[Iowa-dx] Toxic Talk 2007 Symposium‏

[GreenParty Ron]

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[IowaGreenDiscussion] Toxic Talk 2007 Symposium‏From:
iowagreendiscussion@yahoogroups.com on behalf of iowagreenron
(iowagreenron@hotmail.com)Sent: Fri 11/02/07 7:58 PMReply-to:
IowaGreenDiscussion@yahoogroups.comTo:
IowaGreenDiscussion@yahoogroups.com

I attended the Toxic Talk 2007 Symposium in Room A of the
Iowa City Public Library today, November 2. This symposium
was especially interesting to me because my late father had
worked in this field on contract during my boyhood. But
recently, I have been disappointed by academics giving biased,=20
inaccurate or fanciful lectures, talks and symposiums, whereas
I felt that this was a very honest and forthright presentation.
=20
Lawrence Fuortes, associate professor of the University of Iowa
Departments of Internal Medicine and Occupational and
Environmental Health, and associate director of the University
Employee Health Clinic, spoke first, and as he had to catch a
plane to New York, his presentation was restricted by time.
He said that all of the presentations of the symposium have,
intertwined in all of these talks, the common disadvantage that
the recipients who received these injustices suffered from an
inability to do anything about it.
=20
Secrecy due to National Security kept victims not only from
finding out about their risks in handling the nuclear products,
but they were not allowed by law to talk to their doctors and
families about their exposure because it was above the level of
top secret.
=20
In 1999, the Department of Labor created the Energy Employee
Occupational Illness Compensation Program to assess, organize,
and reimburse employees who were affected by radiation doses.
But maladies sometimes did not appear for decades, as much as
fifty years later in many cases. The victims were required
to prove that their malady was caused by radiation in their
work place, however, records by that time were rare, and there
was the prohibition still in existence about talking about how
the employee might have encountered radiation effects. Uranium
is highly unstable and it is very dense, which is why it is so
radioactive.
=20
Ames, Iowa produced 2-million-plus pounds (1,000 tons) of
uranium for the Manhattan Project. It is received in the form
of salts, and then is processed into refined Uranium. In
Little Ankeny Iowa, a building resembling a residential house
was its laboratory and Uranium smelter called "Old Women's
Gymnasium". It processed the very first Uranium for our
country from 1942 until the second world war, and then it
produced Thorium from 1942 to about 1956, which is even more
hazardous than Uranium.
=20
A physician's memo stated that 300 people at Paducah, Kentucky
should be checked for Neptunium, but extensive studies of the
victims were curtailed because the union could use that as an
excuse to call for hazard pay.
=20
Beryllium is widely used in fission research. It is the
lightest metal with the tightest nucleus, making it ideal for
alteration. But, Beryllium lung disease only occurs in those
people who have the genetic code to become ill by it. It is
not dosage-critical, so that exposure to a person with the
DNA that is susceptible to it is the criteria, not the length
or amount of exposure.
=20
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sent a
"Passback" memo which said that claims must be encapsulated so
as not to incur huge pay-outs in compensation to victims. The
common medium doses found in what research was done amounted
to 50 Rems or more per year for Uranium workers, and 250 rems
or more for Thorium workers.
=20
The conflict between "Need To Know" and secrecy left workers in
ignorance because they did not often know what they were
handling, where it came from, or where it was going to, so they
have a much higher degree of justified "normal blue collar
paranoia" about what they are working with than in other
occupations subject to personal safety risks.
_____________________________________________
=20
The next speaker was Gerard Rushton, professor of Geography and
adjunct professor of Health Policy and Management at UofI. He
presented the very interesting topic of "Mapping The Geography Of
Cancer." I had not expected his presentation to be so
interesting! He is doing research for improving the mapping of
cancer by data, and the revelations his visuals provided were
honestly astounding, I am not exaggerating!
=20
He said that Iowa has a very good cancer registry program, which
is not true throughout much of our USA. There are registrations
of cancer deaths in most cases, but not of cancer incidence,
which is when people are diagnosed to have contracted or do have
cancer.
=20
In 1975, one of the first geographic cancer maps was produced.
His geographic map showed San Francisco bay area, Las Vegas
valley, the Gulf Coast and Atlantic Coast for having the highest
rates of lung cancer in our USA. Prominently noted was that
all of these areas had something in common: asbestos! These
were the areas where Liberty Ships were built, and asbestos was
mined and processed!
=20
In 1999, the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer
Institute published the Atlas of Cancer Mortality in the United
States 1950-94, just when the internet was becoming very popular.
Information was greatly disseminated about this atlas, even
though the atlas was never announced when it was released!
=20
He finished after more presentation regarding the atlas by saying
that by Iowa law in 1972, every cancer incidence goes into the
cancer registry, which presents a question about privacy of the
individual, particularly in smaller population areas where
everyone knows everybody else.
____________________________________________________
=20
The next presenter was Julie Andsager, associate professor and
Director of Graduate Studies in the UofI School of Journalism
and Mass Communication, with a secondary apppointment in the
Department of Community and Behavioral Health. She said that
her talk was not intended originally to focus on media coverage.
She presented many interesting factual insights about news
coverage in our present-day USA.
=20
She said that it was in 1987 that, Benjamin Chavis created the
term "Environmental Racism". It referred to the fact that most
toxic waste dumping sites were near low-income, minority racial
neighborhoods rather than near middle-income prominent
neighborhoods. In the 1990s the term changed to be more
positive, not the message that there were victims who were
powerless to do anything about their situation and nobody cared,
but more in the Environmental Justice frame of being able to do
something about it.
=20
Julie Andsager said she found three things in her research:
1) She could not find any sustained news in newspapers of three
major cities that covered Environmental Justice;
=20
2) Lots and lots of books on cases about environmental INjustice
rarely had much mention of news coverage;
=20
3) She found a large indication of ignorance by the public on
both environmental injustice and Environmental Justice.
=20
She said that since then, she has found no significant structural
changes that could have been made to alleviate conditions of
environmental injustice.
=20
Characteristics of Environmental Justice organizations are:
1) they seldom receive funding from national environmental
groups - and they are generally community based;
=20
2) they are comprised of working-class people of color who are
without prior social involvement experience
=20
3) I missed this one, the visual was taken away.
=20
Ringwood New Jersey Superfund site: Ringwood New Jersey vs
Ford Motor Company
The Ringwood New Jersey area has been a local area with
reservoirs and lakes. But for 200 years, it had one of the
largest iron ore mining operations in our USA. There were
abandoned mining shafts everywhere. Ford began dumping their
Mahwah auto plant's auto paint and solvent sludge into the
abandoned mine tunnels. The tunnels began to leak. Millions
of gallons of dumped paint sludge found its way out of the
mines into the creeks and water tables of the surrounding
area. The site was placed on the national priorities list in
1983, with indications of community bladder, liver and lung
cancers, severe skin problems, asthma, and people in the area
rarely lived to see age 60. But the site was removed from
the list in 1994, but then was restored to the list in 2006.
=20
The Hackensack Record (also known as the Bergen County Record)
had 114 news stories on the Ringwood Mines from February 26,
2004 to September 27, 2006, in thirty-one months' period. And
there was a five-part series titled "Toxic Legacy" that ran
in October 2005 (www.toxiclegacy.com).
=20
As Julie Andsager did her research on this and other incidents,
she found the following components to news coverage and the
public:
=20
1) ATTENTION CYCLE OVER ISSUES: Public awareness foments
2) PUBLIC ALARM: realization about the problem
3) REALIZATION OF COSTS: where everyone realizes there is no
"simple fix" to the problem, it will cost a lot
4) DECLINE OF INTEREST: where processes are in action or in
limbo and it has been going on a long time
5) POST PROBLEM STAGE: where there at least appears to be a
resolution, things seem to be getting done or is stalled
6) EQUILIBRIUM: everything seems okay now whether it is or not
________________________________________________
=20
I did not write down the Questions and Answers session, although
my question led the first of them. I also did not stay for the
second part, because I wanted to show at the 5PM peace vigil at
the Pentacrest, so I missed out on the following topics at 4:15
PM:
=20
"Air Quality Regulation in Delhi, India: Environmental Justice
or Injustice?"
=20
"Economic Growth Versus the Environment In Mexico"
=20
"Intersections: Discourses of Social and Environmental Justice
On Black Websites"
=20
Ron Kinum
a.k.a. Libris Fidelis

=20
=20
Yahoo! Groups Links
=20
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IowaGreenDiscussion/

--=20
Want an e-mail address like mine?
Get a free e-mail account today at www.mail.com!


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<DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV class=3DdReadMsgHeader>
<DIV class=3DdReadMsgHeaderItem>
<DIV class=3DdReadMsgHeaderSubject style=3D"FONT-SIZE: medium">[IowaGreenDi=
scussion] Toxic Talk 2007 Symposium&#8207;</DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=3DdReadMsgHeaderItem><SPAN class=3DdReadMsgHeaderSenderLabel>Fro=
m:</SPAN> <SPAN class=3DdReadMsgHeaderSender><B>iowagreendiscussion@yahoogr=
oups.com</B> on behalf of <B>iowagreenron</B> (iowagreenron@hotmail.com)</S=
PAN> </DIV>
<DIV class=3DdReadMsgHeaderItem><SPAN class=3DdReadMsgHeaderToLabel>Sent:</=
SPAN> <SPAN class=3DdReadMsgHeaderTo>Fri 11/02/07 7:58 PM</SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV class=3DdReadMsgHeaderItem><SPAN class=3DdReadMsgHeaderReplyToLabel>Re=
ply-to:</SPAN> <SPAN class=3DdReadMsgHeaderReplyTo>IowaGreenDiscussion@yaho=
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PAN><SPAN class=3DdReadMsgHeaderTo><A href=3D"mailto:IowaGreenDiscussion@ya=
hoogroups.com">IowaGreenDiscussion@yahoogroups.com</A></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV class=3DdReadMsgHeaderItem>&nbsp;</DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=3DdReadMsgBody>
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<TR>
<TD class=3DdMessageBodyLeftPlaceHolder>
<DIV class=3DdMessageBodyLeftPlaceHolder></DIV></TD>
<TD class=3DdPlainTextMessageBody id=3DtdMessageBody>
<TABLE width=3D"100%">
<TBODY>
<TR>
<TD class=3DExternalClass><PRE>I attended the Toxic Talk 2007 Symposium in =
Room A of the<BR>Iowa City Public Library today, November 2. This symposium=
<BR>was especially interesting to me because my late father had<BR>worked i=
n this field on contract during my boyhood. But<BR>recently, I have been di=
sappointed by academics giving biased, <BR>inaccurate or fanciful lectures,=
 talks and symposiums, whereas<BR>I felt that this was a very honest and fo=
rthright presentation.<BR> <BR>Lawrence Fuortes, associate professor of the=
 University of Iowa<BR>Departments of Internal Medicine and Occupational an=
d<BR>Environmental Health, and associate director of the University<BR>Empl=
oyee Health Clinic, spoke first, and as he had to catch a<BR>plane to New Y=
ork, his presentation was restricted by time.<BR>He said that all of the pr=
esentations of the symposium have,<BR>intertwined in all of these talks, th=
e common disadvantage that<BR>the recipients who received these injustices =
suffered from an<BR>inability to do anything about it.<BR> <BR>Secrecy due =
to National Security kept victims not only from<BR>finding out about their =
risks in handling the nuclear products,<BR>but they were not allowed by law=
 to talk to their doctors and<BR>families about their exposure because it w=
as above the level of<BR>top secret.<BR> <BR>In 1999, the Department of Lab=
or created the Energy Employee<BR>Occupational Illness Compensation Program=
 to assess, organize,<BR>and reimburse employees who were affected by radia=
tion doses.<BR>But maladies sometimes did not appear for decades, as much a=
s<BR>fifty years later in many cases. The victims were required<BR>to prove=
 that their malady was caused by radiation in their<BR>work place, however,=
 records by that time were rare, and there<BR>was the prohibition still in =
existence about talking about how<BR>the employee might have encountered ra=
diation effects. Uranium<BR>is highly unstable and it is very dense, which =
is why it is so<BR>radioactive.<BR> <BR>Ames, Iowa produced 2-million-plus =
pounds (1,000 tons) of<BR>uranium for the Manhattan Project. It is received=
 in the form<BR>of salts, and then is processed into refined Uranium. In<BR=
>Little Ankeny Iowa, a building resembling a residential house<BR>was its l=
aboratory and Uranium smelter called "Old Women's<BR>Gymnasium". It process=
ed the very first Uranium for our<BR>country from 1942 until the second wor=
ld war, and then it<BR>produced Thorium from 1942 to about 1956, which is e=
ven more<BR>hazardous than Uranium.<BR> <BR>A physician's memo stated that =
300 people at Paducah, Kentucky<BR>should be checked for Neptunium, but ext=
ensive studies of the<BR>victims were curtailed because the union could use=
 that as an<BR>excuse to call for hazard pay.<BR> <BR>Beryllium is widely u=
sed in fission research. It is the<BR>lightest metal with the tightest nucl=
eus, making it ideal for<BR>alteration. But, Beryllium lung disease only oc=
curs in those<BR>people who have the genetic code to become ill by it. It i=
s<BR>not dosage-critical, so that exposure to a person with the<BR>DNA that=
 is susceptible to it is the criteria, not the length<BR>or amount of expos=
ure.<BR> <BR>The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sent a<B=
R>"Passback" memo which said that claims must be encapsulated so<BR>as not =
to incur huge pay-outs in compensation to victims. The<BR>common medium dos=
es found in what research was done amounted<BR>to 50 Rems or more per year =
for Uranium workers, and 250 rems<BR>or more for Thorium workers.<BR> <BR>T=
he conflict between "Need To Know" and secrecy left workers in<BR>ignorance=
 because they did not often know what they were<BR>handling, where it came =
from, or where it was going to, so they<BR>have a much higher degree of jus=
tified "normal blue collar<BR>paranoia" about what they are working with th=
an in other<BR>occupations subject to personal safety risks.<BR>___________=
__________________________________<BR> <BR>The next speaker was Gerard Rush=
ton, professor of Geography and<BR>adjunct professor of Health Policy and M=
anagement at UofI. He<BR>presented the very interesting topic of "Mapping T=
he Geography Of<BR>Cancer." I had not expected his presentation to be so<BR=
>interesting! He is doing research for improving the mapping of<BR>cancer b=
y data, and the revelations his visuals provided were<BR>honestly astoundin=
g, I am not exaggerating!<BR> <BR>He said that Iowa has a very good cancer =
registry program, which<BR>is not true throughout much of our USA. There ar=
e registrations<BR>of cancer deaths in most cases, but not of cancer incide=
nce,<BR>which is when people are diagnosed to have contracted or do have<BR=
>cancer.<BR> <BR>In 1975, one of the first geographic cancer maps was produ=
ced.<BR>His geographic map showed San Francisco bay area, Las Vegas<BR>vall=
ey, the Gulf Coast and Atlantic Coast for having the highest<BR>rates of lu=
ng cancer in our USA. Prominently noted was that<BR>all of these areas had =
something in common: asbestos! These<BR>were the areas where Liberty Ships =
were built, and asbestos was<BR>mined and processed!<BR> <BR>In 1999, the N=
ational Institutes of Health and National Cancer<BR>Institute published the=
 Atlas of Cancer Mortality in the United<BR>States 1950-94, just when the i=
nternet was becoming very popular.<BR>Information was greatly disseminated =
about this atlas, even<BR>though the atlas was never announced when it was =
released!<BR> <BR>He finished after more presentation regarding the atlas b=
y saying<BR>that by Iowa law in 1972, every cancer incidence goes into the<=
BR>cancer registry, which presents a question about privacy of the<BR>indiv=
idual, particularly in smaller population areas where<BR>everyone knows eve=
rybody else.<BR>____________________________________________________<BR> <B=
R>The next presenter was Julie Andsager, associate professor and<BR>Directo=
r of Graduate Studies in the UofI School of Journalism<BR>and Mass Communic=
ation, with a secondary apppointment in the<BR>Department of Community and =
Behavioral Health. She said that<BR>her talk was not intended originally to=
 focus on media coverage.<BR>She presented many interesting factual insight=
s about news<BR>coverage in our present-day USA.<BR> <BR>She said that it w=
as in 1987 that, Benjamin Chavis created the<BR>term "Environmental Racism"=
. It referred to the fact that most<BR>toxic waste dumping sites were near =
low-income, minority racial<BR>neighborhoods rather than near middle-income=
 prominent<BR>neighborhoods. In the 1990s the term changed to be more<BR>po=
sitive, not the message that there were victims who were<BR>powerless to do=
 anything about their situation and nobody cared,<BR>but more in the Enviro=
nmental Justice frame of being able to do<BR>something about it.<BR> <BR>Ju=
lie Andsager said she found three things in her research:<BR>1) She could n=
ot find any sustained news in newspapers of three<BR>major cities that cove=
red Environmental Justice;<BR> <BR>2) Lots and lots of books on cases about=
 environmental INjustice<BR>rarely had much mention of news coverage;<BR> <=
BR>3) She found a large indication of ignorance by the public on<BR>both en=
vironmental injustice and Environmental Justice.<BR> <BR>She said that sinc=
e then, she has found no significant structural<BR>changes that could have =
been made to alleviate conditions of<BR>environmental injustice.<BR> <BR>Ch=
aracteristics of Environmental Justice organizations are:<BR>1) they seldom=
 receive funding from national environmental<BR>groups - and they are gener=
ally community based;<BR> <BR>2) they are comprised of working-class people=
 of color who are<BR>without prior social involvement experience<BR> <BR>3)=
 I missed this one, the visual was taken away.<BR> <BR>Ringwood New Jersey =
Superfund site: Ringwood New Jersey vs<BR>Ford Motor Company<BR>The Ringwoo=
d New Jersey area has been a local area with<BR>reservoirs and lakes. But f=
or 200 years, it had one of the<BR>largest iron ore mining operations in ou=
r USA. There were<BR>abandoned mining shafts everywhere. Ford began dumping=
 their<BR>Mahwah auto plant's auto paint and solvent sludge into the<BR>aba=
ndoned mine tunnels. The tunnels began to leak. Millions<BR>of gallons of d=
umped paint sludge found its way out of the<BR>mines into the creeks and wa=
ter tables of the surrounding<BR>area. The site was placed on the national =
priorities list in<BR>1983, with indications of community bladder, liver an=
d lung<BR>cancers, severe skin problems, asthma, and people in the area<BR>=
rarely lived to see age 60. But the site was removed from<BR>the list in 19=
94, but then was restored to the list in 2006.<BR> <BR>The Hackensack Recor=
d (also known as the Bergen County Record)<BR>had 114 news stories on the R=
ingwood Mines from February 26,<BR>2004 to September 27, 2006, in thirty-on=
e months' period. And<BR>there was a five-part series titled "Toxic Legacy"=
 that ran<BR>in October 2005 (www.toxiclegacy.com).<BR> <BR>As Julie Andsag=
er did her research on this and other incidents,<BR>she found the following=
 components to news coverage and the<BR>public:<BR> <BR>1) ATTENTION CYCLE =
OVER ISSUES: Public awareness foments<BR>2) PUBLIC ALARM: realization about=
 the problem<BR>3) REALIZATION OF COSTS: where everyone realizes there is n=
o<BR>"simple fix" to the problem, it will cost a lot<BR>4) DECLINE OF INTER=
EST: where processes are in action or in<BR>limbo and it has been going on =
a long time<BR>5) POST PROBLEM STAGE: where there at least appears to be a<=
BR>resolution, things seem to be getting done or is stalled<BR>6) EQUILIBRI=
UM: everything seems okay now whether it is or not<BR>_____________________=
___________________________<BR> <BR>I did not write down the Questions and =
Answers session, although<BR>my question led the first of them. I also did =
not stay for the<BR>second part, because I wanted to show at the 5PM peace =
vigil at<BR>the Pentacrest, so I missed out on the following topics at 4:15=
<BR>PM:<BR> <BR>"Air Quality Regulation in Delhi, India: Environmental Just=
ice<BR>or Injustice?"<BR> <BR>"Economic Growth Versus the Environment In Me=
xico"<BR> <BR>"Intersections: Discourses of Social and Environmental Justic=
e<BR>On Black Websites"<BR> <BR>Ron Kinum<BR>a.k.a. Libris Fidelis<BR><BR> =
<BR> <BR>Yahoo! Groups Links<BR> <BR>&lt;*&gt; To visit your group on the w=
eb, go to:<BR> <A onclick=3DonClickUnsafeLink(event); href=3D"http://groups=
.yahoo.com/group/IowaGreenDiscussion/" target=3D_blank><FONT color=3D#0068c=
f>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IowaGreenDiscussion/</FONT></A><BR></PRE></=
TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV><=
BR>

--=20
<div> Want an e-mail address like mine? </b><br>
Get a <b>free e-mail </b>account today at <a href=3D"http://www.mail.com/Pr=
oduct.aspx" target=3D"_blank">www.mail.com</a>!</div>

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