ‘shut it down’ crowd? …Don’t hold your breath.”
But do keep your fingers crossed…if you’re one of the 17.5 million people living within 50 miles of the plant…
“The NRC’s annual assessment completely fails to address the public’s primary concerns about Indian Point — evacuation planning, earthquake risk and nuclear waste storage post-Fukushima,” said Phillip Musegaas, a lawyer with Riverkeeper, an environmental group based in Ossining, NY.
Those concerns were addressed in Riverkeeper’s briefing held in the rear of the ballroom prior to the NRC’s hearing that night. Some highlights:
Read More:
HTTP://WWW.COUNTERPUNCH.ORG/2012/06/01/INDIAN-POINT-STILL-AMERICAS-MOST-DANGEROUS-NUCLEAR-PLANT/
Mike Barrett - Factory Farms Produce 100 Times More Waste than U.S. Population
May 31, 2012 If you thought you were a major contributor to pollution, just wait until you hear this. Factory farms produce 100 times more waste than every single person in the United States combined. The amount of waste produced by these factories is in such mass quantities that it is virtually impossible to clean up properly. Much of this waste is dumped into the water supply, drastically increasing overall water pollution as well as contributing to the pollution found in drinking water.
Back in 2008 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made a decision that affected many factory farms. They stated that any confined animal feeding operation (CAFO), also known as factory farms, “designed, constructed, operated, and maintained in a manner such that the CAFO will discharge” animal waste must apply for a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit under the Clean Water Act. The livestock industry ridiculed this notion.
There have been past rulings concerning this issue that forced farmers to have a permit to discharge waste and to have a set plan as to how the waste would be discharged, or they would face civil or criminal penalties. The 2008 ruling went further with the issue, putting even more criteria in place to follow.
Read More:
http://naturalsociety.com/factory-farms-produce-100-times-waste-us-population/
Sayer Ji - Eating Aluminum: Is It As Safe As Our Regulators Say?
May 30, 2012 Aluminum toxicity, a characteristically manmade problem, is now impossible to avoid, and has become a postmodern rite of passage. Our environment has become so polluted with the stuff, that even our crop plants are being threatened, with biotechnology firms now scrambling to genetically engineer aluminum-tolerance into them as a possible, though still desperate solution.
Not only are we being exposed, daily, through increasingly polluted water, soil and air, but many of our regulatory agencies consider it perfectly safe to intentionally consume or inject the stuff directly into our bodies.
While there is no known physiologic need or positive biological role for aluminum in the human body, the FDA is perfectly content with the population it is charged with protecting eating it as a "food grade" additive. This same "regulatory agency" promotes the mythical concept of a "safe" food grade petroleum, allowing food manufacturers to surreptitiously feed us over half a pound a year, which is likely why human autopsies have revealed that almost half of us have pathological deposits of the stuff in our livers and spleen.*
Technically, there are 8 forms of aluminum the government considers benign enough to receive GRAS, or Generally Recognized As Safe, status - a designation which basically exempts the substance from adequate safety testing. Those 8 forms are:
Read More:
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/eating-aluminum-it-safe-our-regulators-say
Ralph Nader - The Rise of Re-Use
May 24, 2012 Last week I read that the glitzy world of virtual reality created instant multi-millionaires and several billionaires when Facebook went public selling shares.
Last week I also noted the important real world problem of some 250 million tons of solid waste a year in our country alone.
Guess which “world” gets the most investment, status, fame, klieg lights, and attention of the skilled classes and the power structure?
Guess which world is more important for our wellbeing and that of the planet?
You’ve heard of CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook’s 900 million users exchanging gossip and other personal pleasantries or worries through a medium that inflates narcissism.
You’ve probably not heard of Ben Rose of the New York City Materials Exchange Development Program (NYC MEDP) or the equivalent organizations in your communities providing services to thousands of charitable non-profit groups which promote the donating and reusing of materials to avoid incineration, landfilling and recycling.
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Bernie Sanders - Let's End Polluter Welfare
May 23, 2012 A time when we have more than $15 trillion national debt, American taxpayers are set to give away over $110 billion dollars to the oil, gas, and coal industries over the next decade. Clearly, we cannot afford it. When the five largest oil companies made over $1 trillion in profits in the last decade, with some paying no federal income taxes for part of that time, they certainly do not need it.
It is time we end this corporate welfare in the form of massive subsidies and tax breaks to hugely profitable fossil fuel corporations. It is time for Congress to support the interests of the taxpayer instead of powerful special interests like the oil and coal industries. That is why I joined with Congressman Keith Ellison to introduce legislation in the Senate and the House called the End Polluter Welfare Act. Our proposal is backed by grassroots and public-interest organizations including 350.org, Friends of the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and many others.
It is immoral that some in Congress advocate savage cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security while those same people vote to preserve billions in tax breaks for Exxon Mobil which is the most profitable corporation in America. It is equally obscene that as those members of Congress fight to continue never-ending fossil fuel subsidies worth tens of billions, they are working overtime to deny a one-year extension for key sustainable energy incentives for the emerging wind and solar industries. Instead of passing strong legislation to help reverse global warming, Congress continues the giveaways to the 200-year-old fossil fuel industry even as that industry's carbon pollution wreaks devastation on our planet. Enough is enough.
Read More:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Let-s-End-Polluter-Welfare-by-Bernie-Sanders-120521-833.html
Jan Haverkamp - Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: Socializing Risks, Privatizing Profits
May 17, 2012 Last week, the inevitable finally happened. The company responsible for the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, has been nationalized. Japan’s trade and industry minister Yukio Edano announced a de facto state take-over of the company with a further injection of $12.5bn, bringing the total of state capital in TEPCO to $33.2bn. Edano has said that: “Without the state funds, (TEPCO) cannot provide a stable supply of electricity and pay for compensation and decommissioning costs”.
The Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe has cost TEPCO over $100bn in estimated costs, which includes compensation and clean-up costs. However, the actual costs are much bigger. Many Japanese are bearing the brunt of the damages in their daily lives with most of their claims and losses going uncompensated and most of their suffering unrecognized.
The nationalization of TEPCO, together with a legal practice called “channeling of liability” in which all liability related to the Fukushima nuclear disaster has to be channeled to TEPCO, means Japanese taxpayers and ratepayers will foot most of the bill.
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