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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
And you wonder why poor people and especially poor blacks don't trust the government or its affiliated medical professionals.....
According to the article against anti-depressants in this same publication, pain and suffering are part of the human condition.
If depression is actually a good thing, then maybe cancer is too?
It's part of our natural condition, after all.
So if it's okay to be clinically depressed, then it must also be okay to die in pain from cancer, right?
This is such a confusing place.
I don't agree with this administration's push against science in many venues, but hysteria over indoor air should be tempered with an understanding of the broad and deep dataset that exists on the subject.
I have taken a great many indoor air samples and evaluated I can't recall how many structures for similar complaints. I have evaluated actual health threats from contaminated sites, buildings where all exposed persons had running sores on their bodies, for example. I've been first man in on evacuated sites with employees hospitalized, collected dioxin samples, and evaluated lead poisoning in fragile populations.
Indoor air is notoriously prone to higher concentrations of formaldehyde, trailers can be worse, and new build homes are also typically quite high in formaldehyde. Newly built homes with excessive amounts of pressed woods (the glues supply the HCoH)average above levels which NIOSH set as being safe, and are often around or higher than the EPA .1 ppm number. After these have been used for some time, the concentrations most typically go down over the years although construction dictates what precisely will occur.
Also, if those numbers scare you? Don't ever drive a car because the concentrations of VOCs, including the class A carcinogen (known human carcinogen) benzene is ubiquitous in and around automobiles. Well, and in your homes and outdoor air and breath as well, but that's another story . . .
In terms of risk, the methodology for determining risks for cancer are obsolescent and imply risks when none can be factually determined. It's a mathematical model, not a fact-based determination of actual risks. The safety factors built into those numbers assure that exceedances above them will not produce an adverse effect. Risk modeling is based on a linear relationship, meaning no expsure is ever without risk. However, we know that there are thresholds for carcinogenesis and thus, some risk estimates are cearly de minimis terms of risk and should be excused from consideration.
"High formaldehyde" levels is a nice and scary catch phrase, but it's not relevant to a sound debate about public health. Your body produces formaldehyde, daily. Aldehydes are in fragrances and flavor all your foods (vanillin is an aldehyde).
.34 ppm formaldehyde in a new structure is common. If that level scares you there are tens of thousands of structures in the United States you should stay away from. Considering how common formaldehyde was in manufacturing a couple decades ago (carpet and drape finishing as examples), if these concentrations posed an actual risk, related cancers in excess numbers would have been seen in the US long, long ago.
Objective, peer-reviewed studies indicate concentrations in homes can exceed the highest level reported in the FEMA trailers. Older homes and older trailers with UFFI insulations can exceed that number handily. There are no outbreaks of these cancers in those homes, therefore the facts argue against this fear.
As it happens, "top gear", the bbc's car show, reran their "go to the us, buy a car instead of renting, and drive across the US" show last night. Unfortunately, their original plan was to drive to New Orleans and sell the cars.
Interesting comments from them as objective third parties, upon arrival in New Orleans, a year after Katrina: "You'd think the richest nation in the world would have done something about this in a year". "How does the rest of America sleep at night?"
In the end they feel bad about trying to sell their cars there, and end up donating them to needy residents. Which is more than most Americans or American TV shows have done, ironically.
We should all be skeptical about what information is released by the government, since they protect business at the expense of the populace. The EPA should now be renamed the Environmental Pollution Agency, since that is their underlying goal now that the corporations control the government.
While Anonymous seems to have experience in the matter, (though if he gave his credentials, it might be more convincing - he could be an industry lobbyist, after all) the main point I got from his letter is that US citizens are exposed to carcinogens in every setting, not because it is normal or relatively free from health risks, but because of governmental and institutional support for exploitative capitalism. You are right, Anonymous, we are all at risk.
Let me be blunt....HOW THE FUCK CAN OUR GOVERNMENT BE DOLING OUT LIVING ACCOMODATIONS LOADED WITH FREE-FLOATING CARCINOGENS? IS THERE NOTHING THAT THIS ADMINISTRATION CAN DO RIGHT?
This article is a long time in the coming, and I'm gratified that the collusion between the CDC and FEMA is finally coming to light and getting the notoriety that it deserves.
In my Congressional testimony last July 19, 2007, I stated before the Federal Agency Oversight Committee, Chaired by Congressman Henry Waxman, that the CDC had misapplied the science and toxicology of formaldehyde from its own agency's interpretation published by the ATSDR (Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry -- a branch of the CDC).
I had been requested to explain to Congress the health effects of formaldehyde, how formaldehyde got into the temporary housing units, what the various exposure limits of different agencies mean, and to give advice to Congress on follow-up actions to reduce formaldehyde exposures to the residents in these trailers.
I have excerpted that section (section 10) of my testimony below.
"10. FEMA Formaldehyde Sampling of Travel Trailers
In July 2006, FEMA developed and implemented an air monitoring and sampling plan to establish and verify methods to reduce the presence of formaldehyde fumes in travel trailers. The sampling was conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the data were analyzed by the ATSDR (Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Register), which is affiliated with the Centers for Disease Control, at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The results of this study showed high levels of formaldehyde in nearly all of the trailers, whether they were continuously ventilated or were kept cool through air conditioning.
Without giving any explanation, although the ATSDR has an exposure limit of 0.008 ppm for exposures of 365 or more days, rather than use this limit when analyzing EPA’s air sampling of FEMA’s trailers, the ATSDR arbitrarily chose a limit of 0.3 ppm as their “level of concern” and applied this high level to the results as if it were a safe and applicable exposure limit.
This level is nearly 40 times the ATSDR’s limit for people exposed more than 365 days, as the hurricane victims living in travel trailers are, and resulted in a bizarre skewing of the sampling results interpretation. However, even applying this “level of concern,” the average sampling results were even higher than this very elevated level.
This misapplication and skewing of scientific results is at best unethical and grossly misrepresents and attempts to minimize the adverse health effects being experienced by thousands of travel trailer residents."
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
