Bioterrorism USA--Agribusiness
Chemical Assault

Healing Our World: Weekly Comment
By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.

http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2001/2001L-09-30g.html

Biological and Chemical Warfare Are Here Now
How many deaths will it take 'till we know
that too many people have died.
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
-- Bob Dylan

There has been much written in the press the last couple of weeks
about the threat from terrorists if they commandeered a crop duster
to spread biological warfare agents. Yet few writers have mentioned
that these planes are used for this purpose every day, but not by
terrorists. Instead, they are used by licensed operators who are
spraying deadly chemicals on our lands and on our children. We
don't have to wait for chemical warfare to be waged on U.S. soil by
terrorists. Such warfare has been underway for over a century. Every
day, billions of pounds of deadly chemicals, many of which were used
as chemical warfare agents in World War I and II, are applied as
pesticides and herbicides to soil, plants, and people around the country
and the world.

Near Sheldon, Illinois, grower Joe Zumwalt applies a low-insecticide bait
that is targeted against western corn rootworms feeding on and laying eggs
in these soybeans. (Photo by Ken Hammond courtesy U.S. Dept.
of Agriculture)

The U.S. releases over six billion pounds of toxic chemicals into the environment
each year. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than
200,000 people are killed by pesticide poisons, worldwide every year. That
means 547 men, women and children die every day from pesticide poisoning.
In addition, four million children die each year from the effects of contaminated
water and other toxic hazards. That's nearly 11,000 per day.

UNICEF reports that many independent authorities assert that at least
500,000 Iraqi children under five have died since 1990, in part as a result
of the U.S. sanctions and the effects of the Gulf War. Surely these threats
and atrocities are worth waging a war upon to save lives.

Crops aren't the only place pesticides are sprayed. Pesticides are
being used in classrooms, offices, playgrounds, lawns, playing fields,
locker rooms, bathrooms, storage rooms, basements, school gymnasiums
and day care rooms. Kitchens and cafeterias are the areas most frequently
treated with pesticides. Pesticides and herbicides are applied to eliminate
many kinds of pests, including weeds, mice, cockroaches, ants, flies, lice,
ticks, fleas and other insects. Some people spray outdoors to kill bees,
wasps, ants, rodents and pigeons. Pesticide and solvent vapors, unlike
most chemical warfare agents that dissipate rapidly, can persist in indoor
air for weeks or even years. Pesticide residues can contaminate indoor
surfaces, and can remain in carpets and dust for months or years. They
can also persist outdoors in soil for years and some weed-killers
commonly used at schools can last from one to five years in the soil.
Research over the last 20 years shows that pesticides cause sterility,
birth defects, and neurological disorders.

Pesticides stay on fruit and produce and most cannot be washed off
with water. In studies done by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 108
different kinds of pesticides were found on 22 fruits and vegetables
commonly eaten by children!

Sixteen pesticides were found in eight samples of processed baby food.
Crop dusting aircraft are the worst offenders, possibly contributing
to more pesticide poisoning episodes than any other delivery method.
Less than 10 percent - some say as little as one percent - of the pesticide
gets applied to the crop. The rest becomes airborne and can affect people,
animals, and plants many miles away.

These chemicals are regularly detected in the air thousands of miles
from where they were used. DDT, banned in the United States in the
1970s has been found in Antarctic ice, penguin tissues, and in most species
of whales! Farm pesticide resides have been found in vacuum cleaner bags
of people living in cities many hundreds of miles from farms.

The life systems of the Earth are intimately connected. You cannot
affect one without eventually affecting them all. Millions of tons of
hazardous substances have been improperly disposed of and cause a
continual threat to human, animal, and ecosystem health.
(Photo courtesy U.S. EPA) Crop dusters spray every day, and not
just to end insect infestations. Potato growers apply pesticides
from crop dusters to kill foliage on fields they are about to harvest
to make it easier to get the potatoes. Apple growers spray a
chemical on the apples to keep them on the trees longer so they
get redder and don't fall off in the wind.

The Environmental Working Group estimates that every day, 1.1
million children eat food that, even after it is washed, contains an unsafe
dose of 13 organophosphate pesticides. Of those children, 106,600 ate
food that exceed the EPA's own safe daily dosage level for adults by
10 times or more. The foods found to most likely contain unsafe pesticide
levels are peaches, apples, nectarines, popcorn and pears. Among baby
foods, pears, peaches and apple juice had the highest levels.

The problem is much worse than we can even imagine. We have no way
of knowing the true extent of the illnesses and deaths that result from
toxic pesticide exposure. A study in California reported that 16 out of 20
critically ill children that were transferred to a major medical center from
smaller hospitals were wrongly diagnosed. They were actually suffering
from acute pesticide poisoning.

The number of deaths each year from pesticide poisoning is staggering and
grossly underestimated. Migrant farm workers suffer the most and their
deaths and birth defects rarely show up on the lists of the dead, since they
can't afford health care and fear reprisal by immigration authorities. They may
never make it in to a hospital or to a doctor.

Business and industry have been waging chemical warfare on U.S. citizens
for decades. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
estimates that more than 32 million workers are exposed to harmful substances
from more than 3.5 million workplaces. Yet over the last 30 years, OSHA has
issued only 170 citations to employers for not having proper procedures to protect
against toxic substances leaving the workplace.

Solvents such as benzene, carbon disulfide, methylene chloride, and ketone are a
few of the 49 million tons of solvents that are produced annually in the United
States, and 9.8 million workers are exposed to them daily. They are in nail polish,
paint, plastics, rubber cement, furniture and thousands of other products. They are
absorbed through the skin or ingested.

Thousands of people are sickened and many die from these exposures annually.

We are under constant assault from industry sponsored chemical warfare every
day: Asbestos, especially from construction workplaces, causing lung tissue
scarring and cancer of the lining of the lung. Hormones from pharmaceutical
workers, embalmers and farm workers cause many health problems for them
and their families. Lead from employees who work in the lead smelting industries,
fix batteries or radiators or who work at a shooting range can harm the brain,
nervous system and kidneys.

Cadmium from electroplating plants, paint pigments and solder is linked to
lung and prostate cancer and even low level exposure can be harmful.
PCBs and other chlorinated hydrocarbons come home with firefighters,
plastics workers or those who work with electrical transformers and can
cause cancer. Pesticides from farm workers, gardeners or park maintenance
workers can easily be transported into the home and can cause many fatal
illnesses.

Many pesticides are part of a deadly family of pesticides that came from
chemicals that were developed as nerve gases during World War II. Please
take that in for a moment. Chemicals that were specifically designed to kill all life
forms quickly during wartime were approved by our government for use on our
lawns, in our homes, and around our children. Toxic terrorism is taking place right
now. This family of organophosphate pesticides - nerve gases - were first
synthesized in Germany before and during World War II. Tabun, Sarin, and
Soman were made by Gerhard Schrader in the 1930s and '40s. Sarin, still
available today, is lethal to an adult human if only 1,700 mg gets on his or her
skin. It doesn't even have to be taken internally to kill. Sarin gained worldwide
attention when on March 20, 1995, the Aum Shinrikyo, a terrorist group in
Japan, placed Sarin on five subway trains traveling toward Kasumigaseki station.
This subway stop is a common one for those working in Tokyo government offices.

Twelve commuters died and over 5,000 were injured. More than 100,000 human-
made chemicals have been introduced into the environment in the past 50 years.
More than 1,000 new chemicals are developed each year. Wherever you live,
there are probably more than 250 synthetic industrial chemicals in your body that
were not present in the bodies of your grandparents when they were your age.
A permanent ban on crop dusters would not only lessen a terrorist threat, but
would lessen the daily toxic terrorism that is perpetrated on American lives and
ecosystems - and all the Earth - every day. Pursuing the American Dream
has many consequences. It is a trail covered with the blood of innocent children,
women and men, considered by industry to be acceptable consequences of
progress. The losses in New York, Washington, DC, and Pennsylvania are tragic,
and my heart goes out to the victims and their families. But sadly, their numbers
pale in comparison to the yearly death toll from existing toxic practices in
the United States and around the world. Let's extend our outrage to the other
many hundreds of thousands of senseless deaths around our nation and the world
that occur because of our business-at-all-costs model for economic growth.
We don't have to wait to demand action on chemical terrorism - it's
here today.

RESOURCES
1. Read the tragic stories of those who have been poisoned by pesticides at:
http://www.getipm.com/our-loved-ones/memorium.htm2. Find out about pesticide poisoning and learn of alternatives at:http://www.safe2use.com/3. Track pesticide abuse from the Pesticide Action Network at:http://www.panna.org4. See details of pesticide poisoning from the Soil Association5. Visit the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides at:http://www.beyondpesticides.org/6. The Rachel Carson Council's Guide to Pesticides can be found online at: http://members.aol.com/rccouncil/ourpage/samples.htm7. Read the Environmental Working Group reports at:http://www.ewg.org/pesticides/8. Read about the facts of the sanctions against Iraq from Voices in theWilderness and from Citizens Concerned for the People of Iraq at:http://www.endiraqsanctions.org9. Find out who your Congressional representatives are and e-mail them.Tell them that you want an end to ALL the senseless deaths that take placeevery year that are considered a consequence of progress and the pursuit of theAmerican Dream. If you know your Zip code, you can find them at:http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html

{Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. is a writer and teacher in Seattle. He can
be found watching at all the outpouring of support for the tragic deaths on
September 11 while millions of children and adults die each year, unnoticed. Please
send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at: jackie@healingourworld.com
and visit his website at: http://www.healingourworld.com}