Added: 14. June 2010
EPA
US: Radioactive fish near Vermont nuklear power plant deemed common
In this May 29, 2010 photo, Shawn Cole, 12, of Hinsdale, N.H., left, and Peter Rosploch, 11, of Winchester, N.H. fish in the Connecticut River across from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. When a fish taken from the Connecticut River recently tested positive for radioactive strontium-90, suspicion focused on the nearby Vermont Yankee nuclear plant as the likely source. Operators of the troubled 38-year-old nuclear plant on the banks of the river, where work is under way to clean up leaking radioactive tritium, revealed this month that it also found soil contaminated with strontium-90, an isotope linked to bone cancer and leukemia. (AP Photo)
MONTPELIER, Vt. — When a fish taken from the Connecticut River recently tested positive for radioactive strontium-90, suspicion focused on the nearby Vermont Yankee nuclear plant as the likely source.
Operators of the troubled 38-year-old nuclear plant on the banks of the river, where work is under way to clean up leaking radioactive tritium, revealed this month that it also found soil contaminated with strontium-90, an isotope linked to bone cancer and leukemia.
Three days later, officials said a fish caught four miles upstream from the reactor in February had tested positive for strontium-90 in its bones. State officials say they don’t believe the contamination came from Vermont Yankee.
Tritium was reported leaking from the plant in January, and since then has turned up in monitoring wells at levels 100 times the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s safety limit for that substance in drinking water. Other radioactive isotopes have been found as well, including cesium-137, zinc-65 and cobalt-60.
Read moreUS: Radioactive fish near Vermont nuklear power plant deemed common
US: Tainted Water From Oldest Nuclear Power Plant Reaches Major New Jersey Aquifer
LACEY TOWNSHIP, N.J. – Radioactive water that leaked from the nation’s oldest nuclear power plant has now reached a major underground aquifer that supplies drinking water to much of southern New Jersey, the state’s environmental chief said Friday.
The state Department of Environmental Protection has ordered the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station to halt the spread of contaminated water underground, even as it said there was no imminent threat to drinking water supplies.
The department launched a new investigation Friday into the April 2009 spill and said the actions of plant owner Exelon Corp. have not been sufficient to contain water contaminated with tritium.
Tritium is found naturally in tiny amounts and is a product of nuclear fission. It has been linked to cancer if ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin in large amounts.
“There is a problem here,” said environmental Commissioner Bob Martin. “I am worried about the continuing spread of the tritium into the groundwater and its gradual moving toward wells in the area. This is not something that can wait. That would be unacceptable.”
The tritium leaked from underground pipes at the plant on April 9, 2009, and has been slowly spreading underground at 1 to 3 feet a day. At the current rate, it would be 14 or 15 years before the tainted water reaches the nearest private or commercial drinking water wells about two miles away.
But the mere fact that the radioactive water — at concentrations 50 times higher than those allowed by law — has reached southern New Jersey’s main source of drinking water calls for urgent action, Martin said.
Read moreUS: Tainted Water From Oldest Nuclear Power Plant Reaches Major New Jersey Aquifer
US: Gender-Bending Chemical Atrazine Contaminates Public Water Supply
“Atrazine can’t be sprayed in Europe because it contaminates groundwater, but it remains widely used in the U.S., where the EPA endorsed its continued use as recently as 2006, based on a scientific review from 2003. Federal records show the review was heavily influenced by industry and relied on studies financed by Syngenta, a Swiss-based company that manufactures most of the atrazine sprayed in the U.S.”
Alarmed by latest research, the Obama administration is conducting a broad review of toxic weed killer atrazine that could lead to tighter restrictions
John Kiefner prepares his boom sprayer for cleaning on his Manhattan, Ill., farm. (Chicago Tribune)
Despite growing health concerns about atrazine, an agricultural weedkiller sprayed on farm fields across the Midwest, most drinking water is tested for the chemical only four times a year — so rarely that worrisome spikes of the chemical likely go undetected.
High levels of the herbicide can linger in tap water during the growing season, according to more frequent tests in some agricultural communities.
Spread heaviest on cornfields, atrazine is one of the most commonly detected contaminants in drinking water. Studies have found that exposure to small amounts of the chemical can turn male frogs into females and might be more harmful to humans than once thought.
Read moreUS: Gender-Bending Chemical Atrazine Contaminates Public Water Supply
Al Gore takes cash for ‘Life Earth’ water campaign from Dow Chemical
Al Gore is an elite puppet like Bush and Obama. He has been selected by the elite to brainwash the people with the global warming scam in order to push through with the elite agenda of world government, the ‘New World Order’.
It’s all about money, power and control.
– Al Gore could become world’s first carbon billionaire
Environmentalists condemn former vice-president for letting controversial company fund Life Earth
Shyam Babu, 10, lives close to the Dow-owned Union Carbide Factory in Bhopal, India
Al Gore, the self-styled squeakiest-clean and deepest-green politician in American history, has some explaining to do this weekend. His environmental organisation has taken money to raise awareness about the need for clean water from a controversial chemicals company.
Dow Chemical, the US firm, is sponsoring Life Earth events in 150 cities today. The event aims to raise money for clean water programmes. Research by environmental organisations has found dangerous levels of highly toxic chemicals in rivers, lakes and other water supplies close to several other factories owned by Dow and its subsidiaries in countries including the United States, Brazil and South Africa.
Dow’s factories at its global headquarters in Midland, Michigan, have been accused of contaminating the region, including the Tittabawassee River floodplains, with high levels of dioxin – one of the “dirty dozen” most dangerous chemicals. In 2007, the highest level of dioxin contamination ever measured by the US Environmental Protection Agency was found in the Michigan Saginaw River. Residents are advised to avoid contact with river sediments and not to eat locally caught fish.
Campaigners are outraged by what they call Dow’s “blatant attempt” to paint itself as a green company and divert attention from the Bhopal scandal, where 25 years after the 1984 disaster at the plant (then owned by Union Carbide) thousands of villagers are still forced to use contaminated water which causes birth defects, cancer and skin disorders.
Live Earth, which has accumulated celebrity supporters and thousands of activists worldwide since its climate change concert in 2007, has been criticised by campaigners for joining forces with a company which has a track record of, at best, being slow to clean up toxic spills that pollute water, damage ecosystems and endanger lives.
Three weeks ago, Amnesty International asked Live Earth to reconsider the sponsorship unless Dow publicly agreed to clean up Bhopal. Live Earth did not respond.
Read moreAl Gore takes cash for ‘Life Earth’ water campaign from Dow Chemical
Contaminated beef containing harmful pesticides, veterinary antibiotics and heavy metals sold to the public
Beef containing harmful pesticides, veterinary antibiotics and heavy metals is being sold to the public because federal agencies have failed to set limits for the contaminants or adequately test for them, a federal audit finds.
WASHINGTON – Beef containing harmful pesticides, veterinary antibiotics and heavy metals is being sold to the public because federal agencies have failed to set limits for the contaminants or adequately test for them, a federal audit finds.
A program set up to test beef for chemical residues “is not accomplishing its mission of monitoring the food supply for … dangerous substances, which has resulted in meat with these substances being distributed in commerce,” says the audit by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General.
The health effects on people who eat such meat are a “growing concern,” the audit adds.
The testing program for cattle is run by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), which also tests meat for such pathogens as salmonella and certain dangerous strains of E. coli. But the residue program relies on assistance from the Environmental Protection Agency, which sets tolerance levels for human exposure to pesticides and other pollutants, and the Food and Drug Administration, which does the same for antibiotics and other medicines.
DOCUMENTS: Read the audit report
Obama Gives ‘Pesticide Lobbyist’ Post as Chief Agricultural Negotiator
“Washington lobbyists haven’t funded my campaign, they won’t run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of working Americans when I am president”.
– Barack Obama
Confident after his success with health insurance reform, President Obama exerted his executive power on Saturday by making fifteen appointments during the Senate’s recess. Among the appointments was Islam Siddiqui, who will now be serving as the Chief Agricultural Negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (I’ve written here about what that job entails).
Siddiqui had been working since 2001 as a lobbyist and then later as vice president of science and regulatory affairs at CropLife America, a lobbying organization for the pesticide and biotech industries. CropLife famously sent Michelle Obama a letter trying to convince her to use pesticides on her organic garden on the White House lawn. But while that move pushed the group into the media spotlight, behind the scenes the group in which Siddiqui has had a strong hand in leading has been lobbying to weaken regulations on biotechnology, pesticides and other agriculture chemicals both in the US and abroad, including securing exemption for American farmers in a worldwide ban of the ozone-depleting chemical methyl bromide in 2006, taking part in secret discussions with the Environmental Protection Agency to be allowed to test pesticides on children, and Siddiqui personally chided the European Union for “denying food to starving people” for using the precautionary principle in the case of GMOs.
Read moreObama Gives ‘Pesticide Lobbyist’ Post as Chief Agricultural Negotiator
Common Weedkiller Atrazine Turns Male Frogs Into Females
See also:
– Study: Serious birth defects linked to the agricultural chemical atrazine
An atrazine-induced female frog (a genetic male) is shown (bottom) copulating with an unexposed male sibling. This union produced viable eggs and larvae that survived to metamorphosis and adulthood. Yet, because both animals were genetic males, the offspring were all males. (Tyrone Hayes photo)
BERKELEY —Atrazine, one of the world’s most widely used pesticides, wreaks havoc with the sex lives of adult male frogs, emasculating three-quarters of them and turning one in 10 into females, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, biologists.
The 75 percent that are chemically castrated are essentially “dead” because of their inability to reproduce in the wild, reports UC Berkeley’s Tyrone B. Hayes, professor of integrative biology.
“These male frogs are missing testosterone and all the things that testosterone controls, including sperm. So their fertility is as low as 10 percent in some cases, and that is only if we isolate those animals and pair them with females,” he said. “In an environment where they are competing with unexposed animals, they have zero chance of reproducing.”
The 10 percent or more that turn from males into females – something not known to occur under natural conditions in amphibians – can successfully mate with male frogs but, because these females are genetically male, all their offspring are male.
“When we grow these guys up, depending on the family, we will get anywhere from 10 to 50 percent females,” Hayes said. “In a population, the genetically male females can decrease or wipe out a population just because they skew sex ratios so badly.”
Read moreCommon Weedkiller Atrazine Turns Male Frogs Into Females
Study: Serious birth defects linked to the agricultural chemical atrazine
Gastroschisis in 30-week fetus. Photograph of cesarean delivery shows bowel protruding through anterior abdominal wall defect.
(NaturalNews) Gastroschisis is a birth defect in which the intestines, and sometimes other organs, develop outside the fetal abdomen and poke out through an opening in the abdominal wall. Long considered a rare occurrence, gastroschisis has mysteriously been on the rise over the last three decades. In fact, the incidence of the defect has soared, increasing two to four times in the last 30 years. But why?
Researchers think they’ve found the answer. The culprit behind the suffering of babies born with this condition appears to be the agricultural chemical atrazine. That’s the conclusion of a study just presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) held in Chicago.
Read moreStudy: Serious birth defects linked to the agricultural chemical atrazine
Almost 17,000 Chemicals Remain Corporate Secrets – Not Even the EPA Knows What They Are
You can trust corporations, because they have only one goal: PROFIT!
Those ‘secret’, possibly highly toxic chemicals pose a great threat to public health.
(NaturalNews) The 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) requires that manufacturers of products containing potentially toxic chemicals disclose their ingredients to the federal government, however a loophole in the requirement allows manufacturers to arbitrarily withhold information that they deem sensitive to their business. As a result, over 17,000 product chemicals remain secret not only from the public but from government officials.
Each year, over 700 new chemicals are introduced by manufacturers, many of which do not get disclosed either to the public or to government agencies. About 95 percent of new chemical notices submitted to the government request some kind of secrecy. Critics allege that manufacturers are exploiting the original intent of TSCA, abusing it to hide sensitive information about ingredients that are likely toxic and may otherwise get banned.
For the first time in many years, Congress is addressing the issue of disclosure abuse with promises of reforming the regulatory provisions. Consumer and environmental groups, in conjunction with many government officials, are demanding that all ingredient information be made public with no exceptions.
Mike Walls, vice president of the American Chemistry Council, argues otherwise, insisting that public disclosure would reveal confidential information that could benefit competitors and hurt business. He believes that even the names and addresses of manufacturers should not have to be made public because competitors may trace the information and somehow figure out secret recipes.
According to EPA records, more than half of the 65 “substantial risk” reports submitted to agency last March involved secret chemicals. Of these, 151 of them are produced in quantities over one million tons a year and ten of them are used primarily in children’s products.
Read moreAlmost 17,000 Chemicals Remain Corporate Secrets – Not Even the EPA Knows What They Are
US: 17,000 potentially harmful chemicals kept secret under obscure law
All is well. You can fully trust corporations that have only one interest: Profit!
Dow Chemical plant, Midland, Michigan
Of some 84,000 chemicals being used commercially in the United States, some 20 percent — or 17,000 — are kept secret not only from the public, but from medical professionals, state regulators and even emergency responders, according to a report at the Washington Post.
And the reason for this potentially harmful lack of openness? Profit.
A 1976 law, the Toxic Substances Control Act, mandates that manufacturers report to the Environmental Protection Agency any new chemicals they intend to market, but manufacturers can request that a chemical be kept secret if disclosure “could harm their bottom line,” the Washington Post reports.
Because they are secret, it’s impossible to tell how many of the 17,000 chemicals are potentially harmful to people. But the Post notes that, in March of last year, more than half of the “substantial risk” reports filed with the EPA involved secret chemicals.
And chemical makers may be abusing their privilege under the law. According to the EPA, in recent years 95 percent of manufacturers’ reports of new chemicals have made some request for secrecy. Ten of the secret chemicals are used in children’s products.
Read moreUS: 17,000 potentially harmful chemicals kept secret under obscure law
US government wants farmers to use coal waste on fields
Remember?
– Obama administration refuses to disclose “high hazard” coal dump locations:
A rift has opened between the Obama administration and some of its closest allies – Democratic leaders and environmental organisations – over its refusal to publicly disclose the location of 44 coal ash dumps that have been officially designated as a “high hazard” to local populations.
The administration turned down a request from a powerful Democratic senator to make public the list of 44 dumps, which contain a toxic soup of arsenic and heavy metals from coal-fired electricity plants, citing terrorism fears.
The federal government is encouraging farmers to spread a chalky waste from coal-fired power plants on their fields to loosen and fertilize soil even as it considers regulating coal wastes for the first time.
The material is produced by power plant “scrubbers” that remove acid-rain-causing sulfur dioxide from plant emissions. A synthetic form of the mineral gypsum, it also contains mercury, arsenic, lead and other heavy metals.
The Environmental Protection Agency says those toxic metals occur in only tiny amounts that pose no threat to crops, surface water or people. But some environmentalists say too little is known about how the material affects crops, and ultimately human health, for the government to suggest that farmers use it.
“This is a leap into the unknown,” said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “This stuff has materials in it that we’re trying to prevent entering the environment from coal-fired power plants, and then to turn around and smear it across ag lands raises some real questions.”
Read moreUS government wants farmers to use coal waste on fields
Climategate: President Obama’s rule by EPA decree is a coup d’etat against Congress, made in Britain
From The Telegraph article: ‘This is a socialist, World Government putsch.’
… or Fascist World Government putsch, which is just the other side of the same medal.
And the man-made global warming scam is all based on fraud and ignorant, total ignorant (or bought and paid for?) George Monbiot is telling us that this is just propaganda:
– The climate denial industry is out to dupe the public. And it’s working
This is really all about the New World Order and taxes that you will have to pay, because you have bought into a lie:
– Study: CO2 levels remained constant since 1850! (University of Bristol)
– Global Warming Scam Exposed:
‘Rises in C02 lag 800 years behind temperature rises. So temperature is leading CO2 by 800 years!’
– Prof. Ian Clark
CO2 is rising (with a 800 year delay) because temperature has risen and not the other way around.
You will pay taxes for nothing!!! (More information about this epic fraud at the end of the following article.)
And this fraud is used to press World Government into your lives, the New World Order:
– EU President Herman Van Rompuy Announces 2009 as ‘First Year of Global Governance’
– Has Anyone Read the Copenhagen Agreement? U.N. plans for a new ‘world government’ are scary. (The Wall Street Journal)
And the same banksters who are still destroying the entire world economy with CDS (credit default swaps), their invented weapon of mass destruction responsible for the entire financial crisis, will run the show:
The elitists and their puppets just go on with their agenda as if CLIMATEGATE didn’t happen.
More Change We can Believe In!
Who needs tanks on the lawn when you have the Environmental Protection Agency? Barack Obama’s use of the EPA to pressurise the Senate to pass his climate change Nuremberg Decrees shows his dictatorial mentality. He wants to override Congress, which is hostile to his climate gobbledegook because it is representative of the American electorate, and sideline the nation’s elected Senators by ruling by decree, courtesy of the EPA. This is a coup d’état.
And what is the justification for this undemocratic action? The allegedly imminent threat from “Anthropogenic Global Warming”. There is always a supposed threat, when tyrants take the stage. The President of the United States has just reduced his moral authority to the level of any Third World dictator heading a “Government of National Emergency”. Fortunately, the world’s leading democracy, which he is trying to subvert, has guarantees of liberty so deeply embedded in its Constitution that US citizens are well placed to fight back.
In the first place, regulation can be challenged in a way that laws cannot. So the EPA’s proposed ruling on so-called “Greenhouse Gases” can be opposed extensively with litigation, to the point that the ruling might not yet be in force when Obama demits office. In the second place, the EPA is funded by Congress. So, if the Agency is being used to bypass or neuter Congress, why should legislators not play hardball and retaliate by cutting off its funding? The EPA may look formidable, but its situation is rather as if Rommel were buying the fuel for his tanks from the Allies.
More Than 49 Million in US Drink Dirty Water, Containing Illegal Concentrations of Chemicals Like Arsenic, Radioactive Substances Like Uranium or Dangerous Bacteria Found in Sewage
More than 20 percent of the nation’s water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data.
The water system in Ramsey, N.J., has illegal concentrations of arsenic and the solvent tetrachloroethylene, both linked to cancer.
That law requires communities to deliver safe tap water to local residents. But since 2004, the water provided to more than 49 million people has contained illegal concentrations of chemicals like arsenic or radioactive substances like uranium, as well as dangerous bacteria often found in sewage.
Regulators were informed of each of those violations as they occurred. But regulatory records show that fewer than 6 percent of the water systems that broke the law were ever fined or punished by state or federal officials, including those at the Environmental Protection Agency, which has ultimate responsibility for enforcing standards.
Studies indicate that drinking water contaminants are linked to millions of instances of illness within the United States each year.
In some instances, drinking water violations were one-time events, and probably posed little risk. But for hundreds of other systems, illegal contamination persisted for years, records show.
On Tuesday, the Senate Environment and Public Works committee will question a high-ranking E.P.A. official about the agency’s enforcement of drinking-water safety laws. The E.P.A. is expected to announce a new policy for how it polices the nation’s 54,700 water systems.
“This administration has made it clear that clean water is a top priority,” said an E.P.A. spokeswoman, Adora Andy, in response to questions regarding the agency’s drinking water enforcement. The E.P.A. administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, this year announced a wide-ranging overhaul of enforcement of the Clean Water Act, which regulates pollution into waterways.
“The previous eight years provide a perfect example of what happens when political leadership fails to act to protect our health and the environment,” Ms. Andy added.
Water pollution has become a growing concern for some lawmakers as government oversight of polluters has waned. Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, in 2007 asked the E.P.A. for data on Americans’ exposure to some contaminants in drinking water.
The New York Times has compiled and analyzed millions of records from water systems and regulators around the nation, as part of a series of articles about worsening pollution in American waters, and regulators’ response.
An analysis of E.P.A. data shows that Safe Drinking Water Act violations have occurred in parts of every state. In the prosperous town of Ramsey, N.J., for instance, drinking water tests since 2004 have detected illegal concentrations of arsenic, a carcinogen, and the dry cleaning solvent tetrachloroethylene, which has also been linked to cancer.
Satire: How to be a swine flu vaccine zealot
(NaturalNews) Swine flu vaccine zealots are like zombies… they just keep coming at you, mindless… heartless… empty-headed and a tad funky on the smell, too. But I’ve noticed from observing the behavior of a few such zealots that not all of them fully comprehend precisely how to act like a mindless vaccine zealot. There’s more to it than just parroting whatever the FDA says.
You actually have to get with the zealot program if you want to be taken seriously as a swine flu vaccine zealot.
So I’ve put together this handy guide to help them along:
Step 1) Loudly proclaim your vaccines are backed by “science,” but when critics ask you to produce that science, just tell them you don’t have to because “everybody knows they work.” (Then grunt and paw at the air from time to time for effect…)
Step 2) Practice scoffing. Scoffing is an important skill for swine flu vaccine zealots. When someone asks an intelligent question like, “Where are the placebo-controlled studies that show flu vaccines work at all?” simply scoff at them. This avoids having to answer the question because, as you know, there are no such studies.
Step 3) Practice making people feel guilty for not getting the flu shot. Blame them for pandemic. Just ignore the fact that the shot itself has zero ability to actually prevent the spread of influenza and focus on what works: Guilt!
Step 4) Spread more fear! Guilt and fear go together like peanut butter and jelly on processed white bread — a favorite zombie food! In combination, they work like gangbusters if you’re trying to scare up some vaccine sales to generate billions of dollars in profits for the drug companies. In the absence of any actual science, just invoke fear! (Hey, it worked for the Patriot Act, too…)
Step 5) Remind people that they are not doctors and therefore don’t know anything. Then quote some doctor who’s pro-vaccine (and probably taking kickbacks from some pharmaceutical company that’s been caught committing a felony crime) and declare that no one can question them because they’re a doctor. Doctors are God, didn’t you know? Just ask all the victims of thalidomide… or Vioxx.
Step 6) Strip off the plastic coating on both ends of an extension cord, exposing the wires. Attach the two wires on one end to the temples of your skull, then attach the two exposed wires on the other end to the exposed slots of a live electrical outlet in your home. You are now “WIRED.” (Want a free subscription?) This process will destroy any critical thinking regions of your cerebrum, disabling the annoying ability to think for yourself (which can interfere with what the vaccine industry wants you to think instead). Once achieved, you’re half-way qualified to being a vaccine zealot, unhindered by critical thinking skills!
(Don’t forget to grunt, moan and leave your mouth draping open from time to time, or the whole effect will be ruined…)
Step 7) Defend mercury as safe. It’s not that bad, really. What’s a little mercury in your shot anyway? Ignore these inconvenient facts: A typical flu vaccine shot solution is 50,000 parts per billion of mercury. The EPA classifies any substance with more than 200 parts per billion as hazardous waste. (The EPA limit in drinking water is 2 parts per billion.) Thus, the mercury density in a vaccine is 25,000% higher than the level required to be considered hazardous waste. This is injected directly into the bloodstream of infants, children, expectant mothers and senior citizens. What could possibly be dangerous about that?
Autism Explodes As Childhood Vaccines Increase
Related information:
– Amish children have no autism at all AND they have never been vaccinated.
(Research this fact.)
– Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on vaccination and the autism coverup
Added: June 03, 2009
– Study: Causal Connection Between Thimerosal and Autism Established
– Of utmost importance: “The swine flu vaccine will permanently damage the DNA .”
(Source: Forgive me for not providing any. But it’s true.)
Amount of children suffering from brain disorder doubles since last government survey in 2003
Cases of autism amongst children have doubled since 2003 according to a government survey out today, highlighting once again the direct link between vaccines containing mercury and the brain disorder, as millions more parents give the green light for their kids to be injected with the thimerosal-containing H1N1 shot over the coming weeks.
“While research has suggested that the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders in American children was about 1 of every 150 children, a new government study estimates that the prevalence is more likely about 1 in every 91 children,” reports U.S. News & World Report.
“The study, which is published in the October issue of Pediatrics, estimated that 110 of every 10,000 U.S. youngsters will be diagnosed at some point in their lives with an autism spectrum disorder. That currently translates to about 673,000 American children with some form of autism, according to the study.”
Claims by the CDC and the Institute of Medicine, following a whitewash study that ignored previously verified evidence, that thimerosal, a mercury based preservative, has no causal relationship to skyrocketing cases of autism have been soundly rejected by top doctors and scientists ever since.
Epidemiologist Tom Verstraeten and Dr. Richard Johnston, an immunologist and pediatrician from the University of Colorado, both concluded that thimerosal was responsible for the dramatic rise in cases of autism but their findings were dismissed by the CDC.
Cases of autism in the U.S. have now increased by over 2700 per cent since 1991, which is when vaccines for children doubled, and the number of immunizations is only increasing. Just one in 2,500 children were diagnosed with autism before 1991, whereas one in 91 children now have the disease, up from one in 150 just six years ago.
Study: Dangerous Mercury Contamination of Human Body Increasing
(NaturalNews) It’s no secret mercury is a dangerous toxin that accumulates in the human body and can produce disastrous health problems involving multiple organ systems. It’s known to be a risk to unborn babies, too. Unfortunately, as NaturalNews has reported, mercury contamination of our environment and food sources is rampant. For example, scientists have found that fish(http://www.naturalnews.com/025935_m…) and high fructose corn syrup (http://www.naturalnews.com/026528_m…) are often loaded with the dangerous heavy metal. Now comes this worrisome news: deposits of mercury in the bodies of Americans are increasing at an alarming rate and the health repercussions could be staggering.
Mercury especially targets the liver, the immune system and the pituitary gland. Numerous studies have associated chronic mercury exposure with elevated risks for autism, mental impairment and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. Previous research by U.S. Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) researchers estimated that chronic mercury exposure caused between 300,000 and 600,000 American children to be born with elevated risks of neurodevelopmental disorders between 1999 and 2000.
A new University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) study of government data on more than 6,000 women in the US found not only that mercury loads in bodies are increasing but it also identified significant associations between chronic mercury exposure and immune and endocrine system functions. The research specifically revealed that levels of the pituitary hormone, lutropin (also called luteinizing hormone) are significantly associated with chronic mercury exposure. This could explain a mechanism for how mercury causes or contributes to degenerative and neurodevelopmental diseases.
“My study found compelling evidence that inorganic mercury deposition within the human body is a cumulative process, increasing with age and overall in the population over time,” study author Dan R. Laks, a neuroscience researcher at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said in a statement to the media.”My findings also suggest a rise in risks for disease associated with mercury over time.”
Read moreStudy: Dangerous Mercury Contamination of Human Body Increasing
US Pharmaceutical Factories Dumping Huge Quantities of Drugs Into Public Sewers, Rivers and Waterways
(NaturalNews) In spite of claims by pharmaceutical companies that they do not discharge their products into the water supply, federal researchers have discovered that waters downstream of pharmaceutical plants are more heavily contaminated with drug residue than waters elsewhere in the country.
In one study, conducted by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), researchers tested the water entering two water treatment plants down the sewer line of several pharmaceutical factories, as well as at other plants not receiving sewage from drug plants. Researchers discovered drugs at “much higher detection frequencies and concentrations” at the plants receiving effluent from pharmaceutical factories. Drugs detected included opiates, a barbiturate and a tranquilizer.
In a second study, researchers from the Environmental Protection Agency tested the water entering a wastewater treatment plant in the city of Kalamazoo, Mich., down the sewage line from a Pfizer drug factory. They found that the water entering the plant was exceptionally high in levels of the antibiotic lincomycin, which the factory was producing at that time.
“There’s some product going down the drain,” said Bruce Merchant, the city’s public services director.
Prior studies have shown that lincomycin can cause genetic mutations, and that it encourages the growth of cancer cells when combined with minute concentrations of a number of other drugs that are common in surface water.
CNN: The Worst Environmental Disaster in US History
Remember that President Barack Obama promised to implement a new era of government openness and transparency?
– Obama administration refuses to disclose “high hazard” coal dump locations
Change!
CNN Uncovers America’s Worst Environmental Disaster
With Erin Brockovich (07/10/09)
Obama administration refuses to disclose “high hazard” coal dump locations
Administration turns down senator’s request to make public the list of 44 dumps, which contain arsenic and metals
A rift has opened between the Obama administration and some of its closest allies – Democratic leaders and environmental organisations – over its refusal to publicly disclose the location of 44 coal ash dumps that have been officially designated as a “high hazard” to local populations.
The administration turned down a request from a powerful Democratic senator to make public the list of 44 dumps, which contain a toxic soup of arsenic and heavy metals from coal-fired electricity plants, citing terrorism fears.
The refusal has put the Obama administration at odds with some of its strongest supporters over an emerging area of environmental concern in America.
Last Christmas, a retaining wall burst on a coal ash pond in Tennessee disgorging a billion gallons of waste and putting pressure on the authorities to bring in safety controls over the management of some 600 similar waste pools dotted across the country.
Some 44 of the most dangerous coal ash dumps are known to be located in populated areas in 26 separate locations. The high hazard designation means that a breach, like the one in Tennessee, could cause death and significant property damage if the sludge spills into surrounding neigbourhoods. But that is all the adminstration will disclose.
“Right now we have a blanket gag order,” Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who heads the Senate environment and public works committee told a press conference last week.
“We are losing what we cherish in America: the citizens’ right to know.”
Boxer, who has seen the list of sites, said she was only allowed to share the information with fellow senators – not their staff and not local authorities in the affected areas.
“There is a huge muzzle on me and my staff,” she said. “They’re putting ridiculous restrictions on me.”
The local newspaper in Tennessee also ridiculed the decision.
“These waste sites may be environmental and health hazards. But they are unlikely terror targets,” said the Knox group of newspapers. “As the muckety-mucks in Washington know, the real danger of disclosure is from angry Americans. If citizens realise they are downstream from fragile mountains of gunk, they will demand action and accountability.”
Environmental groups see the gag order on the coal ash sites as a betrayal of Obama’s promise, during his speech to staff on his first day in the White House in January, of a new era of openness in government.
“For a long time now, there’s been too much secrecy in this city,” Obama said in the speech. “That era is now over. Starting today, every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information but those who seek to make it known.”
Read moreObama administration refuses to disclose “high hazard” coal dump locations
Radioactive Beer Kegs Menace Public, Boost Costs for Recyclers
Scrap metal is processed at the Jewometaal Stainless Processing B.V. in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, on Tuesday, April 22, 2008. Photographer: Roger Cremers/Bloomberg News
Nov. 11 (Bloomberg) — French authorities made headlines last month when they said as many as 500 sets of radioactive buttons had been installed in elevators around the country. It wasn’t an isolated case.
Improper disposal of industrial equipment and medical scanners containing radioactive materials is letting nuclear waste trickle into scrap smelters, contaminating consumer goods, threatening the $140 billion trade in recycled metal and spurring the United Nations to call for increased screening.
Last year, U.S. Customs rejected 64 shipments of radioactive goods at the nation’s ports, including purses, cutlery, sinks and hand tools, according to data released by the Department of Homeland Security in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. India was the largest source, followed by China.
“The world is waking up very late to this,” said Paul de Bruin, radiation safety chief for Jewometaal Stainless Processing BV in Rotterdam, the world’s biggest stainless-steel scrap yard. “There will be more of this because a lot of the scrap coming to us right now is from the 1970s and 1980s, when there were a lot of uncontrolled radioactive sources distributed to industry.”
On Oct. 21, the French nuclear regulator said elevator buttons assembled by Mafelec, a Chimilin, France-based company, contained radioactive metal shipped from India. Employees who handled the buttons received three times the safe dose of radiation for non-nuclear workers, according to the agency.
Operations at the factory are now back to normal and the company has cut ties with the “source” of the radiation, Mafelec said in a statement. “In the worst-case scenario the exposure would have been under that of a medical scan,” Chief Executive Officer Gilles Heinrich said.
1 Million Missing Sources
Many atomic devices weren’t licensed when they were first widely used by industry in the 1970s. While most countries have since tightened regulations, it is still difficult to track first-generation equipment that is now coming to the end of its useful life.
Abandoned medical scanners, food processing devices and mining equipment containing radioactive metals such as cesium-137 and cobalt-60 are often picked up by scrap collectors and sold to recyclers, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear arm. De Bruin said he sometimes finds such items hidden inside beer kegs and lead pipes to prevent detection.
There may be more than 1 million missing radioactive sources worldwide, the Vienna-based IAEA estimates.
Read moreRadioactive Beer Kegs Menace Public, Boost Costs for Recyclers
Gas Shortage In the South Creates Panic, Long Lines
If Drivers Can Fill Up, They Get Sticker Shock
People wait to fill their tanks at a Citgo station in Charlotte, where drivers have reported gas lines 60 cars long after 11 p.m. (By Davie Hinshaw — The Charlotte Observer)
Gasoline shortages hit towns across the southeastern United States this week, sparking panic buying, long lines and high prices at stations from the small towns of northeast Alabama to Charlotte in the wake of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike.
In Atlanta, half of the gasoline stations were closed, according to AAA, which said the supply disruptions had taken place along two major petroleum product pipelines that have operated well below capacity since the hurricanes knocked offshore oil production and several refineries out of service along the Gulf of Mexico.
Drivers in Charlotte reported lines with as many as 60 cars waiting to fill up late Wednesday night, and a community college in Asheville, N.C., where most of the 25,000 students commute, canceled classes and closed down Wednesday afternoon for the rest of the week. Shortages also hit Nashville, Knoxville and Spartanburg, S.C., AAA said.
Read moreGas Shortage In the South Creates Panic, Long Lines
Controlled drugs dumped uncontrolled into water
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – In a frustrating quirk in government policy, the most tightly controlled drugs – like painkilling narcotics prone to abuse – are the ones that most often elude environmental regulation when they become waste.
Federal narcotics regulators impose strict rules meant to keep controlled pharmaceuticals out of the wrong hands. Yet those rules also make these drugs nearly impossible to handle safely as waste, say hospital environmental administrators.
Many would like to send controlled substances to landfills or incinerators to keep them out of waterways as much as possible. Instead, they are nearly always dropped into sinks and toilets by hospitals, nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
The problem is huge, because more than 365 medicines are controlled by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration – almost 12 percent of all prescriptions, the agency says. They include widely used narcotics, stimulants, depressants and steroids – drugs like codeine, morphine, oxycodone, diazepam (often sold as Valium) and methylphenidate (often sold as Ritalin).
Govt. Report Says Fluoride Added to Water Supply May Harm Population
(NaturalNews) A government-sponsored report has concluded that levels of fluoride that people are regularly exposed to in drinking water can cause serious malfunctioning of the thyroid gland, leading to even more serious health problems.
“A low level of thyroid hormone can increase the risk of cardiac disease, high cholesterol, depression, and, in pregnant woman, decreased intelligence of offspring,” said study co-author Kathleen Thiessen.
The comprehensive review of the scientific literature on fluoride exposure and thyroid toxicity was conducted by a panel appointed by the National Research Council of the National Academies (NRC). It found that fluoride exposure was associated with low levels of thyroid and parathyroid hormones, and an abnormally enlarged thyroid gland (goiter). They also found that fluoride tended to concentrate in the thyroid more than in any organ but the kidneys.
“Fluoride has detrimental effects on the thyroid gland of healthy males at 3.5 mg a day. With iodine deficiency, the effect level drops to 0.7 milligrams a day for an average male,” said Robert Carton, an environmental scientist with 30 years of experience working for the government.
Read moreGovt. Report Says Fluoride Added to Water Supply May Harm Population
6,700 Tons of Radioactive Debris Shipped From Kuwait to Idaho
The shipment across the ocean, unloading at Longview, Washington State port, transport by rail, and burial in Idaho endangers not only the residents of these areas but poses a significant agricultural threat through introduction of pests, microbes, etc. foreign to our nation.
Doug Rokke, Ph.D. – BLN Contributing Writer
(Note: Dr. Doug Rokke is the former Director of the U.S. Army’s Depleted Uranium Project. It was his task to clean up the radioactive battlefields of the Gulf War. Today, this leading opponent of nuclear warfare is vitally concerned that sand contaminated by radioactive munitions exploded in the Middle East has been shipped to Idaho for burial. And more, much more. He asked me to call his warning to public attention.)
During the summer of 1991, the United States military had collected artillery, tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, conventional and unconventional munitions, trucks, etc. at Camp Doha in Kuwait.
As result of carelessness this weapons depot caught fire with consequent catastrophic explosion resulting in death, injury, illness and extensive environmental contamination from depleted uranium and conventional explosives.
Recently the emirate of Kuwait required the United States Department of Defense to remove the contamination. Consequently, over 6,700 tons of contaminated soil sand and other residue was collected and has been shipped back to the United States for burial by American Ecology at Boise Idaho.
When Bob Nichols, an investigative journalist, and I contacted American Ecology we found out that they had absolutely no knowledge of U.S. Army Regulation 700-48, U.S. Army PAM 700-48, U.S. Army Technical Bulletin 9-1300-278, and all of the medical orders dealing with depleted uranium contamination, environmental remediation procedures, safety, and medical care .
They had never heard of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for dealing with mixed – hazardous waste such as radioactive materials and conventional explosives byproducts. (reference “Approaches for the Remediation of Federal Facility Sites Contaminated with Explosives or Radioactive Wastes”, EPA/625/R-93/013, September 1993).
The shipment across the ocean, unloading at Longview, Washington State port, transport by rail, and burial in Idaho endangers not only the residents of these areas but poses a significant agricultural threat through introduction of pests, microbes, etc. foreign to our nation.
Sadly the known adverse health and environmental hazards from uranium weapons contamination are in our own backyard. The EPA has listed the former Nuclear Metals- Starmet uranium weapons manufacturing site in Concord Ma. On EPA’s Superfund National Priority List because it poses a significant risk to public health and the environment.
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Read more6,700 Tons of Radioactive Debris Shipped From Kuwait to Idaho