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Related: About this forumYou and Your Family Are Guinea Pigs for the Chemical Corporations
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/04/29How Americans Became Exposed to Biohazards in the Greatest Uncontrolled Experiment Ever Launched
You and Your Family Are Guinea Pigs for the Chemical Corporations
by David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz
Published on Monday, April 29, 2013 by TomDispatch.com
A hidden epidemic is poisoning America. The toxins are in the air we breathe and the water we drink, in the walls of our homes and the furniture within them. We cant escape it in our cars. Its in cities and suburbs. It afflicts rich and poor, young and old. And theres a reason why youve never read about it in the newspaper or seen a report on the nightly news: it has no name -- and no antidote.
The culprit behind this silent killer is lead. And vinyl. And formaldehyde. And asbestos. And Bisphenol A. And polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). And thousands more innovations brought to us by the industries that once promised better living through chemistry, but instead produced a toxic stew that has made every American a guinea pig and has turned the United States into one grand unnatural experiment.
Today, we are all unwitting subjects in the largest set of drug trials ever. Without our knowledge or consent, we are testing thousands of suspected toxic chemicals and compounds, as well as new substances whose safety is largely unproven and whose effects on human beings are all but unknown. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) itself has begun monitoring our bodies for 151 potentially dangerous chemicals, detailing the variety of pollutants we store in our bones, muscle, blood, and fat. None of the companies introducing these new chemicals has even bothered to tell us were part of their experiment. None of them has asked us to sign consent forms or explained that they have little idea what the long-term side effects of the chemicals theyve put in our environment -- and so our bodies -- could be. Nor do they have any clue as to what the synergistic effects of combining so many novel chemicals inside a human body in unknown quantities might produce.
The story of how Americans became unwitting test subjects began more than a century ago. The key figure was Alice Hamilton, the mother of American occupational medicine, who began documenting the way workers in lead paint pigment factories, battery plants, and lead mines were suffering terrible palsies, tremors, convulsions, and deaths after being exposed to lead dust that floated in the air, coating their workbenches and clothes.
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You and Your Family Are Guinea Pigs for the Chemical Corporations (Original Post)
unhappycamper
Apr 2013
OP
Demeter
(85,373 posts)1. And Monsanto, and the Nukes, and the Fascists
So many enemies, so few allies. 99% solidarity is needed, as never before.
AdHocSolver
(2,561 posts)2. Let us not forget Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's). n/t