Unfortunately, more than nine million Americans do.
This from Think Progress:
CDC blocked release of ‘alarming’ environmental report.The Center for Public Integrity reports today that “for more than seven months, the nation’s top public health agency has blocked the publication of an exhaustive federal study of environmental hazards in the eight Great Lakes states” because of “alarming information” about “elevated infant mortality and cancer rates” potentially threatening “more than nine million” Americans. In July, just days before the report was to be released, the Center for Disease Control “withdrew it, saying that it needed further review.”
Here is the link from Publicintegrity.org, which is what Think Progress picked up.
The 400-plus-page study, Public Health Implications of Hazardous Substances in the Twenty-Six U.S. Great Lakes Areas of Concern, was undertaken by a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the request of the International Joint Commission, an independent bilateral organization that advises the U.S. and Canadian governments on the use and quality of boundary waters between the two countries. The study was originally scheduled for release in July 2007 by the IJC and the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).The Center for Public Integrity has obtained the study, which warns that more than nine million people who live in the more than two dozen “areas of concern”-including such major metropolitan areas as Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee-may face elevated health risks from being exposed to dioxin, PCBs, pesticides, lead, mercury, or six other hazardous pollutants.
In many of the geographic areas studied, researchers found low birth weights, elevated rates of infant mortality and premature births, and elevated death rates from breast cancer, colon cancer, and lung cancer.
Nice, isn’t it?
Ya know, we’re all suffering “scandal fatigue” and I’m sure this story, like so many others, will never see the light of day, and if it does, will soon disappear down the Memory Hole.
It’s simply overwhelming to keep track of all the scandals. And when your attention is grabbed by one, there’s suddenly a new one to distract you.
So here you are, folks, your daily distraction from whatever the LAST scandal was/is. Oh yeah, admitting that we tortured three people. Somehow that doesn’t deal with the fact that the CIA has been slicing up people’s genitals and raping children in front of their parents. Hm, somehow “genital mutilation” and “child rape” isn’t as much fun to debate as “waterboarding.” God knows the MSM doesn’t want to report about “genital mutilation” because, well, that might make people squeamish and who knows, the goddamn FCC might just fine you for saying the word “genitals” on the evening news.
But waterboarding? I think you can buy sportswear from REI to go waterboarding, can’t you? Or maybe from Roxy. You know, for the kids.
Just don’t go “waterboarding” on the Great Lakes. You might get cancer.
But you’re not supposed to know about that.
Shop. Consume. Britney. Angelina. Terror.
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I’m serious. If anybody else in such a position of responsibility acted in such a recklessly irresponsible and dangerous manner, they would be sued into oblivion.
There’s got to be a way to sue the people responsible, and while we’re at it, how about getting those oil companies to pay for their own piracy, i.e. the war of aggression (that right there is a war crime) against Iraq. They’re the ones filling up their tankers every day with Iraqi oil, where the meters are broken and nobody really knows how much oil is being removed. They’re the ones making The Biggest Profits Ever in the History of the Planet.
Why the hell are we being stuck with the bill? Hell, we’re paying for it TWICE — once through our taxes and the deficit and again at the gas pump.
I guess Americans are just so damn stupid they’ll put up with anything as long as they have their American Idol and their Lost and their 24.
I want out of this place. I’m drowning in a sea of stupidity. This must be the Stupidest Country inn the World.
I have family in that area (I come from the Midwest).
As I said to Turk in his essay about the jillion dollar defense budget … this is not a surprise, but that doesn’t ease the horrible pain of knowing about this, that the chickens are coming home to roost … except for Dubya on his ranch in South America.
I agree … suing is the way to go. Lord, I used to live in an apartment right on the shore of Lake Michigan.
And that’s not to mention that we need water.
Hard times ahead, hard times.
Thanks for this essay, Nordic.
Yes, it’s time.
of our lives is being destroyed, right under our nosesssss…
When will the brainwashed masses wake up????
News like this pisses me off SO much…’scandal fatigue’…right fuckin’ on!
Would make a great sig-line…
All kinds of cancer in children and adults have been high here for decades, and decades, ADHD too. Here in Gibraltar, we’ve known for a long time. I’ve always attributed it to both the water and the fact that our elementary school is built right beside an old illegal dump. I’m a block away from the Detroit River/Lake Erie.
What has become of us?
Chicago! We only drink Lake Michigan water and breathe in air fro the Tammeling Bros Dump right off I-355. So I am fine, except for this third head popping out of my back and then there is this foot growth that looks like another foot….and…then there’s…..
… yeah, they have been trying to tell us how much “cleaner” the Great Lakes are since the 70’s toxic slime, but we who live here all know the truth.
I am not near any of the shores, but live around a whole group of inland lakes, none of which are undamaged.
Then there are all the weird non-native species dumped by ballast waters, that have fucked the Great Lakes ecosystem into unprecedented imbalance.
Horrifying, isn’t it?
And yeah, our water is not for sale, the levels in all the Lakes have already dropped alarmingly from Global Warming, no ice, warmer winters and drought.
Right on to that!
though it’s not for myself that I’m concerned. It’s for my (and other people’s) children and grandchildren that I’m outraged. Thanks for the information. There was recently an article in a local paper about a 36 year old man and his daughter who had unknowingly bought a home two years ago near a former toxic dump site and have both developed cancer–which is a separate issue from the health effects of the polluted Great Lakes…
Don’t you just love the consequences of the republican “small government”? People can use their “tax breaks” to pay to treat the diseases they get because of the lack of regulations/ regulators needed to stop the polluters. Oh, wait–you don’t get much of a break unless you’re rich, and if you’re rich, you probably have enough health insurance to cover any illnesses, and to buy organic foods and buy water and water filtering systems that aren’t polluted…nevermind.
Read it – he was prescient.