Censored 2012 (17 page)

Contaminants such as radioactive iodine, cesium, and strontium—all beta emitters—become concentrated in the food chain due to bioaccumulation. At the top of the food chain are humans, also encompassing fetuses and human breast milk. In 1963, one week after an atmospheric nuclear bomb test in Russia, scientists observed the magnifying power of bioaccumulation when they detected radioactive iodine in the thyroids of North American mammals, even though they could not detect smaller amounts in the air or on vegetation. Bioaccumulation
is one reason why it is dishonest to equate the danger to humans living five thousand miles away from Japan with the minute concentrations measured in our air. If we tried, we would now likely be able to measure radioactive iodine, cesium, and strontium bioaccumulating in human embryos in this country.

In particular, radioactive tritium releases have been identified from existing nuclear reactors, releases that exceed safe drinking water standards at thirty-seven different nuclear plants—more than half of all those now in operation. Normal background levels of radioactive tritium in drinking water are three to twenty-four picocuries per liter. Astonishingly, radioactive tritium levels above one million picocuries per liter were measured at nine sites covering eighteen reactors. The cumulative effect of exposure to radiation in air and water is not restricted to these vectors.

In his article “There is No ‘Safe’ Exposure to Radiation,” Brian Moench noted that radiation from Japan is now detectable in the atmosphere, rainwater, and food chain in North America. Fukushima’s four reactors, still out of control months after the earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands and crippled the plants, hold ten times more nuclear fuel than had been at Chernobyl, thousands of times more than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

In an interview on June 3, 2011, Arnie Gundersen, a licensed reactor operator and energy advisor with thirty-nine years of nuclear power engineering experience, said that the average human being breathes about ten cubic meters of air daily. Air filters measuring air in the Seattle area in April 2011, when they pulled ten cubic meters through them, had ten hot particles in them.
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The official refrain carried by major corporate media? “No worries here, perfectly harmless.”

In a related bioaccumulation matter, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) began rolling out full-body scanners at US airports in 2007, but stepped up deployment of the devices this year when stimulus funding made it possible to buy another 450 of the advanced imaging technology scanners. Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff represents Rapiscan Systems, who profits from every machine that is installed at airports. Current Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has discussed putting them in malls, schools,
subways, and train stations. Some 315 “naked” scanners are currently in use at sixty-five US airports, according to the TSA.
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Beyond the demeaning nature of a “naked” body scan are the potential health dangers of backscatter scanning raised by X-ray imaging specialists from the University of California and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Author Karin Zeitvogel cited Dr. Michael Love, who runs an X-ray lab at the department of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at Johns Hopkins University, saying that air passengers risk cancer and gene mutations by subjecting themselves to these scanners. Government officials, on the other hand, have said that the scanners have been tested and meet safety standards. Their interest in protecting the public may be obstructed by business relationships—such as Chertoff’s alliance with Rapiscan.

In an April 2011 letter addressed to Obama’s science and technology adviser John Holdren, X-ray imaging specialists from the University of California, San Francisco—Drs. Russell Blaylock, John Sedat, David Agard, and Robert Stroud—and Dr. Marc Shuman maintained that naked body scanners may be dangerous to human health and that their safety has never been demonstrated, especially not by an independent panel of qualified scientists. The doctors claimed that the ionizing radiation emitted by these devices could alter your DNA and cause sperm and breast mutations.

Americans are, and should remain, uneasy, as real dangers are neither reflected nor addressed by major corporate media. Instead, as TSA body scan concerns are ignored, and as daily news of the Fukushima disaster disappears, paid advertisements by power generation companies, such as Entergy’s greenwashing media campaign, dominate air time. These ads tout clean nuclear power and America’s stake in nuclear power generation for jobs and income—leading Americans to connect all the wrong dots.

Many people have not heard that there is a swirling mass of plastic in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that qualifies as the planet’s largest
garbage dump. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is not even the only trash vortex out there: there are
five
giant trash gyres. Located in the North and South Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans, these trash gyres now contain an estimated 315 billion pounds of plastic. Much of the world’s trash has accumulated in part of the Pacific Ocean—roughly 135° to 155°W and 35° to 42°N, based on the movement of ocean currents.

How did the plastic get to these trash gyres? Not all plastic in the recycling bin gets recycled, and people carelessly toss plastics away. Plastic litter often ends up in the waterways and currents carry it out into the ocean. How much plastic is in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? No one really knows, but, according to researchers, surface area estimates determine the North Pacific trash gyre to be as large as the continental United States. According to
HowStuffWorks.com
, every square mile of ocean hosts forty-six thousand pieces of floating plastic, constituting 90 percent of all trash floating in the world’s oceans.

These pieces of plastic have a dire effect on marine life. Turtles confuse plastic bags for jellyfish, and birds confuse bottle caps for food. They ingest but can’t digest, so their stomachs fill with plastic and they starve to death. Evidence is mounting that trash vortexes also have significant impacts on human health.

How do five massive oceanic garbage patches exist, most as big as the continental US, with so few people aware of them? Can ocean gyres be cleaned up? No, probably not. The only way to prevent further large-scale global garbage pollution is to stop humans from throwing away plastic (or to simply stop using it) and clean up waterways and beaches before the plastic reaches the sea. It will take a massive public interest campaign to change our throwaway behaviors and the most effective avenue is the major media, which thus far are not addressing this critical issue.
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Unfortunately, the corporate media blocks all hope of stemming the tide of plastics and other refuse going into our waterways and into the gyres. The media, by not actively and comprehensively covering the garbage patches of the world, directly inhibits the only known and effective solution to the problem—creating awareness around changing human habits.

Corporate spin for British Petroleum was in top form with a media blitz that included a “Voices from the Gulf” campaign and politicians parroting ad slogans claiming it was business as usual in the Gulf of Mexico, after BP’s
Deepwater Horizon
oil disaster in April 2010. The campaign ignored the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and showcased happy residents assuring the public that “fishermen are working,” “local shrimp is on the menu,” and beaches are back just in time for spring break! Idyllic shots of contented fishermen hauling in crab, a restaurant owner ladling steaming gumbo into a bowl, and a hotel owner promoting sparkling white beaches created an ambiance to combat what would have otherwise been a public relations and public health nightmare.

Government and media complicity in this campaign included statements from Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour who declared, “The coast is clear … come on down.” Images from the movie
Jaws
come to mind, except that in this scenario, shark and human are the victims of a blob of oil and chemical dispersant the size of 312 Olympic swimming pools. The trinity of government, big business, and corporate media colluded to deny reality while creating a deadly illusion of clean, safe beaches and seafood. This type of gaslighting—a term used to describe the process by which psychopaths deny their victims reality—is crazy making.

In order to sell “crazy,” BP hired advertising agency Purple Strategies and spent $50 million on its campaign after an estimated 185 million gallons of oil were dumped into the Gulf.
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Their strategies to cap the well and their solution for cleanup were equally “crazy.” A media critique addressing company knowledge of safety hazards at the Macondo Prospect and on the
Deepwater Horizon
rig was mostly absent except for in congressional hearings, which showed a somewhat apologetic BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward. A scientific analysis providing an accurate number of barrels spilled per day was ignored, and in-depth reporting about the dangerous use of dispersants—which experts say should not have been used at all—was left out. Finally, the serendipitous branding of the spill itself protected those who were responsible.

Branding is critical to invoking particular frames. Corporate media’s misrepresentation of the oil “spill” helped maintain the BP spin. Essential to this was also leaving out the words British Petroleum,
Halliburton, or Transocean to protect those responsible. A “spill” doesn’t conjure up the image of the millions of gallons of oil and chemicals that flowed into the sea for three months. Today, the gusher is still referred to as the “Gulf Oil Spill.”

Central to maintaining the brand was the obfuscation of the number of barrels spilled per day and of the most effective methods of cleanup. BP’s spin doctor Bill Salvin confidently asserted, “We’ve said … that there is no way to estimate the flow coming out of the pipe accurately.” Utilizing science and software, Eugene Chiang, associate professor of astronomy and Earth and planetary science at UC Berkeley, and Steven Werely, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, estimated the number of barrels—at minimum twenty-nine thousand and at most one hundred thousand per day.
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The oil slick stretched hundreds of miles long.

Media were so focused on BP’s frantic efforts to clean up the spill that they neglected to focus on alternatives less toxic to the environment than the chemical dispersant Corexit 9500. The tragic reality of the cleanup—that Corexit’s formula was more toxic than the oil itself—was completely ignored, as was the fact that this dispersant spreads after being broken up into small droplets, depending on the currents of the oceans. The long-term toxic effects on human health and the environment were downplayed and replaced by reporting that BP was going to “make it right,” and that the spill had been cleaned up. An analysis of the reckless profit-driven decision-making process by corporate heads, with government agency support, was completely absent.

Corporate media didn’t connect the dots between the revolving doors on the BP board of directors and the Nalco Holding Company (NHC), producer of the oil dispersant Corexit. One month before the “Gulf Oil Spill,” BP CEO Tony Hayward sold approximately one-third of his holding in the company.
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So did Goldman Sachs, selling 250 million of their BP shares. BP’s former chairman Peter Sutherland is now chairman of Goldman Sachs International. Former BP board member Rodney Chase is on the board of NHC. After the spill, BP purchased NHC’s entire inventory of the toxic oil dispersant Corexit. The NHC’s stock jumped 18 percent. Corporate media did not investigate these relationships, which benefited former BP shareholders and the NHC, but not public health. In the biggest environmental
catastrophe in history, they did not search for the least toxic alternative—they looked for the most profitable outcome.

Why did BP go with Corexit instead of the myriad of less toxic options—like the water-based Dispersit by Polychem?
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An examination of stock trading and past and present board members makes the insane sane, all framed by corporate media as a desperate attempt to clean up the oil. Ignoring deadly toxic effects to human health allowed corporate owners to dump 1.9 million gallons of Corexit into the Gulf. The stamp of approval from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the lack of scientific-based evidence of the environmental impact provided complicity in this mendacious behavior. The EPA’s approval of Corexit, showing government compliance and potential criminal negligence, was never discussed.

The corporate media instead followed federal and state politicians who said that the BP oil has dispersed and that there is no longer a problem. Alongside these declarations of safety, however, are scores of studies showing high levels of dangerous chemicals in seafood, as well as stories about increasing illnesses and mounting environmental destruction. Media have not only failed to connect these dots but have also colluded in the cover-up.

In his article “BP Blamed for Toxification,” Dahr Jamail illustrated the complicity among mainstream media, Gulf state officials, BP, and the Obama administration. “This is the biggest cover-up in the history of America,” Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser told reporters. Many of the chemicals in the oil and dispersants, samplings of which have been found along the Mississippi Coast, are known to be teratogenic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic. Exposure to the dispersants occurs through inhalation, ingestion, and skin and eye contact. Workers on BP’s Vessels of Opportunity (VoO) have found VOCs in their blood after tests revealed the presence of ethylbenzene, p-Xylene, and hexane.

Dr. Riki Ott, a toxicologist, marine biologist, and
Exxon Valdez
survivor, said, “People are being made sick in the Gulf because of the unprecedented release of oil and toxic chemicals, in response to BP’s disaster.” Corexit 9500 made the problem worse because, according to Dr. Ott, the dispersant is like a delivery system, bringing oil deeper into the body. The effects on the human body are staggering: nausea, headaches, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, chest pain, respiratory system
damage, hypertension, skin sensitization, central nervous system depression, cardiac arrhythmia, cardiovascular damage, and neurotoxic effects.