PBS: Chemical Indust Poisoning Us/ Vaccine Protection Bill/ CAN's $850,000

[Guest guest]

FEAT DAILY NEWSLETTER Sacramento, California http://www.feat.org

" Healing Autism: No Finer a Cause on the Planet "

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March 28, 2001 Search www.feat.org/search/news.asp

Also: * Vaccine Protection Bill Introduced

* CAN Raises $850,000 for Autism Research

Chemical Industry Poisoning Us

Trade Secrets: A Moyers Report on PBS

Program Transcript, Bill Moyers

This was on PBS Monday, March 26 at 9 PM

http://www.pbs.org/tradesecrets/transcript.html

NARRATION: They are everywhere in our daily lives - often where we

least expect them.

DR. PHILIP LANDRIGAN, CHAIRMAN, PREVENTIVE MEDICINE, MT. SINAI SCHOOL

OF MEDICINE: We are conducting a vast toxicologic experiment, and we are

using our children as the experimental animals.

NARRATION: Not a single child today is born free of synthetic

chemicals.

AL MEYERHOFF, FORMER ATTORNEY FOR THE NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE

COUNCIL: With chemicals, it's shoot first and ask questions later.

NARRATION: We think we are protected but, in fact, chemicals are

presumed safe - innocent - until proven guilty.

SANDY BUCHANAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OHIO CITIZEN ACTION: Years of

documents have shown that they knew they were hurting people, much like the

tobacco industry.

PROFESSOR GERALD MARKOWITZ Ph.D, JOHN JAY COLLEGE: Historians don't

like to use broad political terms like " cover-up, " but there's really no

other term that you can use for this.

NARRATION: In this special investigation, we will reveal the secrets

that a powerful industry has kept hidden for almost fifty years.

TRADE SECRETS: A Moyers Report

PROLOGUE:

NARRATION: There is a three-hundred mile stretch along the coast where

Texas and Louisiana meet that boasts the largest collection of petrochemical

refineries and factories in the world.

Many who live and work here call it " Cancer Alley. "

RAY REYNOLDS: Many, many nights we were walking through vapor clouds

and you could see it. You know how a hot road looks down a long straight?

Well, that's exactly what it looks like - wavy. We would complain about it,

and they would pacify us by saying, there's no long term problem. You might

have an immediate reaction like nausea, but that's only normal. Don't worry

about it.

NARRATION: In the living room of his house a few miles from the

chemical plant where he worked for 16 years, Ray Reynolds waits out the last

days of his life. He is 43 years old. Toxic neuropathy - poisoning - has

spread from his nerve cells to his brain.

MOYERS: What's the prognosis? How long do they give you?

REYNOLDS: They don't. There's too many variables, and there's too much

unknown about it.

NARRATION: Dan Ross had no doubt about what made him sick. Neither

does his wife of 25 years, Elaine.

ELAINE ROSS: Went to a dance one night, and he walked in the door, and

I had never seen him before, didn't know what his name was or anything, and

he started shooting pool with a bunch of his friends, and the friend that I

was with, I told him, I said, " That's who I'll spend the rest of my life

with. "

MOYERS: Love at first sight?

ROSS: Uh huh.

MOYERS: Did he think that?

ROSS: No.

MOYERS: You had to, had to...

ROSS: I had to persuade him. When we got married, he was still in the

Air Force, so he spent eighteen months overseas. When he got back, he had an

eighteen-month-old daughter. And so probably the main thing was, he was

worried about making a living for everybody, for us.

NARRATION: The plant where Dan Ross made that living produces the raw

vinyl chloride that is basic to the manufacture of PVC plastic.

ROSS: Danny worked for them 23 years - and every single day that he

worked, he was exposed. Not one day was he not exposed.

As the years went by, you could see it on his face. He started to get

this hollow look under his eyes, and he always smelled. I could always smell

the chemicals on him. I could even smell it on his breath after a while. But

even up until he was diagnosed the first time, he said, " They'll take care

of me. They're my friends. "

NARRATION: In 1989, Dan Ross was told he had a rare form of brain

cancer.

ROSS: He and I never believed in suing anybody. You just don't sue

people. And I was looking for answers. Since I couldn't find a cure, I

wanted to know what caused it.

NARRATION: Looking for an answer, she found something that raised more

questions instead.

ROSS: I was just going through some of his papers, and I found this

exposure record. It tells you what the amount was that he was exposed to in

any given day.

MOYERS: Somebody's written on here, " Exceeds short-term exposure. "

What does that mean?

ROSS: That it was over the acceptable limit that the government

allows. So this exceeded what he should have been exposed to that day.

NARRATION: There was also a hand-written instruction.

MOYERS: And then there's writing that says?

ROSS: " Do not include on wire to Houston. "

MOYERS: Don't send this to the headquarters?

ROSS: Right.

ROSS: My question was: Why wasn't it included - why was it held up

from going to Houston?

MOYERS: What did you take that to mean?

ROSS: Somebody's trying to cover something up. Why?

NARRATION: Her discovery led Dan and Elaine Ross to sue.

ROSS: And I promised him that they would never, ever forget who he

was, ever.

DOCUMENT WAREHOUSE

NARRATION: And this is the result of that vow.

MOYERS: How long did it take you to gather all this?

WILLIAM BAGGETT, JR, ATTORNEY: Ten years.

NARRATION: Over those ten years, attorney Baggett, Jr. waged a

legal battle for the Rosses that included charges of conspiracy against

companies producing vinyl chloride. Dan's employers - and most of the

companies - have now settled. But the long legal discovery led deeper and

deeper into the inner chambers of the chemical industry and its Washington

trade association. More than a million pages of documents were eventually

unearthed.

In these rooms is the legacy of Dan Ross.

We asked to examine the documents buried in these boxes - and

discovered a shocking story.

It is a story we were never supposed to know - secrets that go back to

the beginning of the chemical revolution.

NARRATION: It was love at first sight. In the decade after World War

II, Americans opened their arms to the wonders of chemistry.

Synthetic chemicals were invented to give manufacturers new

materials - like plastic.

Pesticides like DDT were advertised as miracle chemicals that would

eradicate crop pests - and mosquitoes.

The industry boomed.

Since then, tens of thousands of new chemicals have been created,

turned into consumer products or released into the environment. We use them

to raise and deliver our food. We clean our carpets and our clothes with

them. Plastics carry everything from spring water to cooking oil. They're in

our shower curtains and in our blood bags. They are the material of choice

in our children's toys.

But there are risks that come with the benefits of the chemical

revolution.

MT. SINAI SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

MOYERS: In this arm?

NURSE: Preferably, if that's where your vain is good at.

NARRATION: Specialists in public health at the Mt. Sinai School of

Medicine in New York - led by Dr. McCally - are trying to assess how

many synthetic chemicals are in our bodies. For the purpose of this

broadcast, I volunteered take part in their study. A much larger project is

underway at the US Centers for Disease Control.

MOYERS: And you're looking for chemicals?

DR. MICHAEL McCALLY, VICE-CHAIRMAN, PREVENTIVE MEDICINE, MT. SINAI

SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Not the body's normal chemicals. We're looking for

industrial chemicals, things that weren't around 100 years ago, that your

grandfather didn't have in his blood or fat. We're looking for those

chemicals that have been put into the environment, and through environmental

exposures - things we eat, things we breathe, water we drink - are now

incorporated in our bodies that just weren't there.

MOYERS: You really think you will find chemicals in my body?

McCALLY: Oh yes...no question. No question.

+Transcript continues at:

http://www.pbs.org/tradesecrets/transcript.html under the heading of

“Documents”.

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* * *

Vaccine Protection Bill Introduced

Reps Dave Weldon & Jerry Nadler to Hold Joint Press Conference to Announce

Vaccine Protection Bill

http://www.house.gov/weldon

Washington, D.C.-Reps. Dave Weldon (R-FL) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY)

will introduce along with Dan Burton (R-IN), Barney (D-MA), Pete

Sessions (R-TX), McCarthy (D-NY), Steve Horn (R-CA) and Jim McGovern

(D-MA) legislation to improve the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program

(VICP).

There is growing concern that VICP - passed in 1986 to provide

compensation to children who suffer adverse reactions to childhood

vaccines - is failing to provide compensation to all children who have

suffered serious adverse reactions to vaccines. The Weldon-Nadler bill, The

Vaccine Injured Children's Compensation Act of 2001 (VICCA), ensures that

the promises of the 1986 law are fulfilled.

WHEN: Thursday March 29 at11:00AM WHERE: 2325 Rayburn House Office Building

* * *

CAN Raises $850,000 for Autism Research

The 3rd annual Facing Autism event was held to benefit Cure Autism Now

last weekend at a private estate in Woodside, Califorina.

This event, which was sold out practically before the invitations were

mailed, raised an incredible $850,000 for autism research. through ticket

sales and a live auction. CAN is grateful to the event committee and all of

the guests who made this evening such a tremendous and moving success.

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