Grocer To Require Labeling Of GMO Foods
Whole Foods Market will be the first major retailer in the U.S. require labeling of all genetically modified foods sold in its stores. Photo By Kari Sullivan
AUSTIN, Texas – With genetically modified ingredients now deeply embedded in the U.S. food supply, it’s a decision that many in the industry are calling a game changer. Whole Foods Market plans to require labeling of all GMO foods sold in its stores by 2018, becoming the first major retailer in the nation to do so.
The decision was led by customer demand, according to Whole Foods executive global grocery coordinator Errol Schweizer.
“The rise of fair trade, the growth of organic, of farmer’s markets, all point to the fact that our customers want to know where their food is coming from, what it’s made from, who is making it,” Schweizer said. “The more information we can give our customers, the better it is for us and them, as well as for our producers.”
The Food and Drug Administration has deemed GMO products safe. Some are concerned that the labeling could mislead consumers about the potential risk, but Schweizer said the company is simply offering transparency.
“We’re not making a value judgment, and we’re not interpreting the science one way or the other,” he explained. “We’re just saying the customer has the right to make an informed choice on what they are feeding themselves or their family.”
Whole Foods already sells more than 3,300 products that are verified non-GMO.
Schweizer will be among business leaders from around the country coming together later this month for the spring conference of the Social Venture Network. Schweizer said his message there starts with cooperation.
“Mission-oriented businesses of various scales, big and small, can work together to further the values and mission of what they’re doing. So, it’s really about partnering for the greater good and running a business in the meantime.”
The Social Venture Network conference is set for April 25-28 in San Diego.
Stop Toll Road Frenzy
I have written many times about toll roads and why we should not build and use them.
As they do with public education tax dollars, Gov. Perry and legislators divert tax dollars slated for roadways to other interests. We need to use road tax revenues for roadways before we ever contemplate other options including toll roads and bond issues.
We need more transparency re: TxDOT, RMA’s and private road conglomerates and the contracts developed. Most of us don’t see where our tax dollars go.
The fuel/gas taxes have not increased for decades re: cost of living and inflation rates. They have been frozen by Gov. Perry and legislators and they refuse to permit an increase in those taxes citing the GOP does not want to levy new or increased taxation. However, they have no problem diverting state responsibility for education and road costs onto local governments, who in turn increase property taxes or tax rates and/or approve bond programs that increase property taxes. Meanwhile, the state uses education and road tax revenue for other interests. This should be illegal.
Regarding toll roads, private road conglomerates immediately take 80 percent off the top of toll revenues for their revenue and the cost of their expenses. The company usually has a contract with the state for any time period of 50 to 70 years. Generally, tolls will be forever as the state sees tolls as additional EASY revenue.
Toll roads usually initiate long term debt for Texas taxpayers, especially when bond packages are included and/or if TxDOT or the CTRMA takes out a long term loan to include in the initial toll road costs.
Toll roads often are put on already paid for with our taxes roadways, e.g., the proposed toll lanes for MoPac. There should be no toll roads permitted on already existing tax paid roads. The state gets past this legally by saying the proposed toll lanes will be adjacent to the existing roadways, but we know that it is an end around ploy to build them.
Toll roads create other issues, including, more noise and air pollution, devaluing adjacent residential neighborhoods and homes, etc.
Tolls are not considered new taxes, but they really are when you consider that businesses using the toll roads will pass along the toll costs onto their wholesale and retail consumers. We all will pay toll taxes even if we do not use the toll roads ourselves.
Toll roads are built for those wealthy enough to afford to use them. It is a classist ploy to increase revenues by building private roadways for the wealthier. The poorer population can not use them.
RMA’s or private conglomerates will manipulate the actual costs of the tolls at ANY time and will not need prior-approval for doing so. The costs will change during peak hours and/or increases in the tolls may occur for any and for no reason at all.
Regulation of toll roads force people to use them without often knowing they are going onto a toll road. If they don’t have a toll pass their license plate will be photographed and they will be charged via mail for the toll cost, a service fee and possibly a penalty. This is a manipulation and invasion of our privacy and civil rights.
I am against government regulation into our daily lives. Toll roads are a flagrant violation of our rights and privacy. Despite what the state and private companies tell us, tolls are new taxes and force further regulations and other costs and issues onto residents and/or taxpayers. I am totally against toll roads unless they are the last resort. Here in Texas tolls are now the first resort.
Peter Stern, Driftwood Texas
New Look At The Battle Of San Jacinto
DENTON, Texas—In partnership with the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), the longest continually running historical organization in Texas, JoSara MeDia has announced the availability of San Jacinto, an enhanced eBook for Apple’s iPad, iPhone and iPod devices.
“Drawing on the wealth of historical content that TSHA possesses, and adding in up-to-date multimedia such as maps, panoramic pictures and hi-definition photos, we’ve created an app describing the battle of San Jacinto that is entertaining and educational,” stated Larry Ketchersid of JoSara MeDia.
The battle of San Jacinto has been called “one of the decisive battles of the world.” The San Jacinto app covers those events by including rich digital content from several perspectives:
– The Battle of San Jacinto by James W. Pohl, originally published in 1989, provided here in an enhanced edition with links, color photos and more.
– Panoramic views from points on the battlefield, which can be rotated and zoomed to get a feel for what Sam Houston, Santa Anna and the rest of the combatants saw.
– The article “Mapping San Jacinto” by Jeffrey D. Dunn, from TSHA’s Southwestern Historical Quarterly, which uses historical maps “as tools in helping to delineate the boundaries of the battleground and identify significant landscape features deemed important in influencing the outcome of the battle.”
“All of the different parts of this enhanced eBook link to the Handbook of Texas Online, the most comprehensive and authoritative state history encyclopedia in the country,” affirmed Kent Calder, Executive Director of TSHA. “Along with the book and article, links to the Handbook provide the reader with opportunities to explore particular areas of interest.”
“This app builds on the digital projects foundation TSHA put in place with the Handbook of Texas Online, as well as on its scholarly publishing efforts over the last century,” stated Steve Cook, board member of TSHA. “This app continues the evolution of making in-depth historical content available in new ways.”
The San Jacinto app is available on the Apple App store, and will be available in the future for Android platforms.
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Founded as a private, nonprofit educational organization on March 2, 1897, and housed at the University of North Texas, the Texas State Historical Association is one of the nation’s most dynamic regional history organizations. Reinforced by more than one hundred years of scholarship, its mission is to further the appreciation, understanding, and teaching of the rich and unique history of Texas through research, writing, publication, and educational programs.
Being Homeless Is HARD WORK!
http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2013/04/living-dying-on-streets-being-homeless.html
While my apartment was busy being renovated, re-habbed and fixed up for most of last month and a good chunk of this one, I had been forced to find “alternative housing” — staying with relatives, living in cheap motels, house-sitting for strangers, sleeping on various couches and futons, renting rooms-by-the-night in other peoples’ homes, staying in hostels, whatever. But yesterday I finally got to move back home!
Sure, all my stuff was still in boxes when I got back and the heater didn’t work and there was no hot water, but it’s like Virginia Woolf used to say, “All one really needs is a bed and a computer of one’s own.”
Everything else is just icing on the cake.
This past month has been a grand adventure, obviously, and a whole lot of fun in many ways. But the bottom line is that, for most of this time, I was disoriented and grouchy and unsure and unorganized and even afraid. And for much of this time I was basically living out of the back seat of my car — and in laundromats and diners and parks and libraries. Even now, my head hurts just thinking about it.
And even though I myself was never in any real danger of being actually homeless during this time and didn’t have to go without any meals and always found a roof to put over my head, nevertheless, I was constantly stressed out during this entire month. Mucho stressed out. Stressed out a lot!
So just imagine if someone was forced to do this uber-stressful homelessness gig 24/7; for months and even years at a time — with no resources, no backup and no future hope that someday soon they would be going back home again. I can’t even imagine doing all that and still keeping sane.
In just the past month, my complete respect for the homeless has grown by leaps and bounds. It’s a wonder to me that they can handle all this stress day after day and still remain sane. It’s even a wonder to me that they can even still stay alive.
According to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, “[T]he number of homeless people on a single night in January 2012 was 633,782.” http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/20/us-usa-economy-hunger-idUSBRE8BJ14I20121220 And I bet there were a lot more than that.
Here’s to you, homeless Americans everywhere. Having been almost one of you for only one month, I salute you with all of my heart.
PS: My all-time favorite bumper sticker reads, “Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World Peace in one generation!” And I sincerely believed this was true until I met a young woman from China recently — and now have to re-think that idea completely.
“What are they like — those adults in China who have grown up under its single-child system, the fortunately-nurtured ones whose needs have all been met? Are they happy, secure, hopeful, compassionate?”
“No, hardly! They’re egocentric, self-centered and spoiled. They think only of themselves and their own wants and needs. Having been raised without siblings and with so many doting parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, all they can pretty much do now as adults is to whine a lot when they don’t get their own way — and expect to be waited on.”
And this same sort of thing seems to be true here at my housing co-op as well. When we all moved in here back in 1979, a lot of us had some pretty grim stories to tell — having endured poverty, homelessness, spousal abuse, single-parent loneliness, unemployment, overcrowding, victimization, addiction, etc; before finding these wonderful homes. I myself had been previously living in an attic without running water and in an small apartment with no privacy.
And then our sweet little housing co-op offered all of us bruised members of society an idealistic new chance to be wanted, nurtured, protected and loved. My co-op’s motto became “Caring and Sharing”.
And so what happened next? How did these new residents handle this wonderful new chance? Humph. Instead of creating “neighborhood peace in one generation” like we had hoped, they soon became a re-creation of the worst of today’s modern American society, almost exactly. We soon developed an almost Darwinian example of survival of the fittest.
Within ten years, my sweet little housing co-op had already developed its very own Boss Tweeds and its very own 1%.
However, something good did come of all this. Timid little me actually began to develop the necessary cajones to go up against this new 1% all by myself. And even after surviving attempts to beat me up, illegally raise my rent, stage frequent sudden illegal “inspections” of my apartment, actually try to pass an ordinance that I was not allowed to knit in board meetings, hold five (5) kangaroo courts to try to convict me of wrong-doing, attempt to evict me illegally and even to throw me in jail, I did finally win the battle to get my housing co-op not only financially stable for the first time in years but actually renovated and restored to its original pristine condition.
And then, even more important, when George W. Bush stole the 2000 election, I realized that if I could single-handedly defeat the greedy Boss Tweeds who ran my housing co-op, then taking on GWB should be a walk in the park! And that’s how I became a blogger. So, actually, I do owe those former powers-that-be in my co-op a huge debt of gratitude after all.
They proved to me that if someone, even the weakest and meekest of us all, can work long enough and hard enough to achieve justice, then it can be obtained.
And so Wall Street and War Street had better watch out. I am still coming after them. And I’m now locked and loaded — with a computer and a bed!
PPS: A well-known local psychiatrist recently gave a speech to members of the Berkeley-Albany Bar Association, and he said that children raised in child-centered households were far LESS likely to become substance abusers than children raised in adult-centered households.
This probably means that the egotistic children of China at least won’t be at risk for getting all addicted to alcohol and drugs — plus it certainly explains why GWB was a drunk and coke addict for so many years.
Farm Program Funding Priorities Out of Step
There is still no new Farm Bill, and the Center for Rural Affairs says there needs to be a change in funding priorities. Photo By Jason Riedy
AUSTIN, Texas – The Center for Rural Affairs is calling for a change in priorities in how the nation’s farm programs are funded. Executive director Chuck Hassebrook said those programs that invest in rural America have seen dramatic cuts.
“Small-business development programs, beginning farmer programs, several of them now are completely put on hold with no money,” he said. “In some other places, there have been no cuts.”
One place where Congress should look to cut but has not, Hassebrook said, is crop insurance premium subsidies.
“For example, right now if one corporation farmed your entire state,” he explained, “the federal government would pay 60 percent of its crop insurance premiums on every acre, every year – good years and bad.”
Putting a cap on those could save $1 billion a year, Hassebrook said, adding that those savings could be used for deficit reduction and to fund conservation and rural development programs that he calls vital for the future prosperity of rural America.
“There should be a higher priority on investing in the future of our small towns and rural communities, through small-business development and beginning farmer programs, than there should be on multimillion-dollar, unlimited premium subsidies to ‘mega farms,'” he said, “yet Congress is doing the opposite.”
The last Farm Bill expired in the fall, but has been temporarily extended by Congress.
Corporate Billions In Offshore Havens
Loopholes Costs U.S. $150 Billion a Year
AUSTIN, Texas – As Texas taxpayers raced to beat the midnight filing deadline on April 15, another year has come and gone with the nation losing out on billions of dollars because of offshore corporate tax havens. The loopholes that allow for the hiding of income need to be closed, according to many citizens, businesses and groups, including the American Sustainable Business Council. CEO David Levine declared that it is time to level the playing field.
“Many of the small and medium and even the large responsible companies are paying their fair share of taxes, whereas some of the large multinational corporations are hiding their profits overseas and not paying any taxes back in this country,” he said.
It’s estimated that every year, corporations and wealthy individuals in the U.S. avoid paying $150 billion in taxes by using complicated accounting tricks to shift their profits to offshore tax havens.
Levine said that lost revenue has negative effects on the nation from coast to coast because it could be used for deficit reduction or needed investments.
“The funding at the local, state and national level for infrastructure, from transportation to energy to support for education systems, that funding is just not going to be there because of the large amounts of funds in these tax havens,” he explained.
Also in support of closing the loopholes are a majority of the nation’s small-business owners. A new poll found that three-fourths of those owners, of all political persuasions, want to see Congress act to stop the abuse of offshore tax havens.
Among them is Mitch Rofsky, owner of Better World Club, an eco-friendly provider of insurance and roadside assistance, who called the current system “egregious” on a number of levels.
“The first is just a question of not paying American taxes on real earned income,” he said. “And then, related to that, you could set up phony offices in the Cayman Islands and avoid paying legitimate taxes that way, as well.”
Legislation that would close offshore tax haven loopholes already has been introduced in the U.S. Senate and a similar bill in the U.S. House is expected to be introduced.
More information is at bit.ly/10MfxlB.
Time To Teach Every TX High Schooler CPR?
Only about 11 percent of Americans who suffer cardiac arrest outside a hospital setting survive. But with bystander CPR, their odds of survival are doubled or even tripled. HB 897 would require all students in Texas to be taught CPR prior to graduation. Courtesy of American Heart Association.
AUSTIN, Texas – A hearing was held recently at the State Capitol on a bill that has the potential to save thousands of lives, by having CPR taught to all Texas high school pupils before graduation.
Among the supporters of the legislation is Dr. Ellen Pringle of the University of Texas, who said the hands-only CPR method is easy to learn and should be one of those basic life skills.
“We learn how to change oil, we learn how to balance checkbooks, but we don’t learn one of the most vital things that there is – and that’s saving someone that’s either a friend, a family member – if something bad happens,” she asserted. “So we’re excited about it. We hope we can get the bill passed.”
Also urging lawmakers to pass the legislation is Matt Nader of Austin, who was 17 years old when he suffered cardiac arrest during a high school football game. Nader’s parents were there and immediately started CPR on their son. Nader survived, and now he’s among those who want to turn everyday people into an army of lifesavers.
Matt Nader suffered from cardiac arrest while playing a high school football game. He survived thanks to bystander CPR by his parents and is now an advocate for having CPR taught to all Texas high schoolers.
“There’s no substitute in adequate preparation for anything,” Nader declared. “People that are able to understand the situation. They’re prepared and they’re confident. And when it comes down to saving somebody’s life, that’s the most important thing.”
For those opposed or uncertain about the requirement, one concern is about adding another cost to strapped school budgets. But Pringle said it can be done with little to no cost, since certification is not needed and many emergency responders will conduct the training for free.
“Houston Independent School District has done this training in the past and we’ve gone in free of charge to help the students learn this,” she cited as an example. “It’s very simple.”
The bill under consideration would have all pupils in the state take just one 30-minute CPR class at some point between seventh grade and high school graduation. The measure is supported by nearly 80 percent of Texans, according to polling by the American Heart Association. Heart disease is the state’s leading killer.
Around 300,000 Americans suffer cardiac arrest away from the hospital every year. Those who have bystander CPR administered are twice or even three times more likely to survive.
More information is at legiscan.com.
EPA Fails To Protect Bees From Pesticides
A coalition of beekeepers and environmental and consumer groups filed suit Thursday, claiming the EPA allows products – which are highly toxic to honey bees – to get to market with little oversight. Photo By Derek Keats
AUSTIN, Texas – A lawsuit has been filed against the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming the EPA is not doing enough to protect the nation’s declining bee population.
The suit was brought by a coalition of beekeepers and environmental groups, including the Pesticide Action Network.
Paul Towers, organizing and media director for the Pesticide Action Network, says the EPA has failed by allowing bee-toxic pesticides in dozens of widely used agricultural products for years.
“EPA has acted as a rubber stamp for these neonicotinoid products,” he says. “They’ve rushed the products to market, and even when they’re on the market, they’ve failed to provide the right protections on these pesticide labels. So EPA has really shirked its responsibility and that’s why we’re taking them to court.”
Research points to a combination of factors likely to blame for honeybees disappearing, including pesticides and bacterial infections.
Beekeepers in the United States have been losing about a third of their bees annually and this past year there was a record high, with many reporting losses of 40 to 50 percent.
It was even worse for Steve Ellis, who owns the Old Mill Honey Company and is among the plaintiffs.
Ellis says he lost nearly two-thirds of his bees this year and, like many other keepers, didn’t have enough to fulfill his pollination contracts with almond growers in California.
Ellis says that will have a ripple effect on a variety of crops and consumers nationwide.
“You sit down at the breakfast table and you want to have your blueberries and your apples and your cherries and your almonds,” he says. “And if those yields are going to be impacted by insufficient pollinators, the price is going to go up and the availability is going to go down.”
With the filing of the suit, Paul Towers says the Pesticide Action Network hopes to force the EPA to review these products independently, and through the normal and more rigorous process.
“And in the interim, it should impose restrictions on the use of these pesticides that are toxic to bees,” he says. “Those are the clear and easy steps that the agency can take to ensure the success of bees, of pollination and to support our food system.”
It is the EPA’s policy to not comment on pending litigation.
Magnitude Of Gulf Oil Spill Still Unfolding
Taken in 2010 following the Deepwater Horizon spill, this photo shows an oil covered pelican. Of particular concern today is the spill’s continuing impact on sea turtles and dolphins. Courtesy of Louisiana Governor’s Office.
AUSTIN, Texas – Nearly three years after the Deepwater Horizon spill, a new study says the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster is far from over.
Oil still is washing ashore, said Doug Inkley, a senior scientist for the National Wildlife Federation and lead author of the report. Inkley said the impact continues to be felt by wildlife, including sea turtles and – of particular concern – dolphins.
“We know that dolphins are still dying in high numbers in the areas that have been affected by the spill,” he said, “and that these ongoing deaths – particularly in a species at the top of the food chain – are a strong indication that something is seriously amiss in the ecosystems of the gulf. ”
The April 20, 2010, explosion on BP’s Deepwater rig killed 11 people and ultimately sent more than 4 million barrels of oil into the gulf, in the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history.The full impact of the spill won’t really be known for years, but Inkley said the other major concern now is the continued loss of the gulf’s coastal wetlands.
“They have been in dramatic decline for decades,” he said. “In fact, in the last 80 years, Louisiana alone has lost coastal wetlands the size of the state of Rhode Island. Restoring Gulf coast wetlands is urgent, and it’s critical for maintaining the gulf’s rich fish and wildlife resources as well as the local economy.”
Capt. Ryan Lambert, owner of Buras, La.-based Cajun Fishing Adventures, has made a living in the gulf for more than 30 years. Lambert said the spill led to unprecedented – and continuing – coastal erosion.
“There’s total islands gone,” he said. “There are large areas of marsh that are gone. And what it’s doing is, it’s taking away the vegetation and the things that held the marsh into place. So now, every time you get a tidal surge or just day-to-day tides coming in and out, we’re losing marsh at a rate more rapid than I’ve seen in all my years here.”
The report’s release comes as BP and other companies involved are on trial in federal court in New Orleans for violations of multiple environmental laws. The Department of Justice has concluded that BP was grossly negligent. BP says the spill was a tragic accident resulting from multiple causes and involving multiple parties.
The report is online at nwf.org.
Social Security: Target For Murder
To President Obama and Members of Congress:
Please do NOT cut Social Security. Increase the Social Security Tax and stop diverting those taxes to other interests.
We are told constantly SS benefits are “entitlement” but the real entitlement is that people are entitled to collect Social Security Benefits because they put money into the program their whole working lives and are entitled to collect their benefits when they become elderly and/or disabled.
The President and Congress act as if we are taking THEIR money. We paid for it in taxes and earned the right to collect Social Security Benefits.
Peter Stern, Driftwood Texas
Public Not Warned Of Bomb Test Fallout
U.S. Warned Kodak, Not Steve O’Neil, About Bomb Test Fallout
In 1951, the Eastman Kodak Company had threatened a federal lawsuit over the nuclear fallout that was fogging its bulk film shipments. Film was not packed in bubble wrap then, but in corn stalks that were sometimes being fallout-contaminated. By agreeing to warn Kodak, etc., the AEC and the bomb program avoided the public uproar — and the bomb testing program’s possible cancellation — that a lawsuit would have precipitated. The settlement kept the deadliness of the fallout hidden from farmers and the public, even though the government well knew that fallout endangered all the people it was supposed to be defending.
This staggering revelation was heralded on Sept. 30, 1997 in the New York Times headline, “U.S. Warned Film Plants, Not Public, About Nuclear Fallout.” The article began, “[W]hile the Government reassured the public that there was no health threat from atmospheric nuclear tests…” The fallout’s radioactive iodine-131caused thyroid doses to virtually all 160 million people in the U.S. at the time.
According to the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) in Takoma Park, Maryland, which discovered the cover-up, children were especially affected and received higher doses because they generally consumed more milk than adults and since their thyroids are smaller and growing more rapidly. The “milk pathway” moves radio-iodine from grass, to cows, to milk with extreme efficiency — a fact known to the government as early as 1951. Ingested iodine-131 concentrates in the thyroid gland where it can cause cancer. Average doses to children averaged between 6 and 14 rad, with some as high as 112 rad. Prior to 1997, the government claimed that thyroid doses to children were 15 to 70 times less.
Radioactive fallout spread to every corner of the U.S.
My friend Steve O’Neil of Duluth, Minnesota, who was born in 1951, has been a public spirited political activist all of his adult life, an advocate for the homeless and a campaigner against the causes of homelessness. As a St. Louis County Commissioner in his third term, Steve made headlines this month by announcing that he has been attacked by an aggressive form of thyroid cancer. Steve is not alone in his affliction — more than 60,000 thyroid cancers will be spotted this year in the U.S. Tens of thousands of them have been caused by our government’s nuclear weapons establishment.
The National Cancer Institute disclosed in 1997 that some 75,000 thyroid cancer cases can be expected in the U.S. from just 90 — out of a total of 235 — above-ground bomb tests and that 10 percent of them will be fatal. That year, the NCI said, about 70 percent of the thyroid cancers caused by iodine-131 fallout from those 90 tests had not yet been diagnosed but would appear years or decades later.
The 14-year NCI study also said the 90 bomb blasts produced more than 100 times the radioactive iodine-131 than the government had earlier claimed. The NCI estimated that they dispersed “about 150 million curies of iodine-131, mainly in the years 1952, 1953, 1955, and 1957.” The study reported that all 160 million people in the country at the time were exposed to the iodine-131 (the only isotope out of more than 300 that were dispersed by the bomb blasts that it studied). Children under 15, like Steve O’Neil and all the Baby Boomers, were particularly at risk.
High doses of fallout were spread nation-wide. Wind patterns and local rainfall caused “hot spots” from Montana and Idaho to South Dakota, Minnesota, Missouri and beyond.
In 1962, according to IEER, officials in Utah and Minnesota diverted possibly contaminated milk from the market when iodine-131 levels exceeded radiation guidelines set by the Federal Radiation Council (FRC). The FRC reacted harshly and declared that it did “not recommend such actions.” The FRC also announced that its radiation guidelines should not be applied to bomb test fallout because “any possible health risk which may be associated with exposures even many times above the guide levels would not result in a detectable increase in the incidence of disease.” IEER’s scientists condemned this fabulously implausible assurance, writing: “Since thyroid cancers can develop many years after radiation exposure and are therefore not immediately detectable, this reassurance was highly misleading.”
Thyroid cancers are tip of Bomb test cancer iceberg
The NCI’s 1997 study said about 16,000 cases of thyroid cancer were diagnosed in the U.S. annually, and that 1,230 would die from the disease. This estimate turned out to be a gross under-statement.
Today the NCI reports that 60,220 new cases of thyroid cancer will be diagnosed in the U.S. this year, and that 1,850 of them will be fatal. The thyroid cancer “balloon” is with us because the nuclear weapons complex under Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy attacked the very people it was said to be defending. Yet, it gets worse.
The UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation says that iodine-131 doses comprise only two percent of the overall radiation dose from weapons testing. Ninety-eight percent of our fallout dose is from 300 other isotopes produced by the Bomb. It is not idle speculation to suggest that the cancer pandemic afflicting the people of the U.S. has been caused by our own government’s deliberately secret and viciously reckless weapons program. //
John LaForge works for Nukewatch, a nuclear watchdog group in Wisconsin, edits its Quarterly newsletter, and is syndicated through PeaceVoice.