tagged w/ Poison
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The history of forcing fluoride on humans through the fluoridation of drinking water is wrought with lies, greed and deception. Governments that add fluoride to drinking water supplies insist that it is safe, beneficial and necessary, however, scientific evidence shows that fluoride is not safe to ingest and areas that fluoridate their drinking water supplies have higher rates of cavities, cancer, dental fluorosis, osteoporosis and other health problems. Because of the push from the aluminum industry, pharmaceutical companies and weapons manufacturers, fluoride continues to be added to water supplies all over North America and due to recent legal actions against water companies that fluoridate drinking water supplies, precedent has been set that will make it impossible for suits to be filed against water suppliers that fluoridate. There is a growing resistance against adding toxic fluoride to our water supplies, but unfortunately, because fluoride has become "the lifeblood of the modern industrial economy"(Bryson 2004), there is too much money at stake for those who endorse water fluoridation . The lies of the benefits of water fluoridation will continue to be fed to the public, not to encourage health benefits to a large number of people, but to profit the military-industrial complex. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/bizzareweird/43055-the-fluoride-conspiracy-the-greatest-case-of-scientific-fraud-of-this-centuryThe history of forcing fluoride on humans through the fluoridation of drinking water... more
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According to an article in German in the Ithaca journal, a German university study has found significant concentrations of glyphosate in the urine samples of city dwellers. The analysis of the urine samples apparently found that all had concentrations of glyphosate at 5 to 20-fold the limit for drinking water. As well as being used increasingly widely in food production, glyphosate-based weedkillers often also get sprayed onto railway lines, urban pavements and roadsides.
http://www.ithaka-journal.net/herbizide-im-urin
Disturbingly, the Ithaca journal reports (in our translation), "The address of the university labs, which did the research, the data and the evaluation of the research method is known to the editors. Because of significant pressure by agrochemical representatives and the fear that the work of the lab could be influenced, the complete analytical data will only be published in the course of this year."
http://www.ithaka-journal.net/herbizide-im-urin
News of this study comes not long after the publication of a study confirming glyphosate was contaminating groundwater. Last year also saw the publication of two US Geological Survey studies which consistently found glyphosate in streams, rain and even air in agricultural areas of the US.
http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/13549
Other recent studies - see the abstracts of the 4 below - indicate that people may not only be absorbing glyphosate from multiple sources but that it can circulate in the blood and can even cross the placental barrier and so reach the developing fetus.
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Aris, A. and S. Leblanc (2011). "Maternal and fetal exposure to pesticides associated to genetically modified foods in EasternTownships of Quebec, Canada."
ReproductiveToxicology 31(4).
Pesticides associated to genetically modified foods (PAGMF), are engineered to tolerate herbicides such as glyphosate (GLYP) and gluphosinate (GLUF) or insecticides such as the bacterial toxin bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). The aim of this study was to evaluate the correlation between maternal and fetal exposure, and to determine exposure levels of GLYPandits metabolite aminomethylphosphoricacid (AMPA), GLUF and its metabolite 3-methylphosphinicopropionicacid (3-MPPA) and Cry1Ab protein (a Bt toxin) in Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada. Blood of thirty pregnant women (PW) and thirty-nine nonpregnant women (NPW)were studied. Serum GLYPand GLUF were detected in NPW and not detected in PW. Serum 3-MPPA and CryAb1toxin were detected in PW,their fetuses and NPW. This is the first study to reveal the presence of circulating PAGMF in women with and without pregnancy, paving the way for a new field in reproductive toxicology including nutrition and utero-placental toxicities.
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Chang, F. C., M. F. Simcik, et al. (2011). "Occurrence and fate of the herbicide glyphosate and its degradate aminomethylphosphonic acid in the atmosphere."
Environ Toxicol Chem 30(3): 548–555.
This is the first report on the ambient levels of glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in the United States, and its major degradation product, aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA), in air and rain. Concurrent, weekly integrated air particle and rain samples were collected during two growing seasons in agricultural areas in Mississippi and Iowa. Rain was also collected in Indiana in a preliminary phase of the study. The frequency of glyphosate detection ranged from 60 to 100% in both air and rain. The concentrations of glyphosate ranged from antipyrine>benzoic acid>glyphosate in terms of both the apparent permeability coefficient and the initial slope, defined as the linear rate of substance transferred to the fetal compartment as percent per time, a parameter used to compare the two experimental models. The results from the in vitro studies were in excellent agreement with the ex vivo results (caffeine approximately antipyrine>benzoic acid>glyphosate). However the transfer rate was much slower in the BeWo cells compared to the perfusion system. The advantages and limitations of each model are discussed in order to assist in the preparation, prediction, and performance of future studies of maternal-fetal transfer.According to an article in German in the Ithaca journal, a German university study has... more
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You’ve all heard the news: farmers across the country are losing their fields to superweeds so formidable and fast-spreading that they break farm machinery and render millions of acres of farmland useless. These superweeds have evolved as a direct consequence of Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready pesticide-seed package. Now superbugs are emerging, resistant to Monsanto’s transgenic insecticidal crops. Ecologists predicted this ecological disaster 15 years ago.
The big question is, can we possibly learn from this ecological and agronomic disaster? The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Monsanto’s rival, Dow Chemical, apparently cannot.
From bad to worse
Instead of abandoning this losing strategy, Dow is trying to get us running faster on the same old broken pesticide treadmill. Dow and USDA are hoping to quietly approve a new genetically engineered corn seed that basically swaps RoundUp (glyphosate) out and an even worse weedkiller (2,4-D) in. Bad idea.
As with Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready lines, the herbicide with which these seeds are engineered to be used (2,4-D) will surge in use. Dow aims to get 2,4-D-resistant corn to market this year, soy next year and cotton in 2015. These three crops dominate U.S. agriculture, blanketing over 100 million acres of mono-cropped countryside and driving the pesticide market. Only this time, the fallout will be even worse. Here’s why:
2,4-D is a more toxic herbicide, both to humans and to plants. 2,4-D is a reproductive toxicant (associated with lower sperm counts) and its formulations have been linked to cancer (in particular non-Hodgkins lymphoma), disruption of the immune and endocrine (hormone) systems and birth defects. EPA has also expressed a “concern for developmental neurotoxicity resulting from exposure to 2,4-D.”
2,4-D does and will drift off of target crops – both through spray drift and volatilization. The latter enables chemicals to travel with moving air masses for miles. Neither applicator nor innocent bystander can prevent such movement. The spread of 2,4-D across our lands will damage non-target crops and vegetation, devastate adjacent ecosystems and poses a very real threat to rural economies and farmers growing non-2,4-D-resistant crops. Conventional farmers growing their product miles away will suffer severe crop losses, while organic farmers will lose both crops and certification, resulting in business failures, job losses and an economic unraveling of already-stressed rural communities.
2,4-D-resistant “superweeds” will arise and spread just as RoundUp-resistant “superweeds” have taken over farms and countryside in the Midwest and Southeast. Where will this leave struggling farmers? What even more deadly pesticide will the biotech companies resort to next?
Corn is wind-pollinated which means that genetic material from 2,4-D corn will contaminate non-GE corn. You cannot put a GE genie back in the bottle.
What next?
Will Dow provide compensation to farmers, their children and rural communities for the harms likely to occur should the company secure approval of its 2, 4-D resistant corn? I rather doubt it. Dow has still refused to assume responsibility for the deaths and devastation arising from the pesticide explosion in Bhopal, India in 1984, so why would the company show any integrity now?
It will take an active, engaged public to get USDA back on track and in the business of serving the public interest.
What about USDA? Can we expect our public agency to carefully scrutinize the likely fallout of approving 2,4-D resistant corn? One problem is that USDA does not really want to know what the public thinks.
More at the linkYou’ve all heard the news: farmers across the country are losing their fields to... more
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WILL LORD COE, AND MAYOR BORIS JOHNSON,
TAKE THE BHOPAL WATER TASTE CHALLENGE?
FOR IMMEDIATE USE
- Monday the 9th January, Trafalgar Square, 2.15pm
Despite the continuing furore concerning Dow Chemical’s sponsorship of the London Olympics, LOCOG’s position is that they remain satisfied with Dow Chemical’s ethical performance and sustainability.
The people of Bhopal beg to differ and, on Monday the 9th January, just 200 days before the London Olympics begin, a survivor of the Bhopal Disaster will be challenging both Lord Coe, and Mayor Boris Johnson, to taste some Bhopal drinking water. This water is contaminated with highly toxic chemicals that Dow’s subsidiary, Union Carbide, recklessly dumped while their Bhopal factory was in production.
Thousands of people in Bhopal have no other source of drinking water than this highly contaminated source. But, the Dow Chemical Company not only chooses not to accept responsibility for Union Carbide’s mess it even refuses, despite a huge body of scientific evidence, to accept that the groundwater is even contaminated!
Farah Williams, a survivor of the Bhopal Disaster, will be inviting Lord Coe and Mayor Johnson to taste some of Dow’s finest produce. She will have a specially designed bottle of B’eauPal drinking water (a spoof mineral water product) and can be filmed or photographed in front of the Olympic Countdown clock. The clock will be adorned with a specially designed banner explaining that there are only ’200 Days Left to Dump Dow’!
Barry Gardiner MP, ’Friends Of India’ will be on hand for interviews, along with Lorraine Close the host of a change.org petition demanding Dow be dropped from the Olympics which has already attracted nearly 17,000 signatures.
More at the linkWILL LORD COE, AND MAYOR BORIS JOHNSON,
TAKE THE BHOPAL WATER TASTE CHALLENGE?
FOR... more
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-- As the trial begins in a major toxic pollution lawsuit against Monsanto Co., jurors won't be allowed to tackle a key issue: Should the company pay to clean up dioxin it allegedly spewed across the city of Nitro?
Experts won't testify about the need for property remediation. Lawyers won't argue about the issue. Jurors won't be asked to force Monsanto to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars such a project could cost.
Judges O.C. Spaulding and Derek Swope issued rulings in July and November that threw out that part of the case.
As a result, Putnam County jurors will decide only if current and former Nitro residents should receive medical monitoring to detect diseases potentially caused by exposure to Monsanto's dioxin. They won't be able to do anything to clean up homes and businesses, ending the toxic exposure.
Lawyers for thousands of residents and property owners in the class-action suit appealed the decisions by Spaulding and Swope. They say the rulings left a huge gap in their efforts to deal with the legacy of Monsanto's chemical-making operations.
"The current presence of dioxin contamination in the class area is a public-health hazard," the lawyers argued in court documents. "It makes little sense to initiate a medical monitoring program for a population without first eliminating that population's exposure to the toxin at issue."
The West Virginia Supreme Court isn't likely to even begin considering the appeal until April. By the time a decision is made, the trial on the medical monitoring question will probably be over.
The situation has left insiders and observers scratching their heads, as lawyers for Monsanto and Nitro residents prepare to head into one of the biggest civil trials in the Kanawha Valley in years.
"It doesn't make any sense from the standpoint of the impact on the community," said longtime Nitro lawyer Harvey Peyton.
Peyton is a former law partner of Charleston attorney Stuart Calwell, who is the lead lawyer for Nitro residents in the case.
Twenty-eight years ago, Calwell and Peyton were among the lawyers who lost in a landmark effort to get jurors to hold Monsanto responsible for dioxin-linked illnesses among Nitro plant workers.
Today, the science showing dioxin's dangers is much more advanced. The law has created some new ways -- such as medical monitoring cases -- to address these issues. Industry has also gotten much better at fighting citizen and worker lawsuits, and at the lobbying and public relations efforts that can block tougher regulations or expensive cleanups.
For decades, chemical plants like Monsanto's provided Kanawha Valley residents with thousands of good-paying jobs. The industry has been in a long decline, and the bulk of those jobs have disappeared. The Monsanto plant went through several ownership changes and then closed in 2004.
Generations of workers put food on their tables and sent kids to college with a chemical plant paycheck. But the industry's legacy also includes tough questions about long-term health effects on workers and plant neighbors.
More than 40 years after Monsanto stopped making 2,4,5-T, the Agent Orange ingredient blamed for much of the plant's dioxin pollution, it's not clear if Nitro residents are any closer to getting answers to such questions.
In the beginning
Nitro was born as a literal World War I boomtown, the location of one of the federal government's large gunpowder plants. The name "Nitro" came from the chemical term Nitro-Cellulose, which was the type of gunpowder to be produced.
When the war ended, private companies took over the government buildings and converted them into chemical plants. Among the companies was Monsanto, which began making rubber chemicals for the tire industry.
In about 1947, Monsanto's agricultural division designed a new molecule called 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacidic acid, or 2,4,5-T. This new substances killed plants by making their roots outgrow their leaves. Plants destroyed themselves through defoliation.
Monsanto began making this powerful herbicide ingredient in Nitro in 1949. Workers cooked batches of it in large pots, called autoclaves, rather than making it through a continuous production stream.
Monsanto made 2,4,5-T in Nitro for more than 30 years. In its best-known form, 2,4,5-T was used as an ingredient in Agent Orange, the defoliant deployed widely in the Vietnam War.
But 2,4-5-T was contaminated. Every batch of it contained 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-para-dioxin. This chemical is also known as 2,3,7,8-TCDD, or more commonly, simply as dioxin.
Dioxin has been linked to cancer, birth defects, learning disabilities, endometriosis, infertility, and suppressed immune functions. The chemical builds up in tissue over time, meaning that even small exposures can accumulate to dangerous levels.
An early sign of dioxin's effects came in March 1949. A massive explosion rocked the Nitro plant when a pressure valve blew on a 2,4,5-T cooking container. More than 220 workers got sick.
Years later, more than 170 workers sued Monsanto, alleging dioxin exposure at the plant had made them ill. Cases involving seven of the workers went to trial in federal court in 1984.
After an 11-month trial, a jury awarded one of the workers, John Hein, $200,000 for bladder cancer he contracted because of exposure at the plant to another chemical, para-aminobiphynol, or PAB.
Jurors found that dioxin had made the other workers sick and that Monsanto had not acted diligently in seeking to determine the possible impact of exposure on worker health.
More at the link-- As the trial begins in a major toxic pollution lawsuit against Monsanto Co., jurors... more
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Yesterday, an Ecuadorian appellate court upheld a historic $18 billion award against Chevron for the company's deliberate contamination of the Ecuadorian Amazon. The decision is the largest environmental award ever handed down and the result of an 18-year legal battle brought by some 30,000 indigenous peoples and farmers seeking a clean up of contaminated sites, clean drinking water, and health care.
Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network, which have spent years fighting on the side of the Ecuadorians in their effort to hold Chevron accountable for these egregious environmental crimes and human rights abuses, release the following statement in response to the verdict:
"For a second time, in a jurisdiction of its own choosing, Chevron was found guilty of widespread oil contamination in Ecuador's Amazon. It is a historic triumph for the thousands of victims who have suffered for over four decades from Chevron's drill-and-dump practices.
"Yesterday's ruling, based in large part on Chevron's own evidence, once again proves that the company is responsible for deliberately dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste sludge into local streams and rivers, which thousands depend on for drinking, bathing, and fishing, and created a public health crisis in the rainforest region.
"Chevron has spent more than a decade and hundreds of millions of dollars in a vain attempt to evade accountability and in doing so exacerbating the suffering of thousands of rainforest residents. The company says it will continue deploying its armies of lawyers with yet more legal stonewalling tactics, still hoping that its unlimited resources can outspend and outlast the course of justice. But the guilty verdict sends a loud and clear message: It is time for Chevron to clean up the Ecuadorian Amazon."
The Ecuador decision comes at a time when Chevron also faces criminal charges and fines up to U.S. $11 billion in Brazil for its negligence in its operations. If convicted, the company will be permanently banned from doing business in the South American country.
More at the linkYesterday, an Ecuadorian appellate court upheld a historic $18 billion award against... more
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Proven in the Jungles of Vietnam as Part of Agent Orange!
Dow Chemical is seeking USDA approval for a genetically engineered (GE) version of corn that is resistant to 2,4-D, a herbicide that was used in the formulation of the highly toxic defoliant Agent Orange. Agent Orange (half 2,4-D by composition) was extensively used in Vietnam by the military to destroy forests and crops.
Dow’s Christmas gift for America was formally announced, by the USDA, in the December 27, 2011 edition of the Federal Register. If the federal government wants to bury something in the news, and burn up part of our window to publicly respond, you can bet they’ll do it around the holidays. The public has 60 days to comment on Dow’s petition for deregulation, and can do so online at:
http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=APHIS-2010-0103-0001
Weeds are increasingly adapting to Monsanto’s genetically engineered line of crops that rely on the use of a different herbicide, glyphosate, which Monsanto markets as Round-up®. This is leading competitors, like Dow, and proponents of GE agriculture to look for weed killing alternatives. Herbicides more toxic than Round-up® appear to be next up in the pipeline.
2,4-D, a systemic herbicide, is used on many types of broadleaf weeds. It is a chlorinated phenoxy compound that has caused serious eye and skin irritation among agricultural workers. According to information compiled by Cornell University, rats fed 2,4-D produced “fetuses with abdominal cavity bleeding and increased mortality.” And 2,4-D may cause infertility, birth defects, organ toxicity and neurological effects.
As Dow’s GE corn is resistant to the herbicide, it is possible that the plant may absorb 2,4-D residues into its structure, and then transfer those chemicals, or their related metabolites, to livestock and humans consuming corn or milk, meat and eggs produced from the GE crop.
The USDA also just announced the proposed approval for a new strain of drought resistant corn, and a soybean, Soymega™, both from Monsanto. The Obama White House appears to be giving Monsanto and Dow, and other biotechnology corporations, everything they want while the public, according to polls, is overwhelmingly concerned about genetic engineering and losing control of our diets.
Thanks for speaking out in defense of a sane food production system. We hope you will be proactive by doing the following to protect your family:
1.Exclusively purchase organic products in the supermarket. They are the only food items that are legally prohibited from using GMOs with oversight sanctioned by Congress and independent watchdogs like The Cornucopia Institute.
2.We hope you also consider signing the following petition, asking President Barack Obama and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to consider the widespread public opposition to further release of novel genetic organisms in our environment. Given the immaturity of the industry, the long-term impacts to health and the environment are simply unknown. The petition also calls for mandatory labeling of GMOs giving consumers the right to choose.
Click here to read and sign this petition.
More at the link
http://earthfirst.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/dow-chemical.jpgProven in the Jungles of Vietnam as Part of Agent Orange!
Dow Chemical is seeking... more
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DNAinfo...
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Fur Coats Banned at Animal Lover's East Side Bars
December 21, 2011 7:18am | By Serena Solomon, DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
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EAST VILLAGE (New York City) — An expensive fur won't get you past the velvet rope at Johnny Barounis' East Side bars — in fact, it will stop you in your tracks.
Barounis, who owns establishments on the Upper East Side, the Lower East Side and in the East Village, is refusing to serve patrons who come in wearing pelts.
The 51-year-old vegetarian has won many fans and a few critics with his anti-cruelty stance, which has vetted customers at his bars for more than ten years and also extends to bans on certain foods, like veal and foie gras.
“It has been something I have done my whole life,” said Barounis, the 51-year-old Upper West Side resident whose bars include the Lower East Side's Revision Bar and Gallery and the Back Room.
“I was always anti-hunting, anti-fur.”
As the evening crowd roll into his trendy establishments, doormen question the pelts of patrons for their authenticity and even inspect the furs if there is any doubt.
“We tell people you are welcome to come in, but the fur stays out” said Barounis, as he sat in Revision, on Avenue B and 14th Street, that is furnished with recycled materials.
Animals that are raised for their fur are often kept in small spaces like battery hens and meet their end by suffocation, electrocution, gas and poison, according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal (PETA), of which Barounis is a member.
While many regular patrons are aware of the rule, some have been caught off guard. Last winter at the Back Room one woman became irate when she was denied entry due to her coat.
“She called the police and they almost locked her up for the false alarm,” Barounis said, who also owns the Auction House and Fetch on the Upper East Side.
Not only does the cruelty aspect to fur upset Barounis, but that the animal’s death is often worn as a status symbol only adds to the frustration.
“I guess she felt entitled enough [to call the police] because she could not get into a bar with a fur coat,” he said, comparing it to “wearing a trophy.”
However, most patrons are graceful when their outfit is rejected. Another woman who also wanted to drink at the Back Room, a speakeasy with an unassuming entry at 102 Norfolk Street, simply took her fur coat off.
“She rolled it up and stuck it in a dark corner in the alley,” said Barounis, adding that the woman fetched it after her night out. “She made no bones about it.”
While Barounis sticks to his rule, he understands the conviction is a personal matter and is not interested in enforcing his views outside the walls of the bars he owns.
“No radicalism here, there is no red paint,” he said.
It was only about eight years ago that Barounis took his beliefs to the next level and became a vegetarian with his wife. While he stuck to it, Barounis didn’t bother trying to convince her out of abandoning the lifestyle a few years later.
While Barounis said he would never deny anyone entry for being a meat eater, he has drawn the line at serving products that are exceptionally cruel to animals like, he says, foie gras and veal.
Leather is still allowed because Barounis believes those animals are part of the food chain. They are not only killed for their skin, but their meat as well.
“The fur thing is basically what I can do to help change some behavior,” he said.
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Fur Coats Banned at Animal Lover's East Side Bars
December... more
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There will definitely not be any Dow Chemical branding on the [stadium] wrap before, during or after the Olympic Games," announced a spokeswomen for the London 2012 organizing committee.
The October 18 development marks progress in a global campaign to shame Dow into admitting accountability to victims of the Union Carbide pesticide plant explosion in Bhopal in 1984. Dow merged with UC in 1999, yet has denied liability for the ongoing suffering of tens of thousands.
In 2010, Dow signed a 10-year deal with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as "Worldwide Olympic Partner." IOC rules forbid advertising on game venues, but Dow is paying for the $11 million fabric wrap encircling the stadium, and had planned to emblazon its logo on five "test panels" in preparation for the games.
As GroundTruth reported in October, victims of the Bhopal disaster, including the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, have been working with Members of Parliament in Britain to remove Dow as sponsor of games. Pulling the logo signals that public outrage and political pressure is having an impact.
Some in India's government, the Sports Ministry, and the Indian Olympics Association (IOA) have joined in the campaign. IOA acting president VK Malhotra told The Times of India that removal of Dow's logo is not enough: "Our demand is that Dow should be removed as a sponsor and we have expressed strong reservation with the Olympics. We are sending our communication to Dow as well as IOC on this regard."
More at the linkThere will definitely not be any Dow Chemical branding on the [stadium] wrap before,... more
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Large numbers of infants and toddlers have died from lead poisoning in Nigerian villages where their parents process gold ore inside their family compounds, according to a report published Tuesday by an international team of researchers.
In two Nigerian communities, 118 children under the age of 5 died in a single year – 25 percent of the children in that age group. For the first time, the researchers uncovered strong evidence that points to lead as the likely cause for nearly all of those deaths. In addition, all of the surviving children who were tested suffered from lead poisoning, too.
“To our knowledge, this is the first documentation of an outbreak of childhood lead poisoning associated with artisanal gold mining,” the team, directed by lead experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wrote in the online edition of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. “Extensive environmental contamination was found in both of the villages and inside individual family compounds.”
Artisanal gold mining is small-scale, subsistence mining that occurs mostly in poor, rural communities. In the Nigerian villages, people use crude, rudimentary processes to extract gold from ore, including grinding and heating the rock. In some cases, flour-grinding machines are used. These activities contaminate the air and soil with large amounts of lead and mercury, both of which cause neurological problems in children.
Scientists found extensive environmental contamination in both of the villages and inside individual family compounds. About 85 percent of soil samples from inside the compounds exceeded safe levels of lead. Sparked by a gold rush, artisanal mining occurs throughout northern Nigeria, as well as elsewhere in Africa and in South America, including Peru. From 13 to 20 million men, women and children from over 50 developing countries are involved in artisanal mining, according to an estimate by a World Bank group.
Word first spread of hundreds of children dying in Nigeria’s Zamfara state in early 2010, when the deaths were discovered during meningitis surveillance by the international humanitarian group Médecins Sans Frontières and Nigerian public health officials. The United Nations has estimated that 400 children died there last year due to lead poisoning.
Calling the outbreak unprecedented, the scientists warned that “characterizing the full extent of the outbreak remains an urgent and ongoing matter.”
Lead poisoning is common worldwide, leading to diseases and IQ reductions, but until now, deaths have rarely been reported.
At the emergency request of Nigerian officials, researchers from the CDC and the World Health Organization visited two villages in Zamfara state where higher-than-expected numbers of children died between May, 2009 and May, 2010. They tested the blood of surviving children, took soil samples from family compounds and questioned parents about their dead children’s symptoms.
Sparked by a gold rush, artisanal gold mining has attracted from 13 to 20 million men, women and children from over 50 developing countries.
All the results were extreme. Eighty-one percent of the children who died had suffered seizures, a sign of acute lead poisoning. Of the surviving children who were tested, “all blood samples indicated lead poisoning,” while 97 percent needed immediate chelation therapy to lower those levels, according to the report. Mercury levels were lower in the children, but still excessive – four to eight times higher than the average U.S. child. And 85 percent of the soil samples taken from the family compounds exceeded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s health standard for lead. One water well had 90 times more lead than the EPA’s action level for drinking water.
More at the linkLarge numbers of infants and toddlers have died from lead poisoning in Nigerian... more
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The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) on Thursday came out in open against Dow Chemical's sponsorship of the 2012 London Olympics and has decided to lodge its protest to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
At its general body meeting in New Delhi, the IOA decided that it would seek the removal of Dow Chemical, which bought Union Carbide, responsible for the thousands of deaths during the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy. However, the issue of boycotting the event did not even come up for discussion.
Acting IOA president Vijay Kumar Malhotra said the IOA will convey the sentiments of Indians to IOC chief Jacques Rogge and London Games Organising Committee chief Sebastian Coe.
"It is IOA's considered opinion that the sponsorship by Dow Chemical is against the spirit of the Olympic ideals. Olympic Games showcase the best of human endeavour, sporting spirit and camaraderie, and to have Dow Chemical even as one of the sponsors negates all these lofty values," said Malhotra.
"IOA's views not only reflect the concerns of the victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy but the feelings of millions of people all over the world and it is not a partisan demand.
"We in fact are making IOC aware of the feelings of the people who have suffered due to that tragedy. It is not only the Indians who are protesting this sponsorship; there has been an outcry against this world over from various NGOs and other bodies. It is no longer a local issue."
There has been a huge outcry in India over Dow's involvement with the Games. Olympians and the victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy have demanded either Dow's sponsorship be withdrawn or India boycott the event.
Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/ioa-to-lodge-protest-over-london-olympic-sponsor-dow/1/164530.html
More at the linkThe Indian Olympic Association (IOA) on Thursday came out in open against Dow... more
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The verdict as well as closing remarks will be given December 6, 3:30 PM Bangalore India time. That should be around 5AM standard EST here for anyone interested in seeing justice done. I wll report on any other information I get about this.
I hope this is only a first step to bringing accountability to these purveyors of global toxicity and death.The verdict as well as closing remarks will be given December 6, 3:30 PM Bangalore... more
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Last week Toxic Free North Carolina released our latest Farm Worker Documentary Project film, Overworked & Under Spray. It’s a short piece featuring six high school-aged farmworkers’ stories about being sprayed with agricultural pesticides while tending crops in fields across the state.
For two months this summer, I crisscrossed the eastern side of North Carolina with our Student Action with Farmworkers intern Abi Bissette. We visited farmworker families in their homes, giving out pesticide safety information and discussing their rights as farmworkers. By midsummer we had assembled a group of motivated, articulate teenagers willing to speak out on film.
The young farmworkers cultivated and harvested blueberries, strawberries, sweet potatoes, green beans, grapes, cucumbers and tobacco. Here’s Felix Rodriguez, one of the youth featured in the film:
You could see the spray coming at you...but we kept on working. The next day I didn't feel so good. I wouldn't feel comfortable talking about pesticides to the owner or supervisor because they'll see you as nagging. They just really want you to work.
Enough is enough
When we asked the youth how they would fix the situation, they had a lot of impressively astute answers: put more inspectors in the fields, get rid of child labor in agriculture, make stronger regulations for crew leaders. But one message we heard loud and clear from everyone interviewed was “enough is enough.”
The exploitation of children (or anyone) for cheap food — and the poisoning of the people who work to fill our grocery store shelves — has gone on far too long. It’s time for eaters of conscience to demand an end to abusive, toxic agriculture.
More at the linkLast week Toxic Free North Carolina released our latest Farm Worker Documentary... more
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"I start off cautious with a greatest hits. That's like a few no-fail first dates, right down to some nookie right off the bat. 'Talk Dirty To Me,' wow, what a potent dose, just a handful of simple guitar chords I used to play myself before I grew up and got boring, only these guys aren't bored with that handful of simple chords.""I start off cautious with a greatest hits. That's like a few no-fail first... more
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The Indian Olympic Association may boycott the London Olympics in protest at Dow Chemical's involvement as a sponsor after a group of India's current and former Olympians organised a petition calling for athletes not to travel to London.
"We feel that it will be against the basic principles of the Olympics charter to partner with Dow Chemical, which is responsible for the ongoing disaster in Bhopal," the athletes wrote in a petition sent to the Indian government.
Dow, which will create the £7m wrap around the Olympic Stadium, has links to Union Carbide Corporation, the firm responsible for the Bhopal gas disaster in 1984 that led to thousands of deaths at the time and which many campaigners believe is still affecting the health of people in the area.
Shivraj Singh Chauhan, a minister in the Bhopal region, has backed the athletes' firm stance and demanded in a letter to India's sports minister, Ajay Maken, that the government support a boycott if Dow's sponsorship continues.
V K Malhotra, the acting president of the Indian Olympic Association, said a meeting was scheduled in 10 days' time in which the matter would be discussed after first hearing the response of the government to the petition.
The Indian government is still pursuing a further £1.1bn from Dow for victims after Union Carbide paid £300m as compensation.
Talk of a boycott will put more pressure on the London 2012 Organising Committee, which has defended the deal with Dow, despite protests from campaign groups and MPs who claim it has outstanding liabilities relating to the disaster.
The London 2012 chairman, Lord Coe, said: "I am satisfied that the ownership, operation and the involvement either at the time of the disaster or at the final settlement was not the responsibility of Dow."
More at the linkThe Indian Olympic Association may boycott the London Olympics in protest at Dow... more
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When whale biologist and Ocean Alliance founder Roger Payne began his career, the chief threat to whales was commercial whaling.
At that time, in the late 1960s, Payne estimates that 33,000 great whales were killed annually across the globe. That number has dropped significantly, due to the 1986 International Whaling Commission's moratorium on whaling. Although a number of countries continue to hunt whales, including Norway, Iceland and Japan — which many critics say cloaks its whaling practice under the auspice of scientific research — Payne believes that, at least for now, commercial whaling will not bring these cetaceans to the brink of extinction.
Instead, he worries about another threat: Pollution.
Payne bases this concern on Ocean Alliance's own research.
The conservation organization, launched in 1971 — and now, under Iain Kerr as its CEO, looking to move its headquarters to Gloucester on the grounds of a restored and renovated Tarr & Wonson Paint Factory — has been studying whales since its inception. Payne, himself, came into the spotlight when he co-discovered in 1967 that humpback whales "sing"¬ù to each other.
Arguably, the organization's most significant work is its massive, five-year study that measured the baseline levels of contaminants in whales around the world.
"People have known since the early '60s there was a real problem from pollutants," Payne says. "But no one had a global view of it. This was the first global view."
So, from 2000 to 2005, Ocean Alliance's 93-foot vessel, the Odyssey, snaked its way around 21 countries and 118 ports. During that time, Ocean Alliance's team gathered whale and marine life samples across the world, including more than 950 sperm whale biopsy samples.
"We looked at sperm whales because they are living at the same level of the food chain which humans are living at,"¬ù explains Payne. "So what is happening in the sperm whale is probably similar to what is happening with people."
For Ocean Alliance, the results of the survey were alarming.
"We go around the world," says Payne, "We look at sperm whales. We measure the background contaminants in them. And we discover — to our absolute horror — the concentration of a number of things."
Not only were the sperm whales exposed to common pollutants such as lead and mercury and a variety of metals such as gold and silver; they were also exposed to a wide range of chemicals such as DDT, PCBs, and fire retardants.
Moreover, one pollutant proved to be the biggest surprise: chromium.
"It was the most dramatic finding," he continues. "Chromium in its hexavalent form is a terrible carcinogen. It was the subject of the film 'Erin Brockovich.' And that is what we find in sperm whales all around the world."
Kerr, who captained the Odyssey for 10 years and is Ocean Alliance's CEO, says the study demonstrated that marine life is being hit hard on two levels.
"On the left hand, you have these compounds that are naturally occurring, but they have never occurred in the concentrations that we are now experiencing," Kerr says. "And on the right hand ,there are groups of compounds that have never existed naturally. In both cases, animals have no way to deal with them."
Enter Ocean Alliance's new study, sort of a Phase 2. This time, Ocean Alliance is teaming up with John Wise, head of the Wise Laboratory of Environmental and Genetic Toxicology at the University of Southern Maine.
Wise is a known commodity at Ocean Alliance; he and his wife, scientist Sandy Wise, analyzed the sperm whale biopsy samples from the alliance's 2000 to 2005 research.
Ocean Alliance turned to Wise because his lab studies the effects of environmental pollutants on human DNA. So how does that translate to whales?
"Our interest in DNA is that all life is dependent on it," Wise explains. "In humans, if you damage DNA you can get cancer and developmental abnormalities in children. We think in wild animals certainly the same is true, though most species don't live long enough for cancer to be a concern. The concern is pollutants in the environment are damaging DNA. And preventing the ability of the species to reproduce."
The scientists are 14 months into what Wise hopes will be a 10-year investigation. At this turn, they won't be sailing around the globe — they'll be closer to home.
Ocean Alliance and Wise will be honing their scientific eye on humpback whales in the Gulf of Maine, including those off the Gloucester coastline.
Because humpbacks live nearer to shore than sperm whales, they allow for easier and longer observational studies. So over time, for example, the team can note which female whales are reproducing, which are not — and it can answer some specific questions, like:
What are the long-term effects of pollutants on whales? Could pollutants cause developmental abnormalities? And — for a whale species already compromised in numbers — could something like chromium cause serious reproductive disorders?
Already this autumn, Payne, Kerr and Wise have led three expeditions out to Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary searching for humpbacks to biopsy.
The trips have been launched from the Gloucester Marine Railways, where Ocean Alliance's 90-foot boat, the Caribana, is docked. The vessel was donated to the group this past year and is captained by Joe Boreland, who was, coincidentally, a relief captain on the Odyssey expedition and has been working for the nonprofit intermittently since 1995.
It's unclear if Ocean Alliance will be making any more expeditions this season. But both Ocean Alliance and the Wise Laboratory are heading to the Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals in Tampa, Fla., later this month.
There, they'll be delivering data on another study they are conducting, this time examining the effects of the 2010 BP oil spill on marine mammals in the Gulf of Mexico.
What exactly do these studies on whales and other marine mammals mean for human health?
Payne stresses that the research cannot be underestimated.
"You can say that it is probably the biggest public health threat that has ever threatened human beings," he says. "About a billion people are dependent on fish as primary source of protein. And this, I would assume, would shorten the lives of these billions of people — the fact they are taking in all these contaminants when they take in such meals."
More at the linkWhen whale biologist and Ocean Alliance founder Roger Payne began his career, the... more
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70% percent or more of our food contains genetically engineered food brought by the bio-tech giant: Monsanto.
GMO is endangering people’s health and our environment at an alarming rate.
Cross-contamination is irreversible and good, organic crops are being jeopardized.
These seeds are incredibly expensive compared to the traditional ones and have been genetically modified to produce their own pesticide, to survive the spraying of the: “Roundup”, a potent herbicide and to self terminate.
This has lead our farmers to buy new GMO seeds each year and depend on Monsanto. As a result of this ruthless drive to use India as a testing ground for genetically modified crops, 125,000 farmers took their own lives.
These people were driven to debt, to economic distress, homeless and landless.
GMO has and is failing catastrophically.
This company is persecuting, bullying and bringing farms to bankruptcy.
GMO was never adequately tested for safety, actually more and more research shows its dangers to the human/animal health, polluting our crops and our water.
Monsanto did use false advertising; Monsanto poisons the third world and privatizes water. Its employees have passed through the so-called revolving door many times, they rotated between this industry and the public agencies: Clarence Thomas, Gwendolyn S. King, Linda Fisher, Jim Travis, Linda Avery Strachanand, Toby Moffet , Marcia Hale, Donald Bandle, George H. Poste, Michael Kantor and Michael Taylor all bending rules, finding loopholes to assure this company profits.
This technology is only exacerbating hunger, poverty, irreversible contamination and climate change in our world.
Bring down Monsanto’s monopoly on our food and a centralized agriculture.
Bring down Monsanto’s genetically engineered seeds.
Bring down the use of harmful pesticides, herbicides and chemicals alike.
Hold this company accountable for its damages to the world.
Organic agriculture, permaculture and biodiversity are the only answer to sustainability, to the preservation of our environment and our health.
We want you, as our government, as a body of representation of the people of the United States to invest billions subsidizing organic, environmental agriculture.
Bring down Monsanto’s poisoning, companies alike and the agrochemical industry once and for all as it is one of the greatest threats to the whole human race.
Thank you.
Please sign and share this petition on Facebook, Myspace and Twitter.
Repost this message:
Tell our Government: Bring Down Monsanto’s poisoning. Hold this company accountable for its damages to the world! http://bit.ly/bko2mZ
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/bring-down-monsanto-monopoly/
More at the link70% percent or more of our food contains genetically engineered food brought by the... more
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"And finally, I appreciate economic models, but we should also heed common sense. An activity that kills tens of thousands of people a year, poisons fetuses in mother's wombs, gives poor kids asthma, pollutes groundwater, toxifies soil, destroys mountains, and threatens to render the planet uninhabitable is not, by definition, cheap. If the the way you do your accounts makes it look cheap, then something is wrong with the way you do your accounts. If your politics gives it a place of privilege, something is wrong with your politics.""And finally, I appreciate economic models, but we should also heed common sense.... more
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Today in the United States, by the simple act of feeding ourselves, we unwittingly participate in the largest experiment ever conducted on human beings. Massive agro-chemical companies like Monsanto (Agent Orange) and Dow (Napalm) are feeding us genetically-modified food, GMO's, that have never been fully tested and aren't labeled. This small handful of corporations are tightening their grip on the world's food supply—buying, modifying, and patenting seeds to ensure total control over everything we eat.
The GMO Film Project (Untitled) tells the story of a father's discovery of GMO's through the symbolic act of poor Haitian farmers burning seeds in defiance of Monsanto's gift of 475 tons of hybrid corn and vegetable seeds to Haiti shortly after the devastating earthquake. After a journey to Haiti to learn why hungry farmers would burn seeds, the real awakening of what has happened to our food, what we are feeding our families, and what is at stake for the global food supply unfolds in a trip across the United States in search of answers.
Are we at a tipping point? Is it time to take back our food? The encroaching darkness of unknown health and environmental risks, seed take over, chemical toxins, and food monopoly meets with the light of a growing resistance of organic farmers, concerned citizens, and a burgeoning movement to take back what we have lost.
We still have time to heal the planet, feed the world, and live sustainably. But we have to start now.
A film by Compeller Pictures
gmofilm.com
Directed by Jeremy Seifert
Produced by Joshua Kunau
Co-Producer, Elizabeth Kucinich
Associate Producer, Timothy Vatterott
Cinematographer, Rod HasslerToday in the United States, by the simple act of feeding ourselves, we unwittingly... more
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