EPA Scientists Pressured to Allow Continued Use of Dangerous Pesticides
• EPA Scientists Cite Pressure In Pesticide Study Union Files Letter Blasting Agency Managers, Industry Over Tests on Toxics Family
By OHN J. FIALKA
Wall Street Journal Page A4, May 25, 2006
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114852646165862757.html
By OHN J. FIALKA
Wall Street Journal Page A4, May 25, 2006
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114852646165862757.html
WASHINGTON -- Union leaders representing Environmental Protection Agency scientists and other specialists assert that agency managers and pesticide-industry officials are exerting "political pressure" to allow continued use of a family of pesticides that might be harmful to children, infants and fetuses.
In a letter to Stephen Johnson, EPA's administrator, the union leaders said scientists are being pushed to skip steps in their testing, and alleged that the "integrity of the science upon which agency decisions are based has been compromised."
The protest from unions representing some 9,000 EPA scientists and other employees about a pending agency determination is unprecedented and a professional rebuke to Mr. Johnson, himself a scientist and former assistant administrator in charge of the agency's program to test the harmful effects of pesticides.
EPA spokeswoman Jennifer Wood said the agency "has been reviewing all pesticides in question and applying new, stricter standards as required under the Food Quality Protection Act, with a specific focus on their effects on children's health." The agency had no specific response to the union leaders' assertions. Spokesmen for groups representing the pesticide industry didn't immediately return phone calls.
The letter said the agency faces an August deadline to re-evaluate a family of 20 organophosphate and carbamate pesticides,many of them stemming from World War II research on nerve gas. They include malathion, commonly used to kill mosquitoes, and a variety of other chemicals that are used in agriculture, gardens, on golf courses and on flea collars and pest strips.
Under the Food Quality Protection Act passed in 1996, the EPA is required to review acceptable limits for residues of existing pesticides within 10 years. Organophosphates, which attack the nervous system, were among the group given the highest priority for testing.
Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, whose members include state and federal employees, said "the fact that this letter had to be sent at all is an utter disgrace."
Jennifer Sass, a toxicologist for the Natural Resources Defense Council, another environmental group, said there is "a lot of uncertainty" in scientific data about the pesticides and "newer, cleaner alternatives" are available. "This is old style chemistry and these [chemicals] should have been buried years ago."
After World War II, scientists discovered that insects were more sensitive to nerve gases than humans and it was felt that humans wouldn't be harmed by relatively low applications of the chemicals. According to a recent report by the EPA's Office of Inspector General, however, later studies showed that some pesticides can easily enter the brain of fetuses and young children and may destroy cells in the developing nervous system.
Although the federal law gave the EPA 10 years to settle the issue, the inspector general's report, issued in January, said the agency still lacked a standard evaluation procedure for testing the toxicity to developing nervous systems. The union leaders recommended that Mr. Johnson tighten restrictions on use of the pesticides until the questions are settled.
The letter was sent by leaders of nine local chapters of three unions: the American Federation of Government Employees, National Treasury Employees Union and Engineers and Scientists of California.
Write to John J. Fialka at john.fialka@wsj.com1
URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114852646165862757.html
Soft Drinks:
Disease in a Can
Disease in a Can
Out of over 100 soft drinks and other beverages analyzed by the government, five contained levels of benzene -- a cancer-causing chemical linked to leukemia -- that exceed federal standards set for benzene in drinking water, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
While the federal benzene limit for drinking water is 5 parts per billion (ppb), researchers found benzene levels as high as 79 ppb in the drinks, and most had at least some detectable level of benzene present.
Benzene is able to form in beverages that contain vitamin C (ascorbic acid) and the preservatives sodium benzoate or potassium benzoate. Exposure to heat and light can trigger the formation.
The five drinks that contained excessive benzene levels were:
Safeway Select Diet Orange Crush Pineapple AquaCal Strawberry Flavored Water Beverage Crystal Light Sunrise Classic Orange Giant Light Cranberry Juice Cocktail.
In response, soda manufacturers, including Safeway, are changing their beverage formulations to reduce the risk. Aside from the potential benzene risks, MindConnection has compiled a thorough article on all of soft drinks' potential health threats. Soft drinks, they say, could rightfully be called:
Osteoporosis in a can
Diabetes in a can
Cancer in a can
Bloomberg.com May 20, 2006
Yahoo News May 19, 2006
Dedicated to Mothers, Fathers, All The Children of the World and anyone else who searches for the Truth.
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OCA ACTION CENTER
Here's a list of actions you can take right now to help build a strong economy, based on sustainable agriculture, while protecting your health and the environment!
1) Global Moratorium on Genetically Engineered Foods & Crops
2) Stop Factory Farming and Phase-Out Industrial Agriculture
3) Convert US Agriculture to at least 30% Organic by 2010
Demanding that the US Government adopt and enforce the same strict standards required by the European Union and Japan:
• Mandatory testing for all cattle brought to slaughter, before they enter the food chain.
• Ban the feeding of blood, manure, and slaughterhouse waste to animals.
Demand that Monsanto Corporation:
• Stop intimidating small family farmers.
• Stop force-feeding untested and unlabeled genetically engineered foods on consumers.
• Stop using billions of dollars of U.S. taypayers' money to subsidize genetically engineered crops--cotton, soybeans, corn, and canola.
Sign the Coming Clean Petition
to pressure the Organic Trade Association and USDA's National Organic Program not to codify or implement extremely weak standards for organic cosmetics!
to pressure the Organic Trade Association and USDA's National Organic Program not to codify or implement extremely weak standards for organic cosmetics!
Local citizens and governments, like Mendocino county in California, have passed ordinances that ban GE crops from being planted in the area.
Now state and federal governments want to step in and override local laws.
Protect GE-free zones by signing this petition.
Protect GE-free zones by signing this petition.
Send a Free Fax to Starbucks' CEO
Tell Starbucks to support Fair Trade and to remove genetically engineered ingredients!
Tell Starbucks to support Fair Trade and to remove genetically engineered ingredients!
Send a Fax to Gap Inc.'s CEO
Tell Gap Inc.to blend in organic or transition to organic cotton in their clothing products, stop purchasing GE cotton and meet independently verified fair labor standards.
Tell Gap Inc.to blend in organic or transition to organic cotton in their clothing products, stop purchasing GE cotton and meet independently verified fair labor standards.
Would You EatLab-Grown Meat?
Scientists growing meat in petri dishes say it's safer, healthier, more humane and less polluting. But can we get past the 'yuck' factor?
As I type these words, men and women of science are growing meat in a laboratory. That's meat grown independently of any animal. It isn't hatched or born. It doesn't graze, walk or breathe. But it is alive. It sits growing in a room where somebody has called it into existence with a pipette and syringe.
"Cultured meat," it's called, and it is supposed to save us from the execrable pollution and guilt of factory farms while still allowing all 6.5 billion of us to stuff our gullets with ham sandwiches whenever we want to. It already exists in ground or chipped form. What Dutch scientists are working on now is a product that costs a few dollars per pound instead of a few thousand. It could be as little as five years away.
The concept is as simple as it is horrifying. Take some stem cells, or myoblasts, which are the precursors to muscle cells. Set them on "scaffolding" that they can attach to, like a flat sheet of plastic that the cells can later be slid off of. Put them in a "growth medium" -- some kind of fluid supplying the nutrients that blood would ordinarily provide. "Exercise" them regularly by administering electric currents or stretching the sheets of cells mechanically. Wait. Harvest. Eat.
It seems like something out of a chilling sci-fi future ...
continued at link above.
President Chavez Announces Ban of Genetically Engineered Crops in Venezuela
• Venezuela to Prohibit Transgenic Crops
From: BioX - China, July 8, 2006
Straight to the Source
From: BioX - China, July 8, 2006
Straight to the Source
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias has announced that the cultivation of genetically modified crops will be prohibited on Venezuelan soil, possibly establishing the most sweeping restrictions on transgenic crops in the Western Hemisphere. Though full details of the administration’s policy on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are still forthcoming, the statement by President Chavez will lead most immediately to the cancellation of a contract that Venezuela had negotiated with the U.S.-based Monsanto Corporation.
Before a recent international gathering of supporters in Caracas, President Chavez admonished genetically engineered crops as contrary to interests and needs of the nation’s farmers and farmworkers. He then zeroed in on Monsanto’s plans to plant up to 500,000 acres of transgenic soybeans in Venezuela.
Obese Americans are poisoned by food supply, concludes UC researcher
Obese Americans are poisoned by food supply, concludes UC researcher
Obese Americans are poisoned by food supply, concludes UC researcher
Posted Monday, August 14, 2006 by NewsTarget,
(NewsTarget) Recently, Congress shot down a rash of lawsuits against McDonalds suggesting the fast food chain was responsible for obesity and weight problems; but a study by a University of California at San Francisco obesity expert suggests that their actions may have been unjustified.
(NewsTarget) Recently, Congress shot down a rash of lawsuits against McDonalds suggesting the fast food chain was responsible for obesity and weight problems; but a study by a University of California at San Francisco obesity expert suggests that their actions may have been unjustified.
According to Dr. Robert Lustig, it is unfair to entirely blame the U.S population -- two-thirds of which is overweight -- when the cookies, potato chips, yogurts, white breads and other processed foods that make up most of America's food supply are packed with sugars that fool the body into thinking it is hungry, even after food has been consumed.
This, Lustig said, is because the massive amounts of sugars in the mainstream U.S. diet can flood the body with insulin. This overabundance of insulin then blocks the hormone leptin, which ordinarily signals the brain when the body is full. Without this signal, the brain compels the body to increase its calorie intake and conserve energy; a pattern that Lustig said is akin to nicotine addiction.
Despite the fact that many in the medical and dietary fields have long suggested a link between obesity and increased sugar consumption -- a recent American Journal of Clinical Nutrition study suggested that one soda a day can add about 15 pounds a year to the average waistline -- Lustig's theory has caused some contention in both the food industry and mainstream medicine.
"I disagree with some of the details, particularly regarding the effects of insulin, and I think some of it is fairly speculative," said Dr. Peter Havel, a nutrition researcher at UC Davis. "It is really more of a hypothetical proposal rather than a review of established science. But I think there are some interesting ideas proposed in the article, many of which could and should be tested in animal models."
"You can complain that society does this to you, or that you don't have options, but I don't see it that way," said Vittoria Baltazzi, who lost 30 pounds in 16 years, and has kept the weight off for six years. While leading a Weight Watchers discussion in downtown San Francisco, she added, "If you are conscious of what you're doing, you can overcome your environment."
Still, doctors and other diet experts are seeing more obese or overweight patients who are unable to adopt lifestyle changes that can help them lose weight and improve their health, which seems to lend credibility to Lustig's hypothesis.
"Everyone's assuming you have a choice, but when your brain is starving, you don't have a choice," he says. "When you look at it that way, all of a sudden Big Food looks like the perpetrator, and the patient becomes the victim ... when you don't have a choice, it's not your fault."
