Liberating Knowledge

[Guest guest]

Group,

This article may be of interest to many of you. It address the topic

that is near and dear to many of us - the misuse of information and

knowledge by authorities in ways that create and continue harm.

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/LiberatingKnowledge.php

Abstract

The western knowledge that dominates the world today is in crisis

across all disciplines, with science being the worst afflicted.

Reliable knowledge is being drowned out by relentless propaganda and

a concerted disinformation campaign aimed at promoting the commercial

products of knowledge, while critical information on the dangers

involved is summarily dismissed and suppressed. Worst of all,

knowledge is being privatised and contained as the “intellectual

property” of corporations, giving corporations unprecedented control,

not just over knowledge of nature, but over life and the necessities

of life.

Carl Grimes

Healthy Habitats LLC

[Guest guest]

Carl,

Thanks for the information. When I speak to family members or other

acquaintances about information such as this being stifled by our

politican or lobbyists, most would say no way and " can't be " . We

wouldn't allow it. But refuse to read the information. When I read

the information you just posted it brought to mind something else I

had just received that I'm sure will also find very interesting. It

just goes to show ....

Politics weigh heavily in pesticide approval process, critics say

By Lantigua

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/state/epaper/2005/12/19

/c1a_whistle_1219.html

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Monday, December 19, 2005

TALLAHASSEE — What chemicals can end up in your drinking water? Is

it decided by science or politics?

Scientific specialists who have worked for the state, monitoring

water quality and other pesticide-related issues, say they sometimes

were overruled by their superiors when they tried to ban pesticides

they considered dangerous.

While the chemicals involved were approved for use nationally, the

specialists say conditions in Florida, including shallow water

tables, porous, sandy soil and delicate aquatic ecology, create

unique concerns. But they said when they raised potential problems,

their recommendations were sometimes rejected, putting the public at

risk.

" We were hired to protect the health and welfare of the people of

Florida, " says Simons, a former environmental specialist for

the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. " But

the monitoring of pesticide use in Florida has become make-believe.

It is Disney-esque. "

Some of the specialists say the influence of large agrochemical

companies and unhealthy relationships between the firms and top

state officials are the problem.

" There was a little group of people who basically worked for DuPont

and the other chemical companies, " said Tom Greenhalgh, a former

water contamination investigator for the Florida Department of

Environmental Protection, referring to agriculture department

supervisors who reversed recommendations made by specialists.

Simons agreed. " The problem is the whole matter became politicized, "

he said. " They were in close contact with these companies, and

things were being decided over our heads. "

While an agriculture department spokesman confirmed that

agrochemical companies could play a role in the department's

decisions, he said the reason was different from that alleged by the

specialists.

" If a manufacturer sues us for preventing him from selling or

someone using his product, we better have a pretty good reason, "

Terry McElroy said. " Since we are the ones who can be responsible

for paying damages, the final decision rests with us (the

department). "

But McElroy could name only one such suit that was filed — by

DuPont — and the state never had to pay damages.

The four former specialists interviewed no longer do pesticide and

ground-water work for the state and stopped doing so between 1997

and 2002. But they believe the same problems exist today because

many of the top state agriculture officials, whom the specialists

accuse of hiding pesticide-related dangers from the public, are

still shaping state pesticide policy.

Those officials include: n Fuller Aller, head of food safety;

Rutz, chief of agricultural and environmental services; Dale

Dubberly, who heads the state's main pesticide monitoring office,

the Bureau of Compliance Monitoring; and Budell, assistant

director of the Office of Agricultural Water Policy. None would

comment for this story.

'They wouldn't listen to you'

The scientists interviewed were all hired in the 1980s and said

their ability to influence which pesticides are used in Florida

diminished during the 1990s.

" When I first started there we could do our jobs, but that changed, "

said Simons, who is 63 and has a doctorate in soil sciences.

He " quit in disgust " in 1997 after 11 years of service.

His colleague, Theodore C. McDowell, 65, who has advanced degrees in

plant pathology and horticulture, quit the agriculture department in

1996 after 10 years, only to transfer to the Florida Department of

Environmental Protection (FDEP), where he encountered similar

problems until he retired in 2000. " They wouldn't listen to you, "

McDowell said in a brief interview in a Tallahassee assisted living

facility, where he now resides.

The two other specialists interviewed both monitored water quality

for FDEP. " I used to write reports, " recalls Greenhalgh, 47, a

geologist and 17-year department veteran.

" We used to oppose the registration of a product because of its

potential to contaminate ground water, and it would still get

registered. It was a total struggle and fight all the time.

" There is lot of ground water in Florida contaminated by

pesticides, " Greenhalgh said. " The studies never get published. "

Mark A. " Tony " Murray, 46, who earned undergraduate degrees in both

biology and chemistry, also was an environmental specialist for FDEP.

" The people I was working for were always looking over their

shoulders, afraid that if they didn't make the right registration

decision they would lose their jobs, " Murray said. " I was doing

scientific work, but they were taking that work and making political

decisions. " Murray left the department in January, after 15 years of

service.

Bayer removes product initially rejected

In the 1990s, Greenhalgh and Murray spent several years analyzing

the damage done by the contaminated DuPont herbicide, Benlate, which

caused hundreds of millions of dollars in losses to farmers and

nursery owners in Florida and elsewhere.

In 1996, the two men called for a federal grand jury to investigate

possible criminal actions by their superiors, who they accused of

trying to help DuPont cover up the extent of the disaster.

Greenhalgh and Murray acted after they both suffered nose bleeds and

resistant fungal infections following an inspection they performed

at a Leesburg nursery affected by Benlate. They also were prompted

to act, they said, after DuPont — with the help of agriculture

officials — was allowed to deposit the Benlate-contaminated soil in

unlined public landfills, which they say put the public at risk.

No grand jury was ever convened.

Earlier this year, the former top health department official for

pesticide monitoring, epidemiologist Shafey, told The Palm

Beach Post that the health department had abandoned its

responsibility to protect the public from pesticides by ceding its

responsibilities to the agriculture department.

McElroy of the agriculture department defended the procedures used

to approve chemicals for use in Florida. The Post requested

interviews with the other agriculture department officials named in

this story, but they did not respond.

McElroy said many pesticides approved by the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency in Washington also are licensed for use in Florida.

" But others are put under further testing, ones that could have a

different impact or react differently in our environment, " McElroy

said.

He said the results of those tests — outlined by the state but

conducted by the chemical companies — are then presented to the

Pesticide Registration Evaluation Committee. That body consists of

scientists from the state agriculture, health and environmental

protection departments and the Florida Fish and Wildlife

Conservation Commission. Those scientists file reports as to whether

the product should be approved for use in Florida. McDowell, Simons

and Greenhalgh all served on that committee.

But the scientists sometimes were overruled. Greenhalgh said that in

some cases scientists felt the chemicals were dangerous to ground

water.

One case, he said, involved a product made by Bayer named Nemacur,

used to kill worms. The product came up for re-registration and was

opposed by DEP scientists because of water quality concerns, he

said, but won approval from the agriculture department. Years later,

in 2004, under pressure from the federal EPA, Bayer removed the

product from the market.

Science vs. 'potential benefit'

Other cases represented dangers to the environment. One 1995 case

involved a herbicide, Manage, produced by Monsanto.

, chief of the Bureau of Drinking Water Resources for

FDEP, expressed her concerns in a letter to agriculture officials.

Scientists had " continuing reservations regarding the registration

of the Monsanto product, Manage " and products with similar

properties, called sulphonylureas, wrote. She said the

chemicals could cause collateral damage to aquatic plant life in

Florida and asked that approval be delayed pending further study.

But six days later n Fuller Aller, then head of the pesticide

bureau, granted Monsanto a " conditional registration " and Manage was

used in Florida. Aller agreed that more study needed to be done but

said she found no justification for keeping the product off the

market.

McElroy said the department measures the " weight and defensibility "

of the state's scientific evidence against " the potential benefit "

to agricultural producers. But Simons sees it differently.

" The real reason was that the big chemical companies were pushing

those products right then, " Simons said. " We wanted them not to be

used in the state. They were too dangerous and the companies were

pushing this stuff. "

McElroy counters that criticism by pointing out that there is no

evidence Manage has ever caused the collateral damage the

specialists feared.

Growing tensions between the scientists and their superiors in the

1990s is evident in personnel files. Both Simons and Greenhalgh were

criticized by their superiors for arguments with representatives of

DuPont and Monsanto.

Deputy sent to break up secret meeting

McDowell also was outspoken. In 1996, he gave a deposition in a

civil suit against DuPont related to the Benlate disaster. McDowell

said under oath that at times he was expected to make up the causes

of environmental damage that actually had been caused by chemicals.

" We heard that 100 workers have been poisoned and Chemical X is

running through the stream and 53 ducks are dead, " McDowell

said. " We would look over the situation and say, 'It probably could

have occurred due to this reason, or it could have occurred due to

this, or it could have been a heavy hailstorm.' "

" Are you telling us that you were asked to, at some point, make

statements that you believed to be false? " the deposing attorney,

Camille Godwin, asked McDowell.

" Yes, " the scientist answered.

" Can you recall any instances of that occurring? "

" I could list 100 or so, " McDowell said.

Despite those tensions, none of the men ever received negative

overall job evaluations and none was fired.

Simons and Greenhalgh said the scientists from the agriculture and

environmental protection departments felt so undermined that, in

late 1995 or early 1996, they decided to hold a secret meeting at an

FDEP office to come up with solutions to the problem.

" But this deputy sheriff showed up, a guy in uniform, and told us

that the meeting we were holding was illegal, " Simons recalled. " He

told us we had to break up the meeting and we did. " Greenhalgh

confirms the account.

Simons believes it was supervisory officials at either the

agriculture department or the environmental protection department or

both who sent the deputy.

He said the two groups never rescheduled the meeting, and he quit

about a year later.

--- In , " Carl E. Grimes " <grimes@h...>

wrote:

>

> Group,

>

> This article may be of interest to many of you. It address the

topic

> that is near and dear to many of us - the misuse of information

and

> knowledge by authorities in ways that create and continue harm.

>

> http://www.i-sis.org.uk/LiberatingKnowledge.php

>

> Abstract

> The western knowledge that dominates the world today is in crisis

> across all disciplines, with science being the worst afflicted.

> Reliable knowledge is being drowned out by relentless propaganda

and

> a concerted disinformation campaign aimed at promoting the

commercial

> products of knowledge, while critical information on the dangers

> involved is summarily dismissed and suppressed. Worst of all,

> knowledge is being privatised and contained as the " intellectual

> property " of corporations, giving corporations unprecedented

control,

> not just over knowledge of nature, but over life and the

necessities

> of life.

>

> Carl Grimes

> Healthy Habitats LLC

>