SIGHTINGS


 
Who's Who In The
Poison "Industry"
By Steve Tvedten
From Frank Altomonte
From Robalini
 
 
Robert Louis Stevenson once noted: "The cruelest lies are often told in silence."
 
 
Arabian Proverb He who knows not and knows not that he knows not He is a fool - shun him; He who knows not and knows he knows not, He is simple - teach him; He who knows and knows not he knows, He is asleep - wake him; He who knows and knows he knows, He is wise; follow him
 
 
 
My mother always used to say "If you want a helping hand - you will find one at the end of each of your arms." If you want to protect yourself - you must look to yourself - not to the poison "industry' or the "regulators" to "protect" you.
 
 
 
CHAPTER 14 WHO IS WHO IN THE POISON "INDUSTRY"
 
- with malice aforethought...
 
By Steve Tvedten
 
 
"They (corporations) cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed, nor be excommunicate - for they have no souls" - Sir Edward Coke, Case of Sutton's Hospital
 
"A nation that is afraid to let its people judge truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people" - John F. Kennedy
 
First of all - volatile, synthetic pesticide poisons are the largest group of poisonous substances purposefully being added or disseminated throughout our environment. All of the major poison producers are in the "health"/ pharmaceutical business too - so as you become poisoned/polluted and sicken and begin to die from their allopathic poisons - they will sell you allopathic drugs to "survive". These people are not "guardians" of the environment. They are the destroyers of the environment - they are not in the "chemical or health" industry - they are in the death or poison "industry"!
 
Between 1989 and 1995 the poison "industry" poured $20 million dollars into Congressional campaigns - please read Toxic Deception: How the Chemical Industry Manipulates Science, Bends the Law, and Endangers Your Health. The truth is simply not in these producers of poison; when I started in pest control 30 years ago, Velsicol, the producer of the cancer-causing chemical chlordane/heptachlor, ran advertisements - stating these poisons were so safe you did not need gloves or a respirator. I believed Velsicol and used their poisons and I ended up nearly dying. Even on 5/17/97 when the Velsicol Chemical Corporation finally announced it is permanently ceasing production of their cancer-causing chemicals chlordane and heptachlor and will not make its proprietary technology available to any other company for manufacture - the company still stated it's products have been used for protection! "We have always believed in the efficiency of these products, and the science that supports their continued use, but the economics no longer support continued manufacture." So, do not believe any of their lies! It is too bad you cannot put a corporation in jail or even make it (the Mamzers) tell the truth!
 
Second - in February, 1997 I noticed a new web site by Frank Altomonte <alto@earthlink.net and http://home.earthlink.net/~alto/boycott.html#international contained an interesting article by Jon Rapaport entitled: Revolt Against the Empire - Welcome to the Great Boycott. I have basically included his entire article with some other comments and additions as this chapter.
 
We are truly facing the "Banksters" of the Evil Empire, but unless you know the names of at least some of the players you will never realize the size and scale of your real enemy. Look into the face of the beast...
 
PANUPS noted on 4/30/97 that the top ten agrochemical companies all showed an increase in both dollar and national currency sales in 1996. Monsanto had the highest rate of growth, with a 22.8% increase over 1995 sales. Zeneca also showed double digit growth -- an 11.3% increase in dollar sales with a 9% increase in volume. Bayer had the smallest growth in sales (1.2%) and fell from third place in 1995 to sixth. After last year's merger of the Ciba Geigy and Sandoz, the newly formed multinational corporation Novartis entered the ranking in first place.
 
1996 Agrochemical Sales of Top Ten Companies
 
Company Sales (US$ mill.) % change vs.
1995
1. Novartis 4,527 + 4.5
2. Monsanto 2,997 + 22.8
3. Zeneca 2,630 + 11.3
4. AgrEvo 2,493 + 6.4
5. Du Pont 2,472 + 6.5
6. Bayer 2,360 + 1.2
7. Rhone-Poulenc 2,210 + 5.7
8. DowElanco 2,000 + 1.9
9. Cyanamid 1,989 + 4.1
10. BASF 1,541 + 8.4


Rhone-Poulenc and Du Pont both reported strong sales in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Rhone-Poulenc's sales were boosted by high sales of its new maize insecticide, Regent (fipronil), due to be launched in the U. S. next year. Much of the company's U.S. agrochemical business is based on the older carbamate insecticides such as Sevin (carbaryl), Temik (aldicarb) and Larvin (thiodicarb) which were acquired when Rhone-Poulenc bought out Union Carbide. The company is currently restructuring its U. S. operations to create two new business units which will focus on "new" and "mature" products.
 
Monsanto's increased sales were due in part to sales of Roundup (glyphosate) which were allowed for use on transgenic herbicide-tolerant crops for the first time in 1996. Roundup Ready (glyphosate tolerant) soybeans were planted on over one million acres in the U. S. in 1996, and Monsanto predicts an eight to ten million acre crop this year. In addition, approximately 250,000 to 300,000 acres of Roundup Ready soybeans were planted in Argentina for the 1996/97 season. Since 1995, Monsanto has invested over US$200 million in glyphosate manufacturing technology, and plans to invest another US$180 million for 1997.
 
While glyphosate-tolerant crops offer potential for expanded sales of Roundup, in the next few years most of the increase is expected to come from increasing adoption of "conservation tillage" practices in countries around the world. Monsanto estimates that the practice could be extended to more than 240 million acres worldwide by 2000, up from the 185 million acres at present. More than 40% of the volume growth of Roundup in recent years has come from expanded use of "conservation tillage" practices.
 
The Danish Environmental Protection Agency is currently investigating claims that residues (contamination) of glyphosate have been detected in Copenhagen's drinking water at levels exceeding European Union limits of 0.1 milligrams per liter. According to the head of the Copenhagen food safety agency, residues of up to 0.18 milligrams per liter have been found.
 
Jack Doyle wrote most of his Altered Harvest in 1983 and 1984 on agriculture, genetics, and the fate of the world's food supply - even back then he noted the beginning of our problems with the poison "industry" - get a copy of his book and Silent Spring and read - please read!
 
The biotechnology now owned by and patented by multinational monopolies is the "creation" of genes that command the faculty of chlorposts to bottle the sun, to resist insects, disease, or chemical contamination - the fact that we now either can have contaminated food or famine depending on the whims of the poison "industry" - is simply not acceptable nor reasonable.
 
Look at the history of these agrigenetic monopolies - these are some of the very corporations that have created health/environmental contamination problems for us in the past; they have sold us unsafe drugs, pesticides and/or products that were not adequately tested or that they tested in fraudulent laboratories, and/or falsified the health results, they have polluted the earth, given us cancers, nerve damages, altered our DNA, killed us and the earth, bribed public officials and/or operated outside of moral law and environmental accountability. Rev. 13:17.
 
Dow's partnership with Eli Lilly the nations' 7th largest drug firm is an example - officials at Eli Lilly knew its arthritis drug Oraflex had been associated with 29 deaths in Europe before it was "approved" for sale in this country - but no one told FDA of the deaths as Oraflex was being reviewed so that it could be sold in the U.S. The drug is now banned in the U.S.
 
Nathan Diegelman the S.T.A.T.E. Foundation b1891@FreeNet. Buffalo. EDU noted in his "Poison in the Grass: - It is a violation of U. S. federal law to claim pesticides are "safe when used as directed" since nothing can assure safety. (In spite of this fact, Agriculture Canada, the federal agency responsible until recently for licensing pesticides in Canada, routinely used this misleading health statement, adding for good measure that "most pesticides are safer than table salt". (Fortunately, pesticides in Canada are now licensed by Health Canada.) Some pesticides labeled "bio-degradable" degrade into compounds more dangerous than the original! Examples include Mancozeb, which degrades into a substance that is an EPA-classified probable carcinogen. The pesticide industry also implies that "organic' means safe and natural (for example, "Nature's Lawn"), knowing that the term legally may be applied to any compound containing carbon and hydrogen. ChemLawn and other lawn "care" companies and manufacturers have often been sued for fictitious "safety" claims. Many poison applicators are just as conniving and deceitful, using statements like "absolutely cannot harm children or 'pets" and "perfectly safe for the environment" to mislead the public. The New York State Attorney General's office sued Dow Elanco chemical company when they claimed that Dursban shows "no evidence of significant risk to the environment" when right on the label is stated "this pesticide is toxic to birds and extremely toxic to fish and aquatic organisms". A few years later on May 2, 1995, the EPA fined Dow Elanco for "failing to report to the Agency information on adverse health effect (to humans) over the past decade involving a number of pesticides, including chlorpyrifos (brand name Dursban)". Most of the information came from personal injury claims against Dow Elanco which the company had hidden from the EPA. Now it is even being found that chlorpyrifos causes multiple sclerosis.
 
Some applicators and some companies have even made claims that their poisons "better" the environment. "Funk" lawn care of New York has coined the phrase "Growing A Better Environment" in order to fool consumer into believing lawn chemicals pose no ecological harm. Another states "a 50-by-50 foot lawn produces enough oxygen to sustain a family of four." But this is only true with a plot of land that has tall grass and no lawn care. Synthetic pesticide poisons, lawnmower fumes, and common lawn care practices actually create a net loss or destruction of oxygen.
 
The United States General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, has also tried to alert the public to lawn chemical dangers. GAO's undercover team noted many fictitious claims by many in the lawn "care" industry. Many included illegal claims of product "safety". Others were just deceiving, such as the ChemLawn claim that a child would have to ingest ten cups of treated grass clippings to equal the toxicity of one baby aspirin. In fact, the real danger is not that people will be grazing the lawn, but that most poisonings come from inhaling pesticide residues or absorbing them through the skin.
 
Most spray do-it-yourselfers are just as ignorant when it comes to proper protection and safety precautions. Studies show most don't even look at the warnings on their toxins. They don't wear gloves, goggles, or protective clothing to decrease exposure. Worse, many don't keep people off the contaminated area after chemicals are applied. Homeowners commonly use up to ten times as much pesticides per acre as farmers. A Virginia Tech study for the state legislature found that most homeowners have no idea how much nitrogen they use when fertilizing and that they routinely apply chemicals in ways that damage water supplies.
 
Pesticides drift and settle during application. In the Antarctic ice pack alone there are 2.4 million pounds of DDT and its metabolites from years past. Lawn pesticides engulf the home and are easily tracked inside, readily inhaled and absorbed through the skin. They do harm by attacking the central nervous system and other essential organs. Symptoms of pesticide poisoning are often deceptively simple, commonly mis-diagnosed as flu or allergies. They include, but are not limited to, headaches, nausea, fever, breathing difficulties, seizures, eye pains, vomiting, cramps, diarrhea, sore nose, tongue, or throat; burning skin, rashes, coughing, muscle pain, tissue swelling, blurred vision, numbness and tingling in hands or feet, incontinence, anxiety, irritability, sleep disorders, hyperactivity, fatigue, dizziness, irregular heartbeat, high blood pressure, spontaneous bleeding, and temporary paralysis. Long-term consequences include lowered fertility, birth defects, miscarriages, blindness, liver and kidney dysfunction, neurological damage, heart trouble, stroke, immune system disorders, menstrual problems, memory loss, suicidal depression, cancer, and death.
 
The National Academy of Sciences reports that at least one out of seven people are significantly harmed by pesticide exposure each year. Increasingly, reports from many people around the country are "beginning to link their 'feeling terrible' with the fact the neighbors had the lawn sprayed the day before", notes Catherine Karr, a toxicologist for the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides. Unfortunately, except for industrial accidents, tests for pesticide poisoning are rarely performed, partially because they are expensive. Doctors also attribute most pesticide poisoning symptoms to stress, allergies, influenza, or an overactive imagination.
 
Many Americans are developing Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), a bizarre and extremely disabling condition. In 1979, the Surgeon General issued a report stating, "There is virtually no major chronic disease to which environmental factors do not contribute, directly or indirectly." Indeed, people today are exposed to synthetic chemicals at levels unmatched at any time throughout human history. Washington Post staff writer Michael Weiskopf noted in a February 10, 1990 article that "hypersensitivity to low levels of toxic chemicals (MCS) is a serious and growing medical problem, threatening to cause significant economic consequences by disabling large numbers of otherwise healthy people." MCS is a result of the destruction of the body's ability to tolerate and synthesize chemicals after exposure to toxic substances. Victims develop extreme reactions now not only to lawn pesticides, but also hair sprays, perfumes, soaps, formaldehyde, and many other common household products. Many victims include former (lawn) pesticide applicators and users, their families, and children.
 
Sharon Malhorta, a registered nurse from Pittsburgh, would get so sick from lawn and tree spraying that she had to leave her home every spring. Otherwise she would suffer headaches, paralysis in her hands and feet, and muscle seizures. Repeated exposure caused blurred vision, speech difficulties, and severe stomach cramps. Her husband, a doctor, suspected early on her symptoms were the result of nerve damage from organophosphates, which are widely used nerve-gas type insecticides, like Diazinon. After questioning lawn companies about their poisons he was told they were "practically non-toxic", registered by the EPA, and not harmful to people or pets. He later discovered that the poisons his wife was exposed to were in fact neurotoxins, and was shocked to discover there were surprisingly few EPA studies on their health effects.
 
Karen James, a Michigan postal worker, successfully sued ChemLawn in 1988. While walking past one of their trucks, a hose ruptured and she was drenched with chemicals. The employee told her not to worry, that only fertilizers were in the spray. But soon after she became seriously ill, and her eyes and skin burned. When her symptoms of fatigue, vomiting, diarrhea, and reduced vision didn't clear up, her Doctor called ChemLawn to find out what chemicals she had been exposed to. He also was told nopesticides had been involved, but after tests on Karen's body tissue detected high levels of Dursban, ChemLawn finally admitted the truck contained pesticides. Many other suits against lawn companies are settled out of court. Frequently the settlement restrains the victim from talking about the incident, so the public is not informed.
 
For the price of green lawns, our children are also being poisoned. In 1985 a married couple in Sarasota, Florida, felt pressured by their neighbors to get their lawn treated. They hired a Company, never thinking their 2-year-old daughter would be jeopardized. The Company declared the yard would be safe about an hour after the toxic chemicals were applied. However, soon after playing barefoot on the grass, the couple's Daughter developed a rash all over her body, her urine turned dark brown, and she ran a high fever. Her Doctor prescribed antibiotics, but her condition grew steadily worse. Her hands and feet swelled to twice normal size, blistered, and peeled. Her lips turned black and bled. Years later she is still permanently prone to headaches and has 40% hearing loss in her right ear.
 
Barry and Jackie Veysey believe lawn chemicals were responsible for the death of their baby son. Barry was a professional turf master, and the chemicals he worked with may have mutated his sperm or poisoned the infant in utero. Every time Jackie washed her husband's uniforms, the chemicals may have been absorbed through her skin and permeated the placenta. The child was born with a severe and fatal type of dwarfism. Jackie held her son only once before he died due to massive failure of his underdeveloped organs.
 
Kevin Ryan from Arlington Heights, Illinois, feels like a prisoner in his home. "I can't even play in my own yard because the neighbors spray their lawns and trees", he says. Kevin suffered routine chemical exposure as a toddler from lawn spraying, and now suffers nausea, irritability, fatigue, and loss of memory whenever pesticides are nearby. His family moves to Colorado every spring and fall, the peak spraying times of the year, to keep him safe.
 
In 1986 Robin Dudek of Hamburg, New York pulled the garden hose off her lawn and used it to fill a wading pool for her daughters Amanda, 3, and Kristen,. Earlier her lawn had been sprayed with these safe lawn chemicals. When Amanda started drinking from the hose, she began to scream that the water was burning her. Then Kristen began crying and screaming as well. Robin took the children inside and noticed burn marks on both of them, as well as the smell of chemicals on Amanda's breath. The girls later suffered from fevers, swollen eyes, and blisters the size of grapes clustered around their necks.
 
Christina Locek was a professional ice skater and pianist before her health was destroyed in 1985, when her neighbor's lawn was sprayed with pesticides. Her cat and dog died that same day, and she suffers headaches, partial paralysis, vision loss, and blood disorders.
 
Former Navy Lieutenant George Prior developed a fever, headache and nausea after playing on a golf course treated with Daconil. It was later discovered he was suffering from toxicepidermal necrolysis, which causes skin to fall off in sheets and massive organ failure. Prior died soon after . . ..
 
According to the EPA, 95% of the pesticides used on residential lawns are possible or probable carcinogens. In 1989 the National Cancer Institute reported children develop leukemia six times more often when pesticides are used around their homes. The American Journal of Epidemiology found that more children with brain tumors and other cancers had been exposed to insecticides than children without. Studies by the National Cancer Society and other cancers had been exposed to insecticides than discovered a definite link between fatal non-hodgkins lymphoma (NHL) and exposure to triazine herbicides (like Atrazine), phenoxyacetic herbicides (2,4-D), organophosphate insecticides (diazinon, Dursban, etc.), fungicides, and fumigants; all of which have uses as lawn chemicals. This is an important contributing factor to the 50% rise in NHL over the past ten years in the American population. Studies of farmers who once used these pesticides also found alarmingly high numbers of NHL, especially in those who didn't wear protective clothing. This latest finding also proves the theory that most danger from pesticides comes through dermal absorption, not ingestion. A University of Iowa study of golf course superintendents found abnormally high rates of death due to cancer of the brain, large intestine, and prostate. Other experts are beginning to link golfers, and non-golfers who live near fairways, with these same health problems.
 
Documented cases of pesticides in groundwater wells are suspect for cancer clusters showing in many towns. In 1989, drinking water in at least 38 states was known to be contaminated. After the herbicide Dacthal was applied to Long Island golf courses, it was detected in drinking water wells at levels twenty times the State's safety limits. The water also contained a dioxin that is a highly toxic by-product of Dacthal. The New York State Attorney General sued the manufacturer in 1989 to investigate he contamination and develop a treatment program, since ground water is the main source of drinking water for Long Island. Twenty-two other synthetic pesticide poisons have been found in the water so far. However, there is still no requirement or systematic program designed to test for drinking water contamination. As Michael Surgan, Ph.D., Chief Environmental Scientist for the New York State Attorney General, and an advocate for responsible pesticide use, puts it, "If you buy the notion that we have to accept a certain amount of risk from pesticides to safeguard the food supply, that's one thing, he notes. But with lawns, people are applying (nerve gases and) carcinogens simply for the sake of aesthetics. That's got to change".
 
Synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers are becoming some of the worst water pollutants in America. Discharges into San Francisco Bay from the central valley of California are estimated at almost two tons per year. Phosphorous levels in some Maryland streams have doubled since 1986. And an EPA study found potentially harmful levels of nitrate from chemical fertilizers in drinking water wells nationwide. This can cause blue-baby syndrome, an oxygen-depriving condition in infants that can be fatal. Environmental impacts are also devastating. Ward Stone, a DEC wildlife pathologist, has long studied bird kills from pesticides that were used according to label regulation. Documented cases of owls, mourning doves, sparrows, blue birds, and many other songbirds killed by lawn chemicals are on the rise. Waterfowl like Canadian geese, mallards, wood ducks, and others have suffered even worse. In 1984 there were 700 brant found dead on a Long Island country club after it was sprayed with Diazinon. Pesticide exposure causes shivering, excessive salivating, grand mal seizures, wild flapping, and sometimes screaming according to U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service volunteer Diana Conger. Ward Stone likens these birds to miners' canaries, foreshadowing serious harm to humans from chemical build-up in the environment.
 
Frank Clifford, Times Environmental Writer, noted on 3/26/97: In a partial settlement of the nation's largest case of offshore chemical contamination, the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts and 155 other municipalities agreed Tuesday, 3/25/97 to pay $45.7 million to help clean up the world's largest known deposit of DDT, off the Palos Verdes Peninsula. The amount, which represents about 20% of the estimated cost of cleanup, would also help restore damaged fish and wildlife populations.
 
Filed in U. S. District Court in Los Angeles, the settlement reinstates an agreement that was struck down by the U. S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals two years ago on grounds of "insufficient evidence".
 
The federal government sought damages from local municipalities in Los Angeles, Ventura and Orange counties for operating sewage lines and treatment plants that processed DDT and dumped it (unchanged) into the ocean.
 
But the settlement leaves pending the federal government's much larger claim against the Montrose Chemical Corp., the now-defunct company that manufactured the DDT in Torrance. Montrose representatives contend that the government lacks sufficient proof linking the Company to any damage to natural resources.
 
Environmental groups hailed the settlement as a major milestone in the seven-year-old case.
 
"We're ecstatic about the settlement and we hope it sends a strong message to Montrose to...start working on issues of protecting the natural resources of Santa Monica Bay," said Marc Gold, executive director of HEAL the Bay and a member of the EPA's advisory committee on the Palos Verdes site.
 
In July, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency declared the 27 miles of contaminated ocean floor a Superfund site. Over a 24-year period ending in 1970, several million pounds of DDT seeped through county sewer lines from the Montrose chemical plant into the ocean off the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
 
In 1971, the county cut off the plant's access to the sewer system because of growing concerns about ocean pollution.
 
Federal investigators found that wildlife around Catalina and the other Channel Islands still remains contaminated by high DDT concentrations.
 
Most people seriously overestimate the amount of "protection" given them by governments regarding pesticide "safety". Congress found that 90% of the pesticides on the market lack even the minimal required safety screening. Of the 34 most used lawn pesticides, 33 have not been fully tested for human health hazards. If any tests are done, they are performed by the chemical manufacturers, not the EPA. "If a chemical company wanted to, they could start with a desired conclusion, and skew the data, and the EPA would never know", notes David Welch, and entomologist with the EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs. Welch did a random sampling of 15 pesticide files and found 13 without proper reviews. One third of the most commonly used lawn pesticides were illegally registered for use.
 
Despite the fact executives of Industrial Bio- Test labs were given jail terms for faking pesticides tests, the chemicals are still on the market. Shortages in funding, personnel, and interference from business has slowed re-evaluation of these chemicals. Even when the EPA does refuse a pesticide registration, the manufacturer often files a lawsuit, which keeps their poison on the market. Jay Feldman, coordinator of the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides, is well aware of this. "The EPA should by called the IPA- the Industry Protection Agency", he charges. The chemical industry is extremely powerful, and wraps the EPA in red tape. It is also essential to understand that by law synthetic pesticide poison registration in the U.S.A. is not a consumer safety program. According to Congress, the EPA does not require testing and assessment guidelines specifically for lawn or home use. EPA has admitted in court that pesticide registration does not ensure product safety. Rather, it is a balancing act of costs and risks. Most lawn pesticides were registered before 1972, when more stringent restrictions took effect under the revised Federal Rodenticide and Fungicide Act. They were never tested for many human health hazards like carcinogenicity, neurotoxicity, and environmental dangers. Most, as previously stated, have yet to be re-evaluated, yet remain on the market . . . to poison you and yours.
 
Read the labels on many lawn pesticide products, sprayed by lawn companies or sold in stores, and you will find one or more of the following: 2,4-D, Captan, Diazinon, Dursban, Dacthal, Dicamba, and Mecocrop. Each was registered without full safety screening. 2,4-D is an artificial hormone that has become a synonym for "dangerous pesticide", but dermal absorption of mecocrop is far more dangerous, and dicamba is much more persistent in the environment - a mixture of these three is usually used, not 2,4-D alone. Diazinon has been banned for use on golf courses and sod farms due to massive waterfowl deaths but is still widely and routinely used on home lawns and gardens. It is an organophosphate which disables the nervous system by blocking enzymes essential for nerve impulse transmission.
 
In April, 1983, the public learned that Dow Chemical officials had scientific information on dioxin (a substance found in herbicides such as 2,4,5-T and the Viet Nam defoliant Agent Orange as early as 1965 that raised questions about its safety to humans but withheld this information from the federal government for more than fifteen years.
 
What does the poison industry continue to say?
 
The poison industry public relations group, RISE ("Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment"), advocates in their ad in Pest Control, May, 1997 that PCO's (poison applicators) "Communicate with your customers. Your customers expect you and your employees to be credible and knowledgeable sources of information about your products (poisons). Take time to talk with them about your safe and responsible use of pesticides (poisons). Studies show that most people don't know that pesticide products are among the most highly tested products sold. the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) registers only those uses of pesticide products (poisons) that pose minimal risks.
 
Emphasize that pesticide products (poisons) must (now) undergo stringent government-monitored testing before they can be sold. It is a long and costly process. For example: - It takes a chemical manufacturer 8 to 10 years to test and register a product, at an average cost of $30 million to $50 million. - As many as 120 tests or more are performed, many specific to health, safety and the environment. - Only one potential pesticide in 20,000 makes it from the research lab to the market.
 
Assure customers of the benefits pesticides provide for turf, trees and ornamentals, and in the home.
 
Discuss your safe and responsible use of pesticides as a professional applicator.
 
Advise your customers that you closely follow label instructions.
 
Outline the extensive training that is mandatory for professional applicators in order to apply specialty pesticides. (Forget they are not the ones who normally apply these toxins.)
 
Explain what happens to pesticide containers once a job has been completed.
 
The thing that amazes me the most is that it is supposedly against the federal law to say any pesticide poisons (not products) are safe.
 
Other news accounts focus on incidents of corporate falsification and misrepresentation, some of which have jeopardized national public health and safety, or others that have intentionally misled stockholders and the general public. In October, 1983, a nation increasingly concerned with contamination from toxic chemicals learned a tale of pesticide data manipulation at the Illinois-based Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories, a lab used by the poison industry to test hundreds of pesticides and other chemical products now on the market.
 
In one of the largest financial fraud cases in American history, the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) found that the Stauffer Chemical Company - a company now heavily involved in the American seed industry, agricultural chemicals, and plant biotechnology - used improper accounting methods to inflate its profit by $31.1 million in 1982, a fraudulent 25 percent increase. Stauffer agreed to issue new financial reports for 1982 and 1983, showing sharply reduced profits, and the company signed a consent degree in federal court agreeing not to violate SEC regulations in the future. SEC spokesman Chiles Larson said of the Stauffer finding, "This is one of the more significant financial fraud accounting cases the commission has brought in recent years. These numbers are pretty gross, both in terms of the size and in terms of the offense . . .. When people start cooking the books, it's pretty serious stuff. Those numbers are something that people rely upon."
 
In a similar case, the Baltimore spice-manufacturing firm of McCormick & Company - a company involved in biotechnology research of spice plants - admitted to falsifying records and using fictitious accounting practices to inflate sales and profits between 1977 and 1980, amounting to more than $46 million in phony sales and $4 million in phantom profits.
 
In 1981, Cargill, the multinational grain merchant that is also in the seed business, pleaded guilty to filing false United States corporate income tax returns for 1975 and 1976. Cargill has also settled, out of court, a few not-so-flattering lawsuits - one alleging price fixing for paint resins and another alleging that the company sold contaminated feed to a beef processor.
 
Still further news accounts implicate the federal government as an accomplice in questionable corporate activities. "U. S. is Aiding Drug Companies in Bangladesh," reported an August 19, 1982 front-page story in the Washington Post, which explained that the U. S. State Department had asked Bangladesh to reconsider a new national policy designed to ban hundreds of ineffective and dangerous drugs, including some that were known to cause serious health problems.
 
Companies such as Ciba-Geigy, Hoechst, Squibb, Syntex, Dow, and Upjohn have been accused of inadequate labeling and side-effect warnings on drugs sold in the Third World, or of dumping drugs in Third World countries. (I have found outdated drugs for sale in Mexico when I pointed out the expiration date the pharmacy told me that was the date the drug was actually manufactured on.) Cliquinol - a powerful anti-diarrheal drug banned in Japan and withdrawn from American markets in the early 1970's after it was linked to abdominal pain, brain damage, and blindness - can today be bought at roadside stands in Indonesia, or purchased without prescription or a label warning in the Philippines.
 
A similar pattern can be found with pesticides. Allied, American Cyanamid, BASF, Bayer, Chevron, Ciba-Geigy, Dow, Du Pont, FMC, W.R. Grace, Occidental Petroleum (Hooker), Monsanto, Rohm & Haas, Schering-Plough, Shell, Stauffer, Union Carbide, and Velsicol produce or sell in Third World countries pesticides that are either banned, heavily restricted, or under review in the United States. Moreover, Chevron, Monsanto, ICI, Ciba-Geigy, Castle & Cooke, Velsicol and Amvac have been identified as "pesticide dumpers" in the Third World.
 
At home the pesticide record hasn't been much better. An Allied Corporation subsidiary unleashed the pesticide Kepone into Virginia's James River in the mid-1970's where it is now sinking into the river's silt; Occidental Petroleum's Hooker Chemical division poisoned the Love Canal; Eli Lilly is responsible for the still festering problem of DES. And there are dozens of other examples - both large and small - involving other companies now venturing into, or fully involved in, agricultural biotechnology.
 
In 1991 and 1992, the EPA offered "amnesty" from large fines to any (poison) manufacturer that turned in unpublished scientific papers that should have been submitted earlier. Chemical (poison) companies then sent in more than 10,000 studies showing that "products" already on the market could (now) pose "substantial" risk of injury to health or the environment.
 
Due to the action of both wind and water, toxic pollutants can now be found almost everywhere, even contaminating the most remote areas of the globe. And thanks to the accumulative exposure to thousands of these toxic contaminants, all living beings are imperiled. We can no longer hide from the stark reality that the air we breath, the water we drink, the rain that falls on us, the food we eat, and the places where we work may all be profoundly contaminated. Obviously, as the contamination increases so will our cancer statistics and other health problems.
 
Our drinking water In regard to herbicides, "every spring, farmers across the Farm Belt apply 150 million pounds of five herbicides. . . . Drinking water contaminated with these herbicides is a serious public health issue; the manufacturer's own laboratory studies show that these five herbicides cause nine different types of cancer, various birth defects, and heritable genetic mutations. None of these herbicides is removed by the conventional water treatment technologies that are used by more than 90 percent of the water treatment utilities in the U. S. . . . 3.1 million individuals in 23 cities with populations over 100,000 are exposed to cancer risks from herbicide-contaminated drinking water that exceed federal cancer standards by a factor of 10 or more. (Springfield, Illinois leads the list with the highest life-time risk.)".
 
Our Deformed Frogs or are you ready to croak? There have been reports of unusually high numbers of deformed frogs in Minnesota, Vermont, Wisconsin and Quebec. Clusters of deformed frogs have also been found in California, Oregon, Colorado, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana and Ohio.
 
At the April 1997 conference in Shenandoah National Park, scientists ranging from molecular biologists to herpetologists examined theories that link the frog deformities to chemicals or parasites. "My best guess is that it has more to do with pesticides," Martin Ouellet of McGill University in Montreal said. Ouellet and four other scientists have been studying deformed and normal frogs found in more than 100 ponds in the St. Lawrence River Valley during the past four years. Normally, less than 1% of frogs are deformed, and that's about what Ouellet found in frogs taken from pristine ponds. But in ponds where pesticides are used on surrounding land, as many as 69% of the frogs were deformed, he said. David Gardiner, a molecular biologists from the University of California at Irvine, believes that the deformities may be linked to a new generation of chemicals that mimic growth hormones.
 
Frogs have permeable skin and no hair or scales as shields, so they are ultrasensitive to changes in the environment. Marla Cone, the Los Angeles Times' environmental writer said: "When nature sends out such a powerful messages as seven-legged frogs, biologists say people should listen because it signals that our environment is so out of whack that it cannot support normal life."
 
CNN special investigative unit recently discovered that several of the corporations accused in the outbreak of deformed babies in Brownsville (1988-1992) had, in fact, been dumping toxic material along the border. The companies paid $17 million to the families of the deformed babies but denied that they had caused the epidemic of birth defects. The companies claimed they had followed U.S. environmental laws, even while operating across the Mexican border. Said CNN: "Internal corporate documents and previously unreported pretrial testimony obtained by CNN suggest that these corporations were using Mexico's border region as a private dumping ground."
 
John Parks Trowbridge, M.D. & Morton Walker, D.P.M. in their Chelation Therapy note that even the chemical industry admits that over 60,000 man-made pollutants have been added to our environment. Plus, Federal estimates suggest that we are exposed to 5,000 substances intentionally added to our foods and to some 10,000 more that are unintentionally included as a result of production or packaging. Indeed, probably 10,000 pollutants attack your body process everyday.
 
Traces of long-lasting pesticides and industrial chemicals that didn't exist before the 1920s can now be found virtually everywhere. Scientists have detected the man-made compounds in the meat of Arctic seals, in fish from New England's rivers, in drinking water, in far fields in almost every nation- even in mother's milk. Everyone carries measurable traces of chemicals in their bodies, having ingested the like of PCBs in fish or DDT and dioxin in other foods. But do those traces, some of which build up in the body and remain, pose a threat to humans? "Some biologists say yes, pointing to what they consider ominous clues among the offsprings of dozens of animal species exhibiting weird physical, behavioral and reproductive problems." -Hartford Courant, Dec. 3, 1996.
 
"New evidence connects environmental toxins with birth defects, researchers reported at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association last week." -Los Angeles Daily News, Dec. 2, 1996.
 
"Silt on the bottom of the Quinnipiac River in Plantsville is contaminated with massive levels of a cancer-causing causing compound, state Department of Environmental Protection officials said Thursday." -Hartford Courant, May 15, 1997.
 
"Some common commercial cleaners used to clean clothes and household surfaces contain chemicals that cause cancer and birth defects, a leading environmental group says." -Calgary Herald (Canada), Feb. 12, 1997.
 
There are hundreds of individual stories each year - all of them indicating that as we pump more and more poisons, chemicals and toxins into the environment, normal life is in fact threatened. Help! We are being destroyed by invisible poisons! As the evidence continues to mount that this stuff will kill us, the political environment is increasingly callous - will we have to croak like frogs before 'our' regulators do anything about it?
 
Dioxins The tremendous amount of information that Liane Clorfene-Custen and others have gathered about the toxic environmental impingements on our health should be publicized widely but isn't. Liane's book Breast Cancer: Poisons, Profits, and Preventions carefully spells out numerous cases where industry and our government have suppressed information for years and often decades. For example, in regard to the dioxins, which are exceedingly toxic even in parts per trillion and less and which contaminate chlorinated pesticides, incinerator discharges, and hundreds of industrial processes. Dow Chemical "knew about dioxin's toxicity for decades." During the Vietnam War, they knew that dioxin was a toxic contaminant of the herbicide "Agent Orange." Nevertheless, they continued to aggressively sell it, both during the war and afterward for home and farm use. "Dow's own studies showed extreme toxic reactions in animals and humans . . . including liver damage, nervous system disorders, peripheral neuropathy, and so on. And the medical director along with major administrators, admitted that if chloracne (the nasty tell-tale body and face skin eruptions) shows up, the damage to the body was systemic.
 
"However, when challenged in public about the effects of Agent Orange. Dow's public relations engine revved up. Spokespersons went on record stating that, 'Beyond a case of chloracne, there are no other reported health effects due to the exposure to Agent Orange.' And the company began to attack the veterans who had come home with the predicted Agent Orange exposure symptoms, calling them drugheads. Thus, Dow did three terrible things as part of its corporate policy on herbicides: discussed the problems of their very toxic product internally and secretly; allowed a contaminated and faulty product to be used on innocent victims; and then attacked the victims for claiming they were harmed by the very problems the company knew would occur . . . "
 
"For years, the toxicity of dioxin has been downplayed in the media. Some newspapers, specifically the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, have had financial interests in pulp and paper mills that bleach with chlorine - a process which spews out dioxin. . . . For a significant period in their history these two major dailies, along with most of the print media, played variations on a recurring theme: 'Dioxin isn't as toxic as we thought.' And the public, uneducated and unaware, continually bought the line . . .."
 
"Others who have known about dioxin's toxicity are Monsanto scientists, the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency], the CDC [Centers for Disease Control], and the National Institutes for Environmental Health Services. It takes very little effort for a good reporter to uncover these documents (Clorfene-Casten, The Nation, November 30, 1992)." Liane Chlorfene-Casten's book Breast Cancer: Poisons, Profits, and Prevention is full of many detailed cases of cover-up and deception, including harassment of "whistle blowers." Liane also demonstrates "the revolving door" between government regulators and the major polluting industries.
 
St. Peter and the Clocks
 
A guy dies and goes to heaven, It's a slow day for St. Peter; so, upon passing the entrance test, St. Peter says, "I'm not very busy today; why don't you let me show you around?" The guy thinks this is a great idea and accepts the offer. St. Peter show him all the sights, the golf course, the reading room and library, the observation room, the cafeteria and finally, they come to a huge room full of clocks. The guy asks, "What's up with these clocks?" St. Peter explains, "Everyone on earth has a clock that shows how much time he has left on earth. When a clock runs out of time, the person dies and comes to the Gates to be judged." The guy thinks this makes sense, but notices that some of the clocks are going faster than others. He asks, "Why is that?" St. Peter explains, "Every time a living person tells a lie, it speeds up his clock." This also makes sense, so the guy takes one last look around the room before leaving and notices one clock in the center of the ceiling. On this clock, both hands are spinning at an unbelievable rate. So he asks, "What's the story with that clock?" "Oh that", St. Peter replies, "That's the clock of Monsanto's Chairman. We decided to use it as a fan."
 
Note: You may substitute anyone in the poison "industry' for Monsanto's Chairman when you tell this story about the clock/fan - as Jonathan Swift so aptly noted, "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."
 
HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF ORGANOPHOSPHATE POISONS
 
J.E. DuBois Jr. in The Devil's Chemists noted that the organophosphate pesticides (OPO4) were developed in Hitler's Germany during World War II. These toxic poisons included TEPP (tetraethyl pyrophosphate, developed as a nicotine substitute), followed by Tabun (dimethyl phosphoroamidocyanidate) and Sarin (isopropyl methylphosphono fluoridate) - the chemical "nerve agents" that have been employed in warfare. The developer I.G. Farben, not content with tests on monkeys, confirmed lethality by testing Tabun on prisoners at Aushwitz. Thus, the OPO4 poisons such as chlorpyrifos and Diazinon became direct descendants of these nerve gas agents.
 
In "Pesticides and Neurological Diseases" it was noted that in 1932, Lange in Berlin synthesized some compounds containing a phosphorus-flouride bond (esters of monofluorophosphoric acid from silver salts and alkyl halides). During the synthesis of dimethyl- and diethylphosphorofluoridate, Lange and his graduate student, Gerda von Krueger, noted toxic effects of the vapors on themselves, the pertinent observations being included in a published chemical paper. Lange was unable to convince the chemical industry and I.G. Farbenindustrie, in particular, that the alkyl esters synthesized might be useful insecticides. In 1934, Gerhard Schrader was appointed by Otto Bayer to pursue the development of synthetic insecticides for I.G. Farbenindustrie, but it was not until 1936 that Schrader began working on phosphorus and sulfur acid fluorides in search of aphicidal and acaricidal compounds, initially discovering methane sulfonyl fluoride which was used as a fumigant. From 1938 to 1944, Schrader developed a series of fluorine-containing esters including DFP (di-isopropylfluorophosphate) and Sarin (l-methylethyl methylphosphonofluoridate), pyrophosphate esters including TEPP and OMPA (octamethylpyrophosphortetramide) and thio- and thionophosphorus esters including parathion and its oxygen analog paraxon. He was aware of the toxic signs produced by these esters and, while the potency of some of these chemicals prevented their development and use as "insecticides", they were of immediate interest to the German Ministry of Defense which recognized their value as chemical warfare agents. Production of stocks of Tabun and Sarin were carried out in a factory outside of Duhernfurt, near Breslau. Soman (1,2,2-trimethylpropyl methylphosphonofluoridate), another nerve gas was also synthesized at this factory. The pharmacological and toxicological studies of these compounds were carried out in a number of industrial and military laboratories.
 
British scientists had taken note of the comments of Lange and Krueger concerning the toxicity of acyl phosphorofluoridates, and during World War II they were paying particular attention to fluorine-containing compounds. With this lead, it is interesting to note that studies conducted by these two protagonists were almost parallel, DFP and other alkyl phosphorofluoridates being the prime test chemicals. A similar line of investigation was being followed at Edgewood Arsenal in the U. S., again DFP being a compound of choice in such studies. Scientists on both sides of the Atlantic were well aware of the potent, irreversible, anticholinesterase properties of these esters. When the structures and properties of the German nerve gases Tabun and Soman became known, it was realized that they were more potent than DFP by an order of two of magnitude.
 
With the cessation of hostilities and the exchange of information in the post-war period, the chemistry of organophosphorus insecticides developed at a rapid rate. The decade from 1950 to 1960 can well be said to have been the era of the organophosphates. Malathion [diethyl(dimethoxyphosphinothioyl) thiobutanedioate] was introduced by the American Cyanamid Company in 1950; this ester contains carboxy ester groups. In 1951, G. Schrader continued developing new insecticides including Systoxr (demeton or mercaptophos, a mixture of the thiono- and thioloisomers of O,O-diethyl-2-ethylmercaptoethyl phosphorothioate), thereby introducing a new class of insecticides having a thioether group. In 1952, the Perkow reaction was first described in which alpha-halogen carbonyl compounds were reacted with triethyl phosphite, resulting in the synthesis of a number of new dialkylvinyl phosphate esters such as dichlorvos (2,2-dichlorovinyl dimethyl phosphate) and trichlorfon (O,O-dimethyl [2,2,2-trichloro-1-hydroxyethyl] phosphate. The thio- and thionophosphorus esters arising from parathion and containing substituted aryl and heterocyclic groups have also been synthesized. Today, a wide range of organophosphorus esters having a variety of biological properties are available for such equally diversified range of uses as insecticides, nemotocides, acaricides, fungicides, etc.
 
At this point let me introduce you to Jon Rappaport's comments with a few of my own additions: The Revolt against the Empire, Welcome to The Great Boycott, calls for a boycott against the eight biggest synthetic pesticide poison producing companies in the world, but it is much more than that. It's a boycott against THE POWER and against a way of life represented by all the gigantic multinational corporations, which every day extend their control over the planet. By the time you finish reading this material you'll realize how destructive their uncontrolled power is, in detail. You'll understand more clearly why these simple stark things need to be done:
 
(For the complete text: goto http://home.earthlink.net/~alto/boycott.html )
 
Sound Advice
 
A poison industry spokesman goes to Washington, DC to testify about the safety of his new poison. The night before his testimony he stands by the Washington Memorial and hears a little voice say, "Never tell a lie." He shakes his head "no" and walks to the Jefferson Memorial and hears another little voice say, "Always tell the truth." He shakes his head "no" and walks to the Lincoln Memorial where he hears a third little voice tell him, "Go to the theater."
 
Dow shalt not . . .
 
I personally wrote quite a series of letters to the Michigan Department of Agriculture (that I call the DOA) regarding my new commandments - copies of these letters and all of my other research, records, articles, magazines, etc. all burned up in an accidental fire 11/5/95, but for which the insurance company, AutoOwners, would not reimburse me and for which they used as an excuse to destroy a 30-year-old pest control company by canceling my insurance because of this one "accidental" loss - in so doing - AutoOwners destroyed what the poison "industry" could not. I do however remember a few of these many new commandments - "Dow shalt not kill; Dow shalt not pollute; Dow shalt not destroy; Dow shalt not lie; Dow shalt not B.S.; Dow shalt not poison; Dow shalt not spray; Dow shalt not drift; Dow shalt not damage; Dow shalt not contaminate, etc."
 
Down on Dow - at the annual shareholders meeting of Dow Chemical Co. held at company headquarters in Midland, Michigan in May 1997, Dow unfurled to celebrate its 100th anniversary: "Proud of our past, committed to our future."
 
INFACT, a corporate watchdog group has awarded Dow its "Hall of Shame" award for the past two years. "Our investigation found that Dow is a master at hiding behind trade associations and corporate front groups to carry out its deregulatory schemes," reports Kathryn Mulvey, INFACT's executive director. "With 51 of its own registered lobbyists, and 50 more at its disposal through the Chemical Manufacturers Association, Dow has at least 101 paid power brokers representing its interest in Washington." In the first six months of 1996 alone, the nation's second largest chemical company reported federal lobbying expenditures of more than $1 million. That figure doesn't include its 40 registered lobbyists in 13 states, including 7 in Michigan.
 
Nuns from the Sisters of Mercy religious order, came to raise concerns about various health problems they say are related to Dow products. Shareholders also were confronted by members of the Michigan-based Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination. That group recently was instrumental in drawing media attention to a Department of Environmental Quality study that found elevated levels of cancer-causing dioxin in Midland's (Dow's) parks and playgrounds.
 
Shunted to a side auditorium, Citizens Executive Director Ann Hunt was unable to ask Dow directors how it is that they can maintain the company is committed to transparency regarding environmental issues while acting as a major force to pass Michigan's audit privilege legislation, also known as the "polluter secrecy law."
 
Hunt also pointed out that activists viewing the proceedings on closed-circuit TV at a nearby library were able to witness all complimentary presentations, such as those made by the Midland Chamber of Commerce, but that all critical comments were effectively blacked out from the telecast.
 
On November 13, 1996 a report in the 'Folha de Sao Paulo' noted that at least 300 thousand people suffer poisoning from agro-toxics each year in Brazil according to the Ministry of "Health". According to the World Health Organization (WHO) estimations there are at least 50 cases of poisoning for every case reported!
 
On December 5, 1984 (in one night), the Union Carbide Corporation killed an estimated 8,000 residents of Bhopal, India and injured 300 thousand others, some 50 - 70,000 of those injuries are permanent disabilities from Carbides' leaking pesticide - manufacturing plant. Carbide fought their victims with the aid of $50 million in legal talent - the result? Carbide's "settlement" came to about $300 per victim after fees and bribes were paid, scarcely enough to cover the medical bills of many claimants. Stock holders of Union Carbide only paid 43 cents per share when the "settlement" was accepted by the Indian Government, then Carbide's stocks went up $2.00 a share or a "profit" of $1.57 per share! (Not bad for one night's work!) In December 1987, India's Central Bureau of Investigation filed criminal charges of culpable homicide against 10 Carbide officials - a charge just short of murder - All of Carbide executives remain fugitives from justice and Carbide attorneys have successfully resisted all efforts to extradite those people responsible for the Bhopal massacre! What clear message does this crap send to the rest of the poison industry?
 
The poison "industry" has always claimed and still claims and probably will always claim there is no real scientific data to support claims of a health problem/pesticide relationship. In some ways they are right - our evidence is only circumstantial or based on male prisoners or one sleeping, impoverished (brown skinned) community. There is no definitive human data because we can not and should not expose people to dangerous poisons and/or contaminants and then analyze the outcomes. Junk science is what the poison industry calls any research, health or environmental data it does not generate.
 
Generally there is a 20-year delay between the time any product or substance is first discovered to be toxic or hazardous before there is any regulatory change. Even if their poisons were safe for us - these "poisons" do not eliminate or even truly control pests! In New Partnerships for Sustainable Agriculture - this book from World Resources Institute (1996) noted that in Bangladesh, "Farmers in the IPM pilot program achieved an 11% increase in rice production and eliminated all pesticide use, while nonparticipating farmers (who used pesticides) had no increase." John Wargo in "Our Children's Toxic Legacy" noted that in spite of all the world's pesticide usage, pests including insects, plant pathogens and weeds annually destroy 37% of all food and fiber crops in the world! V. E. Gary, et al Environmental Health Perspectives (1996) book Pesticide Appliers, Biocides and Birth Defects in Rural Minnesota found the children of the pesticide poison applicators had "significantly" increased rate of birth defects, including defects of the central nervous, circulatory, respiratory, gastrointestinal, urogenital and muscoloskeletal systems! This increased rate was found to be highest in Western Minnesota, where, by a strange coincidence, the highest levels of synthetic pesticide poisons were used!
 
Several Japanese studies (Ishikawa & Miyata 1980 and Ishikawa 1973) show an increased incidence of persons with visual problems with the increased agricultural use of organophosphates (OPS) in Japan. Many patients were from the farming belt where pesticides were increasingly used, there being virtually no findings of eye disease in the mountainous areas where these poisons were not being sprayed. The incidence of eye disease increased from 1965 when large amounts of organophosphate pesticides were also increasingly used. The adverse effects of the visual system were significantly correlated with organophosphate dispersions; the eye and attendance structures are richly endowed with cholinesterases and we all know that OPS inhibit cholinesterase. Tamura & Mitu, 1975, disclose a more compelling statistical argument that the amount of organophosphorus used significantly correlated with the incidence of myopia.
 
You can error on the side of caution or you can error either on the side of attempted control - we have made our choice and we will not use any of these dangerous poisons!
 
Want to Learn More? The book, Toxic Deception: How the Chemical Industry Manipulates Science, Bends the Law, and Endangers Your Health, 1997. Dan Fagin, Marianne Lavelle and the Center for Public Integrity. Investigates tactics used by the chemical industry to keep chemicals in use and to ward off regulations and prohibitions. Describes close relationships between government regulators and industry, and documents cases in which unethical or illegal corporate practices have helped keep hazardous chemicals on the market, including the herbicides atrazine and alachlor. Offers recommendations for improving U. S. chemical regulatory system. 294 pp. US$24.95. Birch Lane Press, Carol Publishing Group, 120 Enterprise Avenue, Secaucus, NY 10017; phone toll free (800) 447-BOOK or (201) 866-0490; fax (201) 271-7894.
 
Greenwash: The Reality Behind Corporate Environmentalism, 1996. Jed Greer and Kenny Bruno. Provides overview of transnational corporations' impacts on global environment and describes extent of industry "greenwashing" to cover up environmental harm. Investigates environmental claims of 20 global corporations and documents range of abuses by Du Pont, Ciba-Geigy, Monsanto, Dow and other companies. Discusses how citizens can recognize and challenge greenwashing. 256 pp. US$18.95. The Apex Press, 777 United Nations Plaza, Suite 3C, New York, NY 10017; phone (212) 972-9877; fax (212) 972-9878; e-mail: cipany@igc.org.
 
Betrayal of Science and Reason; How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future, 1996. Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich. Documents how industry and right wing organizations distort science to roll back or discourage environmental regulations. Discusses the role of news media in disseminating anti-environmental and anti-public health myths, such as that ozone depletion is a hoax, pesticides will solve world hunger and that risks of toxic substances are greatly exaggerated. Describes worst offenders in advancing these myths, and provides scientific background information on many environmental issues, including global warming, biodiversity and toxins. 335 pp. US$24.95. Shearwater Books/Island Press, Box 7, Dept. 2PR, Covelo, CA 95428; phone toll free (800) 828-1302 or (707) 983-6432; fax (707) 983-6414; e-mail ipwest@igc.org.
 
Corporations Are Gonna Get Your Mama: Globalization and the Downsizing of the American Dream, 1996. Kevin Danaher, ed. Presents anthology of writings on economic globalization and the expansion of corporate power, including chapters on corporate crime, corporate welfare, the World Bank and free trade agreements. Offers recommendations for challenging globalization and fighting multinationals, and discusses alternatives being promoted by labor, environmental and other organizations worldwide. 221 pp. US$15.95. Global Exchange, 2017 Mission Street, Suite 303, San Francisco, CA 94110; phone (415) 255-7296; fax (415) 255-7498; e-mail globalexch@ipc.org.
 
Global Pesticide Campaigner (GPC), March 1997. PANNA. Quarterly periodical of pesticide and sustainable agriculture news. March 1997 issue features history of methyl bromide production, stressing the role of its main producers - especially Albermarle, an offspring of Du Pont, GM and Exxon - in fighting restrictions on toxic chemicals. Issue also includes articles about Bt-cotton, Peruvian pesticide reform and food security. Every GPC issue also provides worldwide news updates and summaries of recent books and other resources related to pesticides. Subscription rates: US$25 - individuals and non-profit organizations; US$50 - small businesses, government, public libraries; US$100 - corporations. Free to NGO's in developing countries. Contact PANNA.
 
Other books to read include: Altered Harvest by Jack Doyle, Chemical Exposure and Disease by Janette Sherman, M.D. and Safe Shopper's Bible by Samuel Epstein, M.D.
 
YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
 
Call the White House @ 1-202-456-1111
 
Call Congress @ 1-800-972-3524 (Have your zip code ready)
 
Send a telegram to the President @ 1-800-651-1477 (the cost is about $6.25 and often these can make even more of an impact than phone calls)
 
Conclusion
 
Every purchase of a synthetic pesticide poison treated (contaminated) food or clothing product you make gives a very clear message to the poison industry that you agree it is all right to put their poisons in our food, clothing, air and water and into you and your family and pets! Think about it. Please Think!
 
Today agrichemical (poison) contamination of our soil, air, water, food, animals and people is one of the most ubiquitous and difficult environmental health disasters we must face and overcome if we are to survive!
 
John Bell Clark an organic rancher and farmer in Michigan got off the pesticide treadmill and has not only survived but prospered - "The compelling conclusion to this experiment and its repeatable results in the organic community is that the highly touted "benefit assumptions" for pesticide and fertilizer imputs are non-existent." I would only add the word assume is interesting in that it makes an ass out of you and me ass/u/me.
 
The true costs of pesticides are not borne by the poison "industry" they are truly borne by you and me. Huge amounts of pesticides are used on our food - however, because the pests are quickly developing resistance, all of these pesticide poisons are constantly failing their purpose of truly reducing crop and/or livestock losses . . . the sad truth is that all of the risks (we all must assume) associated with synthetic pesticide poisons are totally unnecessary risks!
 
In her book Breast Cancer: Poisons, Profits and Prevention; Liane Clorfene-Casten notes that at the present time one woman in eight will get breast cancer - since 1960 more than 950,000 have died from breast cancer - almost half of these deaths have occurred in the last 10 years. Putting this into proper perspective only 617,000 Americans have died in all the wars our country has fought this century!
 
Far more than 120,000 American women a year are attacked by cancers caused by environmental poisons - manmade chemicals and radiation that have been produced and distributed worldwide. And our leaders of the "war on cancer" have known this for decades and have refused to deal with this information. We have spent 25 billion dollars in cancer research in the last 30 years - the "result"? We used to have cancer strike 1 in 7 of us then - now it strikes 1 in every 2 of us! Amazing! Spend all the millions you want on research and you still will not cure cancer-you must remove the cause-the poisons if we are to survive!
 
 
 
 
Can we look to the regulators for UNBIASED help? At the Association of Structural Pest Control Regulatory Officials (ASPCRO) 1997 Annual Meeting to be held on Monday, August 25, 1997, in Nashville Tennessee - "our" impartial governmental employees or "regulators" will have their Continental Breakfast sponsored by Sears Termite & Pest Control; their Luncheon will be sponsored by Terminix International and their Reception will be sponsored by Orkin Pest Control! Are you so naive you still believe in "free lunches"?
 
There simply is no end of all the crap and historical data, information, betrayals, pollution and destruction, deals, free lunches, health damages, deaths, profits, bribes, intrigue and/or inhumanity waiting "out there" for someone to write a library of books on, totally exposing all of the uncaring members (and regulators) of the poison industry and their evil deeds, but let us now leave the Evil Empire, rather than looking at any more betrayals and/or problems! Besides, do you really think you can reform the devil and/or make him repent? Nu?
 
He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.
 
- Rev. 22:11
 
The only way to win this war is for all of us to stop buying and to stop using the devil's dangerous poisons that do not even control the pests and to use the safest alternatives that truly eliminate or permanently control your pest problems better, quicker and more effectively and usually for far less money! So let us now leave all of the crap, the contamination and the dangers and go on to the hundreds of safe/field tested solutions found in The Best Control!
 
For your own copy of The Best Control ! please contact our web site: http://www.getipm.com


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