PAN-up

It appears that most Americans get their lifelong post elementary education from the boob tube. Remember the day when we all got our news and entertainment from 3 networks? Well, now you may think you have a hundred and fifty choices, but the news is still owned by five corporations, all with ties to fabulous military contracts.

All the money spent in political campaigns goes straight to these same corporations. Then the politicians who get elected deal with lobbyists from these same corporations. When they retire they become lobbyists themselves, or sit on boards of these same corporations. It's a racket.

Eisenhower should have warned us about the Military-Industrial-Media complex. It is reported he was going to say Military-Industrial-Congressional complex, but at the last minute excised Congressional from his speech.

Folks, we are screwed. The Republic has changed from what they teach in school...
Corporations have personhood, and money is free speech. Supreme Court says so.

Well, if this is the way it's gonna be, then progressives should think about capturing some of the bandwidth.

I started on this rant because of something that showed up in my mailbox today. Once in a while there is a golden moment...

Tuesday evening, February 6th, NBC will air "Loophole," an episode on the crime drama "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" that focuses on the controversial EPA rule allowing intentional dosing of human beings in pesticide experiments. Check your local listings for time.

Physicians for Social Responsibility - Los Angeles, with Pesticide Action Network consulted with "Law & Order" executive producer Neal Baer and writer Jonathan Greene in developing this episode. PSR and PAN are calling for the public to contact NBC to support this type of reality-based programming about environmental health and justice.

You may write Programming Department NBC, 3000 W. Alameda, Burbank, CA 91523.

In the episode, several children and their families -- including a Honduran immigrant family—are unwittingly tested with a dangerous organophosphate pesticide (a class of acutely toxic chemicals) by a fictional chemical company.

In real life, EPA's recent human testing rule contains loopholes that allow chemical corporations to test pesticides on women and children.

A 2005 Congressional report by Senator Barbara Boxer's and Congressmember Henry Waxman's staffs revealed human testing studies where pesticide corporations told their subjects they were ingesting vitamins or drugs. No study of the well-documented long-term effects of pesticide exposures were conducted in follow-up on those test subjects.

"Loophole" reminds the public of EPA's all-too-real life "CHEERS" program, where the federal government proposed in 2004 to offer low income families in Florida $970, a camcorder, and some clothes if they would record "routine exposure" of their one and under infants to household pesticides.

The script is careful to point out the opposition of EPA staff scientists to the human testing rule crafted by EPA political appointees.

Background on the Human Testing Rule (pdf)

Link: the facts on organophosphate pesticides: Organophosphates Campaign

Chlorpyrifos Fact Sheet(pdf)