February 3, 2003
Get ready. The greens are set to terrorize us with yet another junk science-fueled campaign intended to advance their mindless anti-chemical agenda.
The new campaign is part of what the greens are calling "the broadest and most ambitious operation ever attempted by the national environmental community."
"Environmentalism in the U.S. could be permanently transformed by the intensity of the strategic planning," writes prominent environmental reporter Keith Schneider, who notes the greens have more than $120 million to push their radical agenda.
Keying off an upcoming government report on human exposure to chemicals in the environment, this latest campaign will have a new twist--shameful exploitation of individuals with cancer and other diseases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will release on Jan. 29 its second National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals. The report will include data on 116 substances detected in humans--such as metals, PCBs and pesticides.
Importantly, the CDC report won't link any of the detected substances to health effects. This makes sense since the trace levels detected aren't harmful. A fundamental principle of toxicology, after all, is "the dose makes the poison."
The greens, however, aren't planning on mentioning these key facts. Instead, they're scheming to use the CDC report as an opportunity to launch the mother of all scare campaigns.
The Collaborative on Health and the Environment (CHE)--a new umbrella group of virtually every extreme environmental group--plans to hold a media event around the release of the CDC report to provide the media with its own spin.
CHE plans to roll out a group of alleged experts available to answer health-related questions. Many questions should be expected as CHE claims chemicals in the environment cause disease in more than one-third of the U.S. population at an annual health care cost of $325 billion.
The CHE point of view, of course, is chemicals in the environment cause virtually every case of virtually every disease--despite the utter absence of supporting evidence.
CHE's experts likely will be more communications--rather than science-oriented. They're being assembled and directed behind the scenes by the scare-mongering experts at Fenton Communications--the shady public relations firm that masterminded the notorious Alar and silicone breast implant scares.
The activist group Physicians for Social Responsibility will simultaneously release its own report to provide "valuable tips for the public on what to look for in CDC's Report" and describe "sources, routes of exposure, and health effects of specific chemicals."
And there's word the Environmental Working Group will shift from its current campaign--scaring consumers about rocket fuel supposedly detected in lettuce--to the CHE circus.
EWG plans to exhibit cancer victims who have been tested for chemicals at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, the home of activist-researcher Philip Landrigan. EWG is said to be planning advertisements in major newspapers featuring these victims and naming consumer products claimed to be the source of their ailments.
CHE also has lured numerous disease-victims groups into the mix, such as the African American Breast Cancer Group, Endometriosis Association, National Ovarian Cancer Coalition, and Parkinson's Association of Minnesota.
The greens apparently have told these groups their fundraising will be enhanced through CHE. That may be true in the short-term, but in the end, CHE's efforts actually distract and detract from efforts to find treatments and cures for the various diseases.
Despite more than 40 years and countless billions of dollars of research, no credible scientific evidence exists to link typical exposures to chemicals in the environment with disease. To the extent CHE forces scarce public and private resources to be wasted chasing myths, fewer resources are available for more productive medical research on treatments and cures.
CHE also plans to draw attention to kids and chemicals.
But as the American Council on Science and Health exposes in its new book, Are Children More Vulnerable to Environmental Chemicals, CHE's efforts are just more of the "disturbing pattern in which activists with a non-science agenda manipulate the public's legitimate and appropriate concern for children's health in an effort to promote legislation, litigation, and regulation."
Finally, there's some irony attached to CHE. The group's acronym recalls Fidel Castro's revolutionary comrade-in-arms, Ché Guevera, a physician who opted for violent communist revolution rather than more humane and useful service treating the sick.
Given the absence of credible science in CHE's efforts, our own leftist greens seem to be sending us a subliminal message.
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).
No fast bucks from fast-food chain litigation
Tossed out. Like the turkey carcass after Christmas, the lawsuit alleging food from McDonald’s restaurants is responsible for making people obese, was tossed out of court.
The landmark legal action was the first of its kind against a fast-food chain to make its way into a U.S. courtroom. Five months after the original complaint was lodged, Judge Robert Sweet’s ruling means the idea will likely wither on the vine.
McDonald’s attorneys warned that if this case were allowed to proceed, "it would lead to an avalanche of litigation."
Although the 272-pound Caesar Barber, who filed a suit in July against McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Burger King, may have brought the idea of fast-food chain litigation to the attention of the mainline media, the first-of-its kind fast-food landmark case was launched from other quarters.
In August, a suit filed by the parents of two girls claimed that McDonald’s and two of its restaurants in the Bronx failed to disclose clearly and conspicuously the ingredients and effects of its food, much of which is high in fat, salt, sugar and cholesterol.
The plaintiffs argued that McDonald’s should therefore be held accountable for the girls’ obesity, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and elevated cholesterol.
Between the girls, Jazlyn Bradley, 19, is 5 feet, 6 inches tall, and weighs 270 pounds, while Ashley Pelman, 14, stands 4-foot-10 and weighs 170 pounds.
Samuel Hirsch, the lawyer bringing the case, called McDonald’s food "physically or psychologically addictive". He accused the company of deliberately withholding information and targeting children. The effects of its food on people were "a very insipid, toxic kind of thing," Hirsch said.
Hirsch was also outspoken about McDonald’s billion-dollar advertising campaign. "Young individuals are not in a position to make a choice after the onslaught of advertising and promotions," he insisted.
Hirsch was on a mission to turn the case into a potentially multibillion-dollar class action on behalf of all New York children under the age of 18 who claim they suffer health problems as a result of eating McDonald’s food.
Judge Sweet didn’t buy the idea that America’s youngsters are eating their way to obesity through Mac attacks.
"Where should the line be drawn between an individual’s own responsibility to take care of herself and society’s responsibility to ensure others shield her? The complaint fails to allege the McDonald’s products consumed by the plaintiffs were dangerous in any way other than that which was open and obvious to a reasonable consumer," Sweet said in his ruling.
Lawyers representing McDonald’s called the case "frivolous" and the kind of lawsuit that shouldn’t be in court."
"Every responsible person understands what is in products such as hamburgers and fries, as well as the consequence to one’s waistline, and potentially to one’s health, of excessively eating those foods over a prolonged period of time," said the company’s lawyers.
Even though McDonald’s settled a separate lawsuit in which vegetarian and religious groups accused it of using beef ingredients in its french fries despite describing the fries as vegetarian to the tune of $10 million, this is a downer for the fast-bucks-from-fast-food-chain culture.
Meanwhile, some people’s children are going to be eating a lot of lettuce.
U.S. Humane society:
Sleeping with the enemy
Research conducted by the Centre for Consumer Freedom has confirmed that since at least 1998, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has been quietly funding an Internet service used by the violent criminals of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). HSUS has been widely criticized for hiring the ALF-affiliated J.P. Goodwin in 2001.
It’s called WASTE.org. and it hosts the ALF Frontline mailing list, the preferred vehicle for arsonists and other criminals to announce their animal rights crimes. WASTE also hosts at least 20 vegetarian email lists, the HSUS-coordinated Inter Campus Animal Advocacy Network (I-CAAN) and the official mailing lists of a Minnesota group called Compassionate Action for Animals (CAA).
CAA was founded by activist Freeman Wicklund as the Animal Liberation League. Wicklund is a public supporter of violent animal rights criminals, and speaks about the need to "embrace the Animal Liberation Front. Wicklund told the 1996 World Congress for Animals that "damaging property saves animals."
Considering that ALF and Earth Liberation Front (ELF) cost Americans more than $17-million last year alone, it is shocking to find that the self-styled mainstream HSUS would spend some of its $100-million nest egg keeping criminal offenders in business. (WASTE even identifies HSUS as a financial donor).
Bin laden wants America to sign Kyoto
A letter to the American people, allegedly authored by UBL and published on an al Qaeda website, blasts Americans for refusing to sign the Kyoto agreement.
…"You have destroyed nature with your industrial waste and gases more than any other nation in history," says Usamah Bin Muhammad Bin Laden in the letter. "Despite this, you refuse to sign the Kyoto agreement so that you can secure the profit of your greedy company and industries."