BUSTED! U.S. AGENCY USED AGENT ORANGE IN AMERICA AND EPA CONDONED IT

OVER 100,000 PAGES OF EPA DOCUMENTS AND OTHER HAZARDOUS CHEMICAL STUDIES HAVE BEEN RESCUED FROM A BARN IN OREGON THAT SHOW, AMONG MANY OTHER THINGS, THAT THE U.S. FOREST SERVICE CONTINUED TO SPRAY THE TWO HERBICIDES USED IN AGENT ORANGE, 2,4-D AND 2,4,5-T AS A "WEED-KILLER" AFTER ITS HORRIBLE EFFECTS WERE MADE KNOWN IN VIETNAM, AFTER OUR TROOPS BEGAN SHOWING SIGNS OF SUCCUMBING TO ITS POISONS, AFTER THE GOVERNMENT WAS WARNED HOW HIGHLY TOXIC TO HUMANS THIS SUBSTANCE WAS.

AT LEAST 20,000 POUNDS OF 2,4,5-T WAS SPRAYED OVER ALSEA, OREGON FOR FIVE YEARS, EVEN AFTER LOCALS PROTESTED WHEN THEY BECAME ILL FROM THE SPRAYING.

IT HAPPENED IN MANY, MANY MORE PLACES THAN OREGON, BUT THIS IS WHERE THE STORY BEGINS.
IT MAY NEVER END.    

[MY NOTE: I AM SEARCHING FOR A LIST OR A MAP OF ALL AREAS KNOWN TO HAVE BEEN SPRAYED WITH THESE TOXINS. WHEN/IF I FIND THAT, I WILL POST IT IN THE COMMENTS SECTION BELOW THIS BLOG ENTRY. UPDATE: 04 AUGUST 2017, I POSTED 2 COMMENTS WITH LINKS IN THE COMMENTS SECTION BENEATH THIS BLOG ENTRY.]

THE HORRIFIC EFFECTS OF THE SPRAYING OVER OREGON WAS REPORTED BY THE WASHINGTON POST IN JUNE, 1983.

THAT ARTICLE MENTIONED THE LADY WHO BUSTED THE EPA.
"A Bitter Fog: Herbicides and Human Rights", by Carol Van Strum.

IT ALSO MENTIONS ANOTHER AREA WHERE THE SAME 'HERBICIDES' WERE USED TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE RESIDENTS THERE.
"..dioxin-laced road oil in Times Beach, Missouri..."

NOW, 34 YEARS LATER, IT ALL BEGINS TO FINALLY COME TO LIGHT.
For decades, some of the dirtiest, darkest secrets of the chemical industry have been kept in Carol Van Strum’s barn. [T]he listing, 80-year-old structure in rural Oregon housed more than 100,000 pages of documents obtained through legal discovery in lawsuits against Dow, Monsanto, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Forest Service, the Air Force, and pulp and paper companies, among others.

As of today, those documents and others that have been collected by environmental activists will be publicly available through a project called the Poison Papers.
Together, the library contains more than 200,000 pages of information and “lays out a 40-year history of deceit and collusion involving the chemical industry and the regulatory agencies that were supposed to be protecting human health and the environment,” said Peter von Stackelberg, a journalist who along with the Center for Media and Democracy and the Bioscience Resource Project helped put the collection online."

EFFECTS FROM THE SPRAYING OF AGENT ORANGE CHEMICALS OVER THAT AREA WERE CARRIED OUT WITH DOCUMENTED HARMFUL EFFECTS TO ALL LIFE THERE FROM 1972 THROUGH 1977, BUT IT WASN'T UNTIL 1983 THAT THE FOREST SERVICE AGREED TO STOP THE SPRAYING, DESPITE EVIDENCE OF THE DAMAGE DONE TO AMERICAN CITIZENS, INCLUDING CHILDREN, INFANTS AND THE UNBORN OF PREGNANT WOMEN WHO WERE LIVING BENEATH ALL THAT SPRAYING.

AS YOU WILL SEE BELOW, THAT WAS THE TIP OF A HUGE ICEBERG OF DECEIT, LIES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY BY GOVERNMENT AGENCIES AND CHEMICAL COMPANIES ACROSS AMERICA.

THE FIND OF ALL THIS DOCUMENTED EVIDENCE IS NOW KNOWN AS "THE POISON PAPERS".
THAT THE PAPERS ARE GENUINE HAS BEEN DEMONSTRATED IN COURT CASES AGAINST THE FOREST SERVICE AND CHEMICAL COMPANIES, AND SHOWS THE COLLUSION BETWEEN OUR EPA, WHICH IS SUPPOSED TO PROTECT US, AND THE PERPETRATORS OF THESE CRIMES.

"As in Vietnam, the chemicals hurt people and animals in Oregon, as well as the plants that were their target. Immediately after they were sprayed, Van Strum’s children developed nosebleeds, bloody diarrhea, and headaches, and many of their neighbors fell sick, too.
Several women who lived in the area had miscarriages shortly after incidents of spraying.

Locals described finding animals that had died or had bizarre deformities — ducks with backward-facing feet, birds with misshapen beaks, and blinded elk; cats and dogs that had been exposed began bleeding from their eyes and ears.

At a community meeting, residents decided to write to the Forest Service detailing the effects of the spraying they had witnessed.

“We thought that if they knew what had happened to us, they wouldn’t do it anymore,” Van Strum said recently, before erupting into one of the many bursts of laughter that punctuate her conversation.

The EPA’s registration of 2,4-D and other pesticides was based on fraudulent data from a company called Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories. That case led to a decision, in 1983, to stop all aerial herbicide spraying by the Forest Service.

“We didn’t think of ourselves as environmentalists, that wasn’t even a word back then,” Van Strum said. “We just didn’t want to be poisoned.”

Two documents, for instance, detailed experiments that Dow contracted a University of Pennsylvania dermatologist to conduct on prisoners in the 1960s to show the effects of TCDD, a particularly toxic contaminant found in 2,4,5-T.

Another document, from 1985, showed that Monsanto had sold a chemical that was tainted with TCDD to the makers of Lysol, who, apparently unaware of its toxicity, used it as an ingredient in their disinfectant spray for 23 years.

Yet another, from 1990, detailed the EPA policy of allowing the use of hazardous waste as inert ingredients in pesticides and other products 'under certain circumstances'."

THE NUMBERS OF AMERICANS AFFECTED BY ALL THIS ARE STAGGERING, BUT WE HAVEN'T SEEN ALL THE EVIDENCE AGAINST THESE COMPANIES AND THE EPA YET. HOW MANY WILL BE GRADUALLY EXPOSED IN THE FUTURE REMAINS TO BE SEEN.

THE SAME THING HAPPENED IN ARIZONA.
AGAIN, THE FOREST SERVICE DID THE SPRAYING.

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES REPORTED THE EFFECTS OF THAT

"The sound always came first, a low buzz that grew and grew until it roared through the valley. Then the olive-colored plane appeared overhead, flying low. In its wake was a thick shower of oily droplets making a long, slow fall to the forested gullies below.

Kids on the Apache reservation back then chased the planes over gem-laden hills, past the flame-yellow salt cedars lining the banks of the Gila River. If they arrived ahead of the planes, they stood under the mysterious, oily rain, waiting for rainbows.

“We just played in it, drank the water with it in there, ate the food we hung out to dry covered in it,” said Mike Stevens, 62. “Didn’t know what it was.”

The planes were delivering a chemical cocktail with components similar to Agent Orange, the powerful herbicide that laid bare the jungles of Vietnam during the 1960s to allow American warplanes to peer into guerrilla encampments." 

ANOTHER COVER-UP OF AGENT ORANGE DURING REAGAN'S ADMINISTRATION PROVEN.
"Charges of a White House cover-up have been substantiated by a report from the House Government Operations Committee. That report, released August 9, 1990, charges that officials in the Reagan Administration purposely “controlled and obstructed” a federal Agent Orange study in 1987 because it did not want to admit government liability in cases involving the toxic herbicides. If as the report states the EPA studies were skewed to limit government liability, then Dioxin levels that already warranted restrictions, calling for a Alternative Treatment Technologies (clean up) plan, are likely much higher than reported."

THEY KNEW THE TOXICITY WHEN THEY SPRAYED OUR OWN TROOPS IN VIETNAM, SOMETHING PROVEN JUST A FEW YEARS AGO.

THE LIES AND COVER-UPS ARE BLATANT, BUT DENIED BY THE EPA, WHICH CONTROLS WHAT IS RELEASED UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT AND WHICH HAS NEVER RELEASED ALL THE REQUESTED DATA.

"The EPA never released the full results of the “Alsea study,” as it was called, and insisted it had lost many of them.

But a lab chemist provided Van Strum with what he said was the analysis of the test results he had been hired to do for the EPA, which showed the samples from water, various animals, and “products of conception” were significantly contaminated with TCDD.

When confronted, the EPA claimed there had been a mix-up and that the samples were from another area. 

IF THE EPA HAD INDEED "LOST" THOSE DOCUMENTS, HOW WOULD THEY KNOW THE STUDIES WERE FROM "ANOTHER AREA"? 
Van Strum filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the results and, for years, battled in court to get to the bottom of what happened.
Though the EPA provided more than 34,000 pages in response to her request (which Van Strum carefully numbered and stored in her barn), the agency never released all the results of the study or fully explained what had happened to them or where the contaminated samples had been taken.
Eventually, Van Strum gave up.

The EPA declined to comment for this story."

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS AGAIN AND AGAIN WHEN CITIZENS, VICTIME, TRY TO SUE THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR HARM.
THEY HAVE DEEP POCKETS AND CAN KEEP CASES IN COURT SO LONG THAT PEOPLE HAVE TO GIVE UP.

WAS THIS ONE OF THE REASONS THE EPA DELETED OVER 3 MILLION EPA TEXT MESSAGES?
"Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials only archived 86 text messages out of 3.1 million agency employees sent and received in 2015, according to a federal watchdog’s report made public by House Committee on Science, Space and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith.

The EPA Office of Inspector General (IG) released the report requested by the Texas Republican, which described enormous 'text message retention problems' within the EPA. One unnamed senior official configured his phone to automatically delete texts after 30 days.

“A better process for maintaining this type of official correspondence to provide for congressional requests and Freedom of Information Act practices is lacking and needs to be addressed. I look forward to hearing how EPA specifically plans to address the deficits outlined by the IG report,” Smith said.Smith requested the IG report in November 2014 after learning high-ranking EPA officials, including EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, may have deleted texts to hide official business."

A DEEP, PERSONAL TRAGEDY

"Van Strum had to make peace with not fully understanding a personal tragedy, too.
In 1977, her house burned to the ground and her four children died in the fire.
Firefighters who came to the scene said the fact that the whole house had burned so quickly pointed to the possibility of arson. But an investigation of the causes of the fire was never completed. 
WHY NOT?
WERE THEY AFRAID OF RETRIBUTION FROM THOSE WHO MIGHT HAVE BEEN FOUND GUILTY OF ARSON?

Van Strum suspected some of her opponents might have set the fire. It was a time of intense conflict between local activists and employees of timber companies, chemical manufacturers, and government agencies over the spraying of herbicides. A group of angry residents in the area near Van Strum’s home had destroyed a Forest Service helicopter that had been used for spraying.

And, on one occasion, Van Strum had come home to find some of the defenders of the herbicides she was attacking in court on her property.

THE TIMBER INDUSTRY RULED THAT AREA OF THE NATION, AND COMMUNITIES RELIED ON BIG TIMBER FOR JOBS, AND LOCAL BUSINESS INCOME. THERE IS AN ONGOING BATTLE TO BRING BACK THE CLEAR-CUTTING OF THOUSANDS OF ACRES OF FORESTLAND THERE.
MANY DON'T CARE WHAT EFFECTS THAT HAS ON HUMANS, ANIMALS, WATER SOURCES OR THE ENVIRONMENT AS A WHOLE.
THEY JUST WANT THE MONEY.

“I’ve accepted that I’ll never really know” what happened, said Van Strum, who never rebuilt her house and now lives in an outbuilding next to the cleared site where it once stood.

But her commitment to the battle against toxic chemicals survived the ordeal.

“If it was intentional, it was the worst thing that ever happened to me,” she said. “After that, there was nothing that could make me stop.”

Still, after all these years, Van Strum felt it was time to pass on her collection of documents, some of which pertain to battles that are still being waged, so “others can take up the fight.” And the seeds of many of the fights over chemicals going on today can be tied to the documents that sat in her barn.

The Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories scandal is central in litigation over the carcinogenicity of Monsanto’s Roundup, for instance.

And 2,4-D, the other active ingredient in Agent Orange, is still in use." 

[MY NOTE: THE EPA REGISTRATION NUMBER FOR 2,4-D IS  34704-120 .]

THAT LAST LINK MAKES A CONNECTION TO WHAT BRAZILIAN SCIENTISTS WERE TRYING TO SAY ABOUT THE FALSE REPORTS BY THE U.S. CDC's CLAIMS THAT THE ZIKA VIRUS WAS CAUSING BIRTH DEFECTS IN THEIR NATION, AS I REPORTED <HERE>, <HERE>, <HERE> AND <HERE> IN EARLY 2016.

ONLY A FEW WEBSITES AND NEWS AGENCIES CARRIED THE TRUTH, OR EVEN MENTIONED IT...

Report says pesticide is to blame for microcephaly outbreak - not Zika


Massive New Study Suggests Pesticide the Cause of Microcephaly


Brazil Admits Birth Defects Are Not Caused by Zika Virus

WHEN BRAZIL SHOWED THAT NEIGHBORING NATIONS ALSO INFECTED BY ZIKA DID NOT HAVE AN APPALLING RISE IN BIRTH DEFECTS LIKE BRAZIL HAD, THAT AFRICA, WHERE ZIKA ORIGINATED, DID NOT HAVE SUCH HIGH NUMBERS, BUT THAT AREAS OF AMERICA AND OTHER COUNTRIES WHERE THE MOSQUITO COULD NOT SURVIVE ALSO HAD IDENTICAL HIGH NUMBERS OF THE SAME BIRTH DEFECTS, THE AMERICAN MAINSTREAM MEDIA AND THE CURSED CDC WENT TO BAT FOR THE CHEMICAL COMPANY INVOLVED IN THAT SPRAYING AND MALIGNED AND BULLIED BRAZIL INTO SUBMISSION.

WHILE SOME BRAZILIAN AND ARGENTINIAN DOCTORS AND SCIENTISTS STILL INSIST IT WAS THE PESTICIDE THAT IS STILL CAUSING BIRTH DEFECTS THERE, THE CDC TEAMED UP WITH CHEMICAL COMPANIES HERE IN AMERICA TO USE THE SAME SPRAY TO "FIGHT THE ZIKA VIRUS" AND BEGAN WARNING WOMEN IN THE AREAS SPRAYED TO POSTPONE CONCEPTION FOR A YEAR OR SO.

WHY DOESN'T THE EPA ISSUE THOSE WARNINGS TO THE PEOPLE WHERE PESTICIDES KNOWN TO CAUSE BIRTH DEFECTS ARE SPRAYED? BECAUSE NO ONE CAN SUE A MOSQUITO OR A VIRUS, BUT THOUSANDS HAVE SUED THE CHEMICAL COMPANIES.
WHO IS THE LEADER OF THE PACK FOR POISONING AMERICA AND OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD?
WHAT COMPANY PROVIDED AGENT ORANGE TO THE MILITARY?
HERE'S A HINT...

Monsanto Under Fire: Maker of Cancer-Causing Herbicide Sued by US Workers


EPA Forced to Study Syngenta’s Atrazine and Monsanto’s Glyphosate’s Effects on Endangered Species


Another Win for Monsanto: U.S. Raises Allowable Levels of Glyphosate Roundup Herbicide in Food Crops


EPA Official Accused of Helping Monsanto 'Kill' Cancer Study

Patients: Roundup gave us cancer as EPA official helped the company

The EPA colludes with Monsanto to poison the entire U.S. food supply

FROM ESQUIRE MAGAZINE: The EPA May Have Been in Bed with Big Pesticide for Years

MONSANTO IS THE KING OF POISONS.

AND THEN THERE'S THE EPA LOVE AFFAIR WITH DOW.

Chicago Tribune Exposé: EPA Cooked the Books to OK Dow's Dangerous Weed Killer

"[T]he Tribune found, the [EPA] agency’s scientists changed their analysis of a pivotal rat study by Dow, tossing aside signs of kidney trouble that Dow researchers said were caused by 2,4-D.

The EPA scientists who revised that crucial document were persuaded by a Canadian government toxicologist who decided that Dow — a company that has a $1 billion product at stake — had been overly cautious in flagging kidney abnormalities that she deemed insignificant.
When Dow later published this study, the company’s scientists likewise dismissed their earlier concerns and changed the most important measure of the chemical’s toxicity so it agreed with the EPA’s less stringent view.

These decisions paved the way for the EPA to approve Dow’s weedkiller Enlist Duo last year and reassure the public that a surge in 2,4-D use [41 TIMES THE ALLOWABLE AMOUNTS OF THIS KNOWN TOXIN] wouldn’t hurt anyone.

THE EPA IS BREAKING FEDERAL LAWS, BUT NO ONE IS CHARGING THEM.

Federal law has required the EPA to protect children from pesticides — chemicals that kill weeds, insects or other harmful organisms — since a National Research Council panel warned lawmakers in the 1990s that exposing fetuses and young kids to these compounds can cause lifelong damage at doses that wouldn’t hurt their parents.

Dr. Philip Landrigan, the pediatrician who chaired that panel, is so alarmed by the potential spike in children’s exposure to 2,4-D that for the last year he has urged EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to reject the “notoriously toxic herbicide.” He is calling for the federal National Toxicology Program to assess the safety of the mix of weedkillers that would be used on new genetically modified crops.

Even some scientists who have spent their professional lives eradicating weeds oppose the new genetically modified crops and the chemical future they foreshadow.

"Those herbicide increases are not OK," said David Mortensen, a professor of weed and applied plant ecology at Pennsylvania State University. "To me, that is unconscionable that we can be OK with that, and I'm not an anti-chemical radical."

EVEN THE STUDIES THE CHEMICAL GIANTS PAID FOR FOUND PROBLEMS, BUT WERE 'SUPPRESSED'. 

Industry-funded researchers have found kidney trouble before in animals consuming low doses of 2,4-D, the Tribune found. An industry group representing Dow and other 2,4-D manufacturers submitted five studies to the EPA in the 1980s that documented kidney abnormalities in rats and mice at doses far lower than the one the agency now is using to set safety levels for people.

EPA scientists and the trade group agreed three decades ago that the kidney was the "target organ for toxicity" with anomalies seen at doses as low as 5 mg/kg, records show.

The EPA said it has no plans to ask Dow for studies that chronically dose rats with the combination of 2,4-D and glyphosate."

EPA refuses to ban controversial pesticide popular in California

"The Trump Administration on Wednesday denied a petition by environmental groups that sought to ban a common pesticide used on citrus fruits, apples, cherries and other crops, reversing a push by the Obama administration to revoke all uses of the pesticide on food after a government review concluded it could harm children’s brains. 

U.S. farms use more than 6 million pounds of the chemical each year — about 25 percent of it in California.

The EPA banned home use of chlorpyrifos in 2000 and placed “no-spray” buffer zones around sensitive sites, such as schools, in 2012.

In announcing the decision, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said that by not banning chlorpyrifos he is providing “regulatory certainty” to thousands of American farms that rely on the pesticide."

AGAIN, INDUSTRY'S MONEY OVER HUMAN LIVES, A LA EPA.
AND WHO HAS SCOTT PRUITT ALWAYS SUPPORTED?
BIG BUSINESS, ESPECIALLY OIL AND GAS...CLOSE FRIENDS OF BIG AG.

Senior EPA Official Steals Millions from Taxpayers.
"Highest paid EPA official pulled off a million-dollar con by posing as a top-secret spy, so that he could take lavish vacations on the government’s dime."

THE EPA IS A RACKET THAT HAS BEEN BUSTED TIME AND TIME AGAIN, BUT IT IS SO CLOSELY ENTWINED IN THE ARMS OF INDUSTRY, WHICH HAS THE BILLIONS TO FIGHT COURT CASES THAT AVERAGE CITIZENS DON'T HAVE, THAT THE EPA AND ITS BELOVED KILLER COMPANIES GET AWAY WITH MURDER.

WHO WILL BE NEXT...YOU, ME, OUR CHILDREN?

ONCE AGAIN, WE LOSE, AMERICA, AND WALL STREET WINS.

IT'S PURE AND SIMPLE COLLUSION, COMPLICITY, COLLABORATION BETWEEN OUR OWN GOVERNMENT AND THOSE WHO ARE POISONING EVERY ACRE OF CROPLAND, EVERY STREAM, EVERY WATER SOURCE IN AMERICA, AND WE, THE PEOPLE, ARE PAYING WITH OUR LIVES AND THE LIVES OF OUR CHILDREN.

OF THE 62,000+ CHEMICALS CURRENTLY IN EVERYTHING WE USE AND CONSUME, THE EPA DEMANDED TESTS ON ONLY 200.   

Think Those Chemicals Have Been Tested? - The New York Times

FROM PBS

Every year, around 4 billion pounds of toxic chemicals are released by American industries.

In 2011 alone, 16 new chemicals accounted for nearly 1 million pounds.

These chemicals lurk in everyday items: furniture, cosmetics, household cleaners, toys, even food.

There is far too little testing of these substances: Only a fraction of the nearly 3,000 high-production-volume (HPV) chemicals — chemicals that have an annual production run of at least one million pounds — have been studied for their potential toxicity.

According to the EPA, the agency has “only been able to require testing on a little more than 200 existing chemicals” out of the 62,000 that have been introduced since the TSCA’s enactment.
The EPA has banned just five.

In 2009, Michael Wilson and Megan Schwarzman, environmental health scientists at UC Berkeley, published a damning analysis of U.S. chemical policy, identifying “fundamental weaknesses” in the way the government protects Americans from toxic substances — weaknesses that not only leave the public unprotected, but hamstring the development of a chemical marketplace that is less toxic and more sustainable.

“These policies have largely failed to adequately protect public health or the environment or motivate investment in or scientific exploration of cleaner chemical technologies,” they wrote in the paper, which was published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a peer-reviewed journal.

“On this trajectory,” they warned, “the United States will face growing health, environmental and economic problems related to chemical exposures and pollution.”

62,000 OR MORE?
It could take centuries for EPA to test all the unregulated chemicals
Since World War II, some 80,000 new chemicals have been invented.

But it wasn’t until the early 1970s when the President’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), formed in 1969 under the Nixon administration, proposed federal legislation to regulate American commerce in chemical substances.

So why did it take so long for the government to address the potential health and environmental effects of chemicals?

It’s a familiar and tragic narrative: Public health regularly takes a back seat to corporate interests.
Time and time again, major toxic disasters occur, reminding us just how susceptible humans, animals and the environment are to toxins produced by industrial activity.

Look at Love Canal in Niagara Falls in the 1950s, Times Beach, Missouri in the 1970s or the Summitville mine in Colorado in the 1980s.

More recently, there was the Exide lead contamination in Los Angeles.

Today, the Flint water crisis unfolds in Michigan.

While big disasters such as these make national headlines, it was actually a series of festering environmental contamination events around the country — and the community activism that gradually grew around them — that set the stage for the TSCA’s passage.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were contaminating the Hudson River; polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) were contaminating agricultural produce in Michigan; and chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) emissions were depleting the ozone layer.

But it was the process behind making polyvinyl chloride, a plastic commonly known as PVC, that was ultimately the driving force that finally got the law passed.

PASSED, BUT NOT ENFORCED!
IT SIMPLY IS NOT ENFORCED.

VINYL CHLORIDE HAS BEEN PROVEN TO CAUSE A VERY RARE FORM OF CANCER CALLED ANGIOSARCOMA.

In their 2002 book Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution, public health historians Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner write, “While the discovery of various kinds of industrial pollution had led the EPA to begin pressing for passage of Toxic Substances Control Act, the publicity and seriousness of the vinyl crisis would become the impetus for more assertive efforts to get TSCA passed, with a view toward regulating more chemicals than vinyl chloride.”

In 1976, the global production of plastics was around 50 million metric tons.

By 2002, that number had quadrupled.

Today, more than 311 metric tons of plastics are produced worldwide.

AND YET WE KNOW NOTHING OF THE POSSIBLE LONG-TERM EFFECTS ON HUMANS.
Vinyl chloride's health concern reached critical mass in the U.S. in 1974 when the U.S. FDA, EPA and Consumer Product Safety Commission took action to BAN vinyl chloride's use in bottles and other consumer products.

Nancy Beach, who was coordinating the EPA’s vinyl chloride (VC) efforts at the time, revealed that exposure to the toxin wasn’t limited to factory workers.

In a private session organized by the National Cancer Institute and attended by representatives from 10 federal agencies, including the FDA, OSHA, CDC and the National Institutes of Health, Beach revealed that some 6 percent of the VC used during PVC production was escaping into the outside air.

“It sounds small,” she said, “but, if one considers that the annual production of PVC in the U.S. is well over 5 billion pounds, a 6 percent loss figure is on the order of 250 million pounds, which is somehow getting out of the workplace.”

By the summer of 1974, the FDA, EPA and Consumer Product Safety Commission moved to prohibit the use of VC in bottles and other consumer goods.

In October, EPA administrator Russell Train announced new air emissions standards for vinyl chloride. The announcement would have far-reaching implications: By framing the VC issue within the larger goal of regulating the hundreds of chemicals that enter the marketplace every year, Train helped pave the way for the passage of the TSCA:

For the past five years, an estimated 600 new chemicals a year have been introduced into U.S. commerce.
These chemicals have been sold without any systematic, advanced assessment of their potential impact on human health. As we have learned through our experience, materials such as vinyl chloride, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), asbestos, nitrosamines and several others, we often do not discover how harmful a compound can be until it has become a commonplace item in our everyday life.

Two years after Train’s announcement — and after significant negotiation between the government and industry — the TSCA was finally signed into law by President Ford on Oct. 11, 1976, authorizing the EPA to test and regulate new and existing chemicals.

SO, SINCE 1976, THE EPA HAS HAD THE AUTHORITY TO TEST NEW CHEMICALS BUT HAS TESTED ONLY 200?

HOW DO THEY JUSTIFY TESTING SO FEW?

IF THEY ARE A "PROTECTION AGENCY", WHO ARE THEY PROTECTING?

NOT US!

NOT HUMANS AND NOT THE ENVIRONMENT.
ALSO SEE: Late lessons II Chapter 8 - Vinyl chloride a saga of secrecy

WITH HELP FROM CONGRESS, MOST CHEMICALS WERE RULED SAFE WITHOUT TESTING.
In 1994, former EPA assistant administrator Lynn Goldman testified to Congress, saying, “Our available tools for gathering testing data about these chemicals are cumbersome.”

Later, she explained that under the provisions of the TSCA, “It’s almost as if … we have to, first, prove that chemicals are risky before we can have the testing done to show whether or not the chemicals are risky.”
Since the TSCA was enacted, some 62,000 chemicals have never been tested by the EPA because they were grandfathered in and remain on the market.
Obama signs major overhaul of toxic chemicals rules into law

Critics of the law are also worried that EPA might lack the resources to effectively regulate. Scott Faber, vice president of government affairs at the Environmental Working Group, an environmental and consumer watchdog, said his group found that EPA doesn’t have enough money to review even the most dangerous chemicals on the list.

“The bill doesn’t provide EPA enough money to get through this enormous backlog of old, and in some cases, very dangerous chemicals to assess whether they need to be regulated or even banned,” he said. “It will take EPA decades to get through the thousand most dangerous chemicals that EPA itself has said need urgent review.”

So while Americans wait for the federal government to begin slowly testing and regulating the toxic chemicals encountered everyday, the burden is still on consumers to educate themselves about what toxins could be in the things they buy.

IT COULD TAKE LITERALLY CENTURIES FOR THE EPA TO TEST ALL CHEMICALS WHILE NEW ONES COME INTO USE.
I DON'T THINK THEY WILL TEST EVEN 100.

The new law requires EPA to test tens of thousands of unregulated chemicals currently on the market, and the roughly 2,000 new chemicals introduced each year, but quite slowly.

The EPA will review a minimum of 20 chemicals at a time, and each has a seven-year deadline. Industry may then have five years to comply after a new rule is made. At that pace it could take centuries for the agency to finish its review.

THE LAW REQUIRES THE EPA TO PROTECT AMERICAN CITIZENS, ESPECIALLY CHILDREN, BUT IT'S BROKEN THAT LAW SINCE IT WAS CREATED.

Fighting Phthalates
These harmful chemicals are lurking in countless products, but companies don’t have to tell us which ones.

PFASs, which stands for perfluoroalkyl substances and includes the category of chemicals known as PFCs, are practically impossible to avoid. Textiles are saturated with the chemicals to make them stain- and moisture-resistant. Sealant tape, ski wax, and floor wax are waterproof thanks to them, and in machinery they reduce gear friction. PFASs are found in our homes, our offices, our supermarkets—practically everywhere.

They are so common in consumer products and manufacturing that they’re practically everywhere—including inside our bodies.

Since the 1930s, scientists have used a family of chemicals called phthalates in an astonishing array of consumer products—from shower curtains to cosmetics to food containers. Phthalates are used for many different purposes: to carry and fragrance and to make those scents last longer, to soften and strengthen plastic, and to help topical products like lotions and cosmetics stick to and penetrate skin. But in the 1990s, when studies showed that phthalates could mimic our body's natural hormones, scientists became concerned about the health effects of these chemicals. PFASs that enter the body through the foods we eat and products we use every day can linger there for years before they are eventually flushed out.

Experts say we should minimize our use of and exposure to these ubiquitous chemicals for two crucial reasons. “First, the structure of PFASs means they resist breakdown in the environment and in our bodies,” says Erik Olson, NRDC’s Health program director. “Second, for some PFASs, even minor levels of exposure can negatively impact our health.”

“Hormones operate on a parts-per-trillion level in the body normally,” says Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist at NRDC, which is working to ensure strong protections and restrictions on phthalates.

“That’s a fraction of a teaspoon in an Olympic-size swimming pool.” Any change in that ratio can interfere with your body’s normal functioning. Like the infamous endocrine disruptors BPA and DDT, phthalates are particularly dangerous to pregnant women and babies. The chemicals pose risks to the development of the reproductive system, brain, and other organs.

In 2008, after it was determined by researchers that a baby could ingest these toxic chemicals simply by chewing on his rubber ducky, Congress outlawed three types of phthalates (DBP, BBP, and DEHP) in all toys and child care products.


DUPONT, ALSO ABOVE THE LAW.  
DuPont is facing 3,500 lawsuits from people claiming they experienced adverse effects, including cases of kidney cancer, thyroid disease, and pregnancy-induced hypertension, when the company polluted Ohio and West Virginia waterways with the now-banned PFOA/C8. The lawsuits have already cost DuPont millions of dollars and may lead to more stringent policies and practices.

That was a major step forward, but we’re still stuck with this scary fact: Dozens of types of phthalates still lurk in a dizzying number of everyday products. And it’s impossible to know which ones, exactly, because manufacturers don’t have to tell you. Federal agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission—as well as states—all play a role in regulating phthalates.

Water systems in 27 states have been contaminated with PFASs, according to data collected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

PFASs have even shown up in the bloodstreams of polar bears in the Arctic. “PFASs are so resilient that they’ll still be around millions of years from now,” says NRDC staff scientist Veena Singla.


How American Industry Skips Some Chemical Safety Checks | EWG

IT'S THE SAME THING...INDUSTRY MEANS MORE TO THE AMERICAN ECONOMY THAN THE WORKERS THEY HIRE.
INDUSTRY IS WHAT'S PROTECTED, WHAT'S ALLOWED TO BREAK EVERY FEDERAL LAW THEY CARE TO, CAUSE THE DEATHS OF THOUSANDS AND GET AWY WITH MURDER.

THE EPA, FDA, USDA AND CONGRESS WILL ALWAYS TAKE CARE OF THE CHEMICAL COMPANIES, THE BIG NUKE BOYS, OIL, COAL AND GAS CORPORATIONS, BIG AGRICULTURE, BIG PHARMA AND THE ONES WHO WILL NEVER BE PROTECTED ...THAT'S US, YOU, I, ALL OF US EXPENDABLE CITIZENS, US COMMON FOLK.

WILL YOU TRY TO IMAGINE WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN THE FUTURE?NOTHING THAT WILL CHANGE THE FACT THAT WE ARE VICTIMS OF CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.
BUT, OBVIOUSLY, MOST WILL BE WILLING VICTIMS, OR ELSE WE'D CHANGE THIS AND DEMAND AN END TO THE POISONING OF AMERICA.








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FURTHER READING   
~FOR MORE OF WHAT'S BEING LEFT OUT OF 'REPORTING' ON SUCH ISSUES BY OUR MAINSTREAM MEDIA PROPAGANDISTS, SEE THE LONG LIST <HERE>

~FOR AN ENTIRE BOOK ABOUT THE POISONING OF AMERICANS SEE Poison Spring: The Secret History of Pollution and the EPA

~ WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP YOURSELF

REAL ALL LABELS!
Don't use chemical pesticides or herbicides.
A simple Google search will show you hundreds of safe alternatives to what Monsanto, Dow and Dupont put out.

Until stronger regulations are in place, you can take the following steps to reduce your exposure to phthalates. 
Be wary of cosmetics.
Because the label on your eye shadow, moisturizer, or nail polish doesn’t have to include a phthalate warning—or even disclose all of the ingredients—you might need to do some investigating. Checking the company’s website or contacting its customer service department might help you find out what’s really inside. But the best choice might be to stick to products with a "no phthalate" label.

Eat fresh, unprocessed food when possible. And don't heat your food in plastic containers.

Some local farmers in your area are NOT using such POISONS on their small farms.
BUY LOCAL, or GROW YOUR OWN VEGETABLES. ALL IT TAKES IS A VERY SMALL SPACE, NOT ACRES.
MAKE YOUR OFFICIALS DISCLOSE THEIR WATER TESTING DATA.
See if the source of your drinking water comes from a KNOWN POLLUTED WATER SYSTEM.

If you have a private well, test it at least once a year and keep up to date on the status of your aquifer.

Phthalates can seep into food through equipment used in processing plants such as tubing, gloves, conveyor belts, lids, adhesives, and plastic wraps. This is particularly true for fatty foods—one more reason to avoid fast food!

Banish vinyl from your home.

Anything made of this material—shower curtains, mini-blinds, flooring—is almost guaranteed to contain phthalates.

Stop using air freshener.
Boiling spices and herbs in a small pot on the stove accomplishes the same thing and usually lasts longer.

This product category is particularly dicey.
Case in point: In 2007 NRDC tested 14 popular air fresheners.
None listed phthalates as an ingredient, but 12—even some advertised as “all natural” or “unscented”—had them.
Even better, try to avoid all fragrance.

Cosmetics and cleaning products may list "fragrance" or "parfum" on their labels that might include phthalates, but the exact ingredients are considered trade secrets. So you often can't determine what is safe.

Put pressure on your favorite companies.

Put pressure on your local news sources to report these things honestly.

Encourage manufacturers to disclose whether their products contain phthalates, and urge retailers to stop selling products that have them.

Change will happen if enough people ask for it.
For example, Home Depot and Lowe’s eliminated phthalates from most of their vinyl flooring in 2015; Apple phased the chemicals out of earbuds and power cords in 2013; and more and more cosmetics are being marketed as phthalate free.

Don’t use nonstick cookware, Gore-Tex clothing, personal care products with “PTFE” or “fluoro” ingredients, or textiles made with the original (pre-2000) formulation of Scotchgard.

If you don't need something truly "waterproof," look for coats, hats, boots, and tents labeled “water resistant.” They’re less likely to be treated with PFASs.

Replace nonstick cookware with stainless steel, cast-iron, glass, or ceramic alternatives.

Avoid ordering or heating up food that is wrapped in grease-resistant paper.

Make popcorn on the stove-top instead of in PFAS-treated microwave bags.

Watch for PFAS updates from NRDC and the National Toxicology Program.


~Eliminate Chemicals that Cause Reproductive Harm

Bisphenol A, BPA, is known to cause reproductive harm.
2,4-D has been linked to birth defects, decreased fertility, and improper thyroid function.

Yet this World War II–era weed killer—classified as a possible human carcinogen by the World Health Organization, or WHO—is still on the market.

In fact, its popularity will likely explode as farmers use it on new forms of genetically modified corn and soybeans, including those resistant to Enlist Duo—a new product that combines 2,4-D with glyphosate, the most commonly used pesticide in the United States.

Glyphosate has also been declared a probable human carcinogen by the WHO and may contribute to kidney and liver dysfunction.







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