As usual -- to account for these events, follow the money.

[maury <maury@webtexas.com>]

Dioxin, depleted uranium, ozone holes, doomsday anthropogenic global

warming, ddt, cellular telephones and brain cancer, and nuclear power -

the

nemesis of mankind .... And the beat goes on.



Remember the Love Canal "disaster"? Remember when Times Beach Mo. was

evacuated by order of the US govt. in 1983? EPA then built an

incinerator on

the Times Beach site and actually "burned" all of the dirt supposedly

contaminated by dioxin. Did you know that the burn at the Times Beach

site

was finally completed in 1997 (14 years!!!) and a 500 acre park was

completed in 1999? EPA views this as a huge Superfund success.

http://www.epa.gov/superfund/programs/recycle/success/briefs/mo_brief.htm#mo_3



Did you read of the Italian town that suffered a dioxin spill about the

same

time as Times Beach? They simply replanted the "contaminated" area and

constructed a children's park on the site. To the best of my

understanding,

no ill effects on these children or townspeople were ever observed.



I recall reading of C-130 spray aircraft being refilled with Agent

Orange in Viet

Nam. Occasionally, a hose fitting would uncouple and soak a couple of

ground

crewmen from head to toe with Agent Orange. They re-coupled the hose,

finished the job, and then showered in soap and water; no ill effects

identified.



I recall reading of the discovery that dioxin has specific very negative



health/longivity effects on lab rats. Interesting -- in this case, the

chemical

has specific effects on lab rodents which are not duplicated on other

mammals or on humans; one failure of the Delaney Amendment. Just happens



to be a case in which the lab animals are not useful surrogates for

humans,

but consider the tax moneys which are continuing to be expended because

the appropriate agency(s) will not admit to a simple mistaken judgment.



I may be mistaken in the details, but I believe it has been shown that

black

lung disease is primarily a combined result of long term inhalation of

coal

dust AND smoking; that coal dust inhalation alone produces relatively

minuscule effects. I believe it has been shown that similar results

obtain with

the combined effects of asbestos and smoking; and possibly likewise with



radon and smoking. And a couple zany Calif. legislators are trying to

force the

out-of-state disposal of low level radioactive waste which is the

byproduct of

all nuclear medical procedures in Calif. And the Fed govt. agrees to pay

each

family of the Trade Center disaster victim an average of about 1.5

million

dollars. And the families of the seven Columbia crewmembers are released



from all income tax liabilities for calendar year 2002. Not to mention

the

potential federal compensation to be awarded to all previous workers on

government military nuclear programs.



Behavior similar to all the preceding examples continues at the

international

level with regard to the false allegations of hundreds of thousands of

deaths

due to "The Chernobyl Disaster". (There were between approximately 30 to

100.)



The limits of such government misdirection only seem limited by the

imaginations of the legislators and attorneys. In these cases, the goose

is ill

and should be put down, but he will keep pumping those golden eggs to

our

last free lunch.



Cheers,

Maury Siskel          maury@webtexas.com

__________________

An ounce of fear and passion is worth a ton of fact and logic.



Jerry Cohen

===============================

Iraq War Not Over for Junk Scientists

Friday, April 18, 2003

By Steven Milloy



The war in Iraq is pretty much over, except for junk scientists. For

them, the

war may continue for decades — just like Vietnam. Two developments bear

this out.



The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) last week announced

it would study sites in Iraq where armor-piercing weapons containing

depleted uranium (DU) were used by coalition forces.



Then, a new study was published this week in the journal Nature

reporting

the amount of Agent Orange sprayed in Vietnam was significantly

underestimated. The researchers called for more study of U.S. troops and



Vietnamese civilians in the sprayed areas.



Both lines of study are baseless.



DU is used in armor piercing shells because it’s 70 percent denser than

lead.

While other metals flatten upon impact, DU projectiles "self-sharpen"

upon

penetration. Like other metals, sufficiently high exposures to DU may

produce toxic effects. DU also has a low level of radioactivity.



The U.S. and U.K. fired about 350 tons of DU munitions at Iraqi tanks

during

the 1991 Gulf War. Though Iraqi doctors claimed a subsequent increase in



cancers and birth defects was related to DU, their assertions were never



substantiated.



UNEP conducted field studies of sites struck by DU munitions during the

1990s conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo. UNEP concluded, "DU contamination

does not pose any immediate risks to human health or the environment."

Inexplicably, UNEP has now changed its tune.



"DU is still an issue of great concern for the general public. An early

study in

Iraq could either lay these fears to rest or confirm that there are

indeed

potential risks," said UNEP last week. Don’t count on anything being

laid to

rest soon.



Despite the lack of evidence that DU causes harm, some now suggest harm

may be caused by a synergistic combination of DU’s chemical toxicity and



radioactive effects, according to an article in the New Scientist (April

19).

Is there any evidence to support such speculation? No.



Its sole basis is that no one ever has considered the possibility that

DU’s

toxic and radioactive properties might have some combined effect.



Science, however, is about observing an effect and determining the cause

—

not about imagining a cause for an effect that’s not been observed. The

latter

is [one form of] junk science.



The budding, war-related DU controversy has a disturbing precedent — the



never-ending junk science-fueled controversy over Agent Orange. The U.S.



sprayed millions of gallons of Agent Orange to defoliate the Vietnam

jungle

during 1961-1971. Agent Orange contained low levels of substances called



dioxins, by-products formed during the manufacturing process. Agent

Orange became a cause célèbre for Vietnam veterans after studies

reported that dioxin caused cancer in some laboratory animal tests.



The media soon labeled dioxin as the "most toxic manmade chemical."

Environmental activists climbed aboard the dioxin railroad when they

learned

that low levels of dioxin were produced by many industrial processes.

(Dioxin

is also a by-product of natural processes such as volcanic eruptions,

forest

fires and any combustion of plant material.)



Though no study of dioxin-exposed humans (including Vietnam vets)

credibly

links dioxin with cancer and the only reason Vietnam vets are

compensated

for Agent Orange exposure is that politicians find it easier to pay-off

rather

than to fight veterans groups, Agent Orange hysteria is more readily

debunked courtesy of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.



Several years ago Ben & Jerry’s endeavored to do what it could to rid

the

world of the dreaded dioxin because, as proclaimed in its marketing

materials, "The only safe level of dioxin exposure is no exposure at

all.



Knowing everyone is exposed unavoidably to dioxin everyday in our food,

water and air, Agent Orange expert Dr. Michael Gough and I tested Ben &

Jerry’s ice cream for dioxin. Our tests found a single serving of Ben &

Jerry’s

ice cream contained 2,000 times the amount of dioxin the U.S.

Environmental

Protection Agency says is "safe" for an adult. For a 45-pound child, the

figure

is about 7,500 times more than the EPA says is safe. The level of dioxin



measured in our Ben & Jerry’s sample is likely greater than dioxin

exposures

from Agent Orange among U.S. ground troops in Vietnam. And who’s afraid

of

Ben & Jerry’s?



Vietnam veterans groups and environmental activists, though, have so

much

invested in the dioxin myth that they can’t let go. Failing to find

dioxin-related

effects in Vietnam vets, these groups have urged researchers to look for

harm

supposedly caused by Agent Orange among Vietnamese civilians. Sadly, the



Vietnamese government seems quite happy to trot out alleged victims,

hoping

eventually to receive reparations from U.S. taxpayers.



Anyone up for Gulf War Syndrome II?



Steven Milloy is the publisher of JunkScience.com, an adjunct scholar at

the Cato Institute and the author of Junk Science Judo: Self-defense

Against Health Scares and Scams (Cato Institute, 2001).



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                      Copyright © 2003 Standard & Poor's





--------------------

It is the soldier, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to

a fair trial.                                Charles M. Province





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