Depleted Uranium the Scourge of Colonie, New York: And Iraq and Afghanistan

The Observer (uk): 'Safe' uranium that left a town contaminated
They were told depleted uranium was not hazardous. Now, 23 years after a US arms plant closed, workers and residents have cancer - and experts say their suffering shows the use of such weapons may be a war crime

[] In a paper to be published in the next issue of the scientific journal Science of the Total Environment, a team led by Professor Randall Parrish of Leicester University reports the results of a three-year study of Colonie, funded by Britain's Ministry of Defence.

Parrish's team has found that DU contamination, which remains radioactive for millions of years, is in effect impossible to eradicate, not only from the environment but also from the bodies of humans. Twenty-three years after production ceased they tested the urine of five former workers. All are still contaminated with DU. So were 20 per cent of people tested who had spent at least 10 years living near the factory when it was still working, including Ciarfello.

The small sample size precludes the drawing of statistical conclusions, the journal paper says. But to find DU at all after so long a period is 'significant, since no previous study has documented evidence of DU exposure more than 20 years prior... [this] indicates that the body burden of uranium must still be significant, whether retained in lungs, lymphatic system, kidneys or bone'. The team is now testing more individuals.

[]

[I]nside the body DU travels around the bloodstream, accumulating not only in the lungs but also in other soft tissues such as the brain and bone marrow. There, each mote becomes an alpha particle hotspot, bombarding its locality and damaging cell DNA. Research has shown that DU has the potential to cause a wide range of cancers, kidney and thyroid problems, birth defects and disorders of the immune system.

When DU 'penetrators' - armour-piercing shells that form the standard armament of some of Britain's and America's most commonly deployed military aircraft and vehicles - strike their targets, 10 per cent or more of the heavy DU metal burns at high temperatures, producing oxide particles very similar to those at Colonie.

TV footage shot in Baghdad in 2003 shows children playing in the remains of tanks coated with thick, black DU oxide, while there have long been claims that the DU shells that destroyed Saddam Hussein's tanks in the 1991 Gulf war were responsible for high rates of cancer in places such as Basra.

As a side note, the plant in Colonie was owned by National Lead (now reconstituted as NL Industries), the same execrable company that brought you lead poisoning and brain damage from lead paint. And the feds have insulated them from paying for the depleted uranium cleanup. The article doesn't say so, but I bet they were insulated from paying the claims of the injured, too. Corporate welfare at its finest.

In 1984, having bought the factory from NL for $10 in a deal that meant the firm was exempted from having to pay for its clean-up, the federal government began a massive decommissioning project, supervised by the Army Corps of Engineers.

American Company Inflicts Brain Damage on Peruvian Children

latimes.com
High in the Peruvian Andes, a smokestack rises from the smelter complex in La Oroya, listed by an environment group as among the 10 most polluted places in the world, putting it in the company of Chernobyl, Ukraine. Doe Run Peru, an affiliate of a St. Louis-based company, bought the facility in 1997 and was given 10 years to clean up emissions. Residents say they still face a daily bombardment of fine dust that coats furniture and clothing and penetrates closed doors and windows.
(Liliana Nieto del Rio, xx)
Feb 21, 2007
LATimes: Lead exposure in Peru raises concern
In La Oroya, a U.S.-owned smelter provides livelihoods. But its emissions are said to be stunting children's development.

LATimes Photo Gallery: Poison Town

This LATimes article, on an important topic, is unfortunately wishy-washy corporate journalism. This statement made me gasp:

However, epidemiological and statistical studies definitively linking the emissions to illness are lacking.

This is a bald-faced lie. There is no need for further studies of the toxicity of lead. Unless they are making some racist argument that the brains of Peruvian children react differently to lead than the brains of American children, that is. In this country scientists recognize that there is no safe level of exposure to lead for a child. The Centers for Disease Control states flatly: [T]there is no safe level of lead in blood. The National Safety Council's fact sheet on lead poisoning states: "[] [T]here is in fact no level of lead exposure that can be considered safe."

And epidemiological studies? Do the authors mean that we should continue to allow these children to be brain damaged, so a longitudinal study can be made of them? That's barbaric.

Mother Jones covered the story this winter, tying the fate of the Peruvian town to the Missouri town of Herculaneum, where state environmental regulators stepped in because of high lead levels from the American Doe Run smelter. The company settled with Missouri regulators by doing a multi-million dollar cleanup and spending $10 million to buy out 160 homeowners within 3/8 of a mile of the smelter.

Since 1994, the St. Louis-based Doe Run has been part of the Renco Group, the private holding company of New York businessman Ira Rennert. Rennert has earned a dubious reputation over his nearly 20 years in the mining business. His magnesium production company in Utah filed for bankruptcy in 2001, shortly after federal officials accused it of illegally disposing of hazardous waste. Another Rennert company, a steel producer in Ohio, paid millions of dollars in environmental penalties even as Rennert paid himself more than $200 million in dividends.

"He has gotten rich off junk bonds issued by metals companies he acquired, paid fines to clean up when he’s had to, stopped interest payments on bonds and bought back assets at pennies on the dollar," a 2002 Forbes magazine story said of Rennert, who owns a 100,000-square-foot home in the Hamptons. "He has done it all within the law--and within plain view of investors."

Doe Run and Doe Run Peru are owned by the Renco Group, which is run by the notorious corporate raider Ira Rennert. He is a classic corporate welfare cheat who runs his businesses in a way that maximizes corporate profits, and leaves the taxpayers to clean up his messes, whether they be from lead, chlorine, coal, or other toxins.

We'll pay for his misdeeds, but he won't, at least not in this life. This is the home of Ira Rennert, the man who profits by causing brain damage in children:

wikipedia: His 100,000 square foot (9,000 m²) home, dubbed Fair Field (named after the adjoining body of water, Fairfield Pond), faces the Atlantic Ocean and is perched on 63 acres. The buildings have an Italianate facade, 29 bedrooms, and 39 bathrooms. A dozen chimneys tower from the Mediterranean-style tile roof. The formal dining room stretches 91 feet in length. That’s three feet shorter than a basketball court—another amenity Fair Field has, along with a bowling alley, a pair each of tennis and squash courts, and a $150,000 hot tub, according to building plans and other documents filed with Southampton town hall. Its property taxes in 2004 were $392,610.24.

Move Over, William Shockley, There's a New Racist in Town

A hired genetics expert, Dr. Barbara A. Quinton, a black woman doctor formerly on the faculty at Howard University, will testify that a group of lead-poisoned black children are genetically inferior, not lead poisoned.

WaPo: Gene Defense in Lead Paint Case Rankles

>Picture taken at the Women and Genetics in Contemporary Society Workshop Program, Muskingum Valley Conference Center, Zanesville, Ohio, May 16-19, 1996
Do you think all the civic and medical organizations Dr. Barbara Quinton has been affiliated with know that, for money, she is going into a courtroom in Mississippi and testifying that a group of poor black children are genetically inferior, not damaged by lead poisoning? The DC Public Schools had her screen kids for fetal alcohol syndrome; the American Academy of Pediatrics lists her as the DC Chapter Facilitator for allocating Community Access to Child Health funds; Neurofibromatosis, Inc. - Mid-Atlantic (slogan: "The organization with a heart serving NF Families") lists her as a local medical resource; the National Organization on Fetal Alchohol Syndrome lists her as a resource. I doubt anyone she knows professionally knew about her role in this lead paint case until this AP article was published. We see this a lot in personal injury litigation, an expert with a long resume going far out of their hometown to testify against plaintiffs for big money, with an opinion they'd be embarrassed for their colleagues to know about.

She should be kicked out of every medical organization she belongs to. The supposed 'expert' opinion she is being paid for here is reprehensible and racist. Is she so hard up for money? Lead is a documented cause of brain damage, especially in the developing brains of children. I'd love to know what the lead levels of these children were. I'd probably be even more outraged.

The Washington Post just reprinted the AP article. You'd hope a major newspaper like the Post would see that this is a local story that deserves to further reporting. Oh, that's right, journalism is dead, long live the corporate media.

WaPo: Gene Defense in Lead Paint Case Rankles

In a federal lawsuit set for trial Monday, five families who lived in the apartments say the problems in 13 of their children can be traced to poisoning from the lead paint that covered their walls.

But one of the nation's largest paint companies has another explanation - bad traits that were simply passed on in their genes.

"Their argument is ... they have a family history of poor performance. Basically, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree," said Michael Casano, who is representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that seeks unspecified damages.

NL Industries Inc.'s gene defense, detailed in court documents, strikes a sensitive chord in this chronically depressed part of north-central Mississippi known as the birthplace of the blues. Most of the residents are black and poor, and the region has some of the nation's highest rates of illiteracy.

[]

Court documents show that one of NL Industries' expert witnesses, Dr. Barbara Quinton, recommended chromosomal testing for seven of the children. In her deposition, Quinton said some of the children had familial mild mental retardation.

"You have one child with it, and then there are a host of relatives with similar problems," said Quinton, former director of the Medical Genetics Clinic at Howard University.

Quinton wrote that Sherry Wragg's "family history reveals that the family has in the past required additional social support to meet their basic daily needs. Her mother was also regarded as retarded by health care providers. Her mother also had a speech defect."

Tom Reilly Is Too Dumb To Be Governor

Boston Globe: Reilly won't sue over lead paint

In 1999, Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly turned down pleas to join a Rhode Island lawsuit that resulted in a historic jury verdict earlier this year that could require paint companies to spend an estimated $1 billion or more to rid about 300,000 Ocean State homes of lead contamination.

Now Reilly is rejecting entreaties that he follow Rhode Island's victory with a similar suit against the paint industry, which sold lead pigment until the 1970s despite allegedly knowing for decades it was toxic, according to four advocates interviewed by the Globe who have met with Reilly's deputies to urge them to sue.

[]

Reilly's rationale: Massachusetts law makes such a suit difficult, and he feels stung by the outcome of the 1998 tobacco industry settlement that won the state $8.3 billion, but embroiled him in an ugly battle with several law firms over their legal fees, people who attended the meetings said.

Reilly's top aides said the attorney general is reluctant to work with private law firms again, the advocates said. And since his office does not have the resources to take on the paint industry alone, he will not pursue litigation on his own, these people said.

[]

Reilly's unwillingness to sue, according to Torres, Lawrence, Rabin, and Andelman, stems in part from the divisive court battle that resulted when the Boston law firm Brown Rudnick Berlack Israels and a San Francisco firm sued for an additional $1.3 billion in legal fees for their work on the state's landmark tobacco settlement. Reilly's predecessor, Scott Harshbarger, had agreed to pay the firms a 25 percent contingency fee for handling the case.

But after the tobacco industry paid the 50 states $246 billion to settle the lawsuit, an arbitration panel voted to award Massachusetts lawyers $775 million, or 9.3 percent of the state's $8.3 billion share. Claiming breach of contract, Brown Rudnick sued, spurring heated public debate .

Even though the law firms ultimately lost their fight, ``the AG's office has basically sworn off ever using private counsel again," Lawrence said....

Tom Reilly is an idiot. The firms who sued the state for more money for the tobacco settlement were (1) an out-of-state firm from San Francisco; and (2) Brown, Rudnick, a Boston DEFENSE firm that the state hired (as well as several plaintiff's firms), probably because of all its political connections. The real plaintiff's law firms who represented the state, experienced in mass tort litigation, didn't sue the state afterwards. The smart reaction of a smart politician would be to vow never again to hire a defense firm to do plaintiff work.

The state got $8.3 billion out of the tobacco lawsuit, and Reilly's nose is so out-of-joint about Brown, Rudnick's lawsuit (that Reilly WON) that he won't even try to put more money from guilty corporations back into state coffers. Nice call, genius. No wonder he's in danger of finishing third in the Democratic race for the nomination for governor.

Nauseating

Mr. Yuk
Truthdig: Molly Ivins: The Daily Drip of Special Favors for Special Interests

AUSTIN, Texas—We need to keep up with the daily drip, that endless succession of special favors for special interests performed by Congress, or we’ll never figure out how we got so far behind the eight ball. While the top Bushies lunge about test-driving new wars (great idea—the one we’re having is a bummer, so let’s start another!), Congress just keeps right on cranking out those corporate goodies.

Earlier this month, the House effectively repealed more than 200 state food safety and public health protections. Say, when was the last time you enjoyed a little touch of food poisoning? Coming soon to a stomach near you. What was really impressive about H.R. 4167, the “National Uniformity for Food Act,” is that it was passed without a public hearing.

“The House is trampling crucial health safeguards in every state without so much as a single public hearing,” said Erik Olson, attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “This just proves the old adage, ‘Money talks.’ The food industry spared no expense to ensure passage.”

Thirty-nine attorneys general, plus health, consumer and environmental groups, are opposing the law. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the food industry has spent more than $81 million on campaign contributions to members of Congress since 2000.

The bill would automatically override any state measure that is stronger than federal law, the opposite of what a sensible law would do. The NRDC says state laws protecting consumers from chemical additives, bacteria and ingredients that can trigger allergic reactions would be barred, and that includes alerts about chemical contamination in fish, health protection standards for milk and eggs, and warnings about chemicals or toxins such as arsenic, mercury and lead. Happy eating, all.

Get the Lead Out

Good for Rhode Island:

Boston Globe: Three lead paint makers are found guilty

PROVIDENCE, R.I. --Three former makers of lead paint created a public nuisance that continues to poison children, a jury decided Wednesday in the state's landmark lawsuit against the companies.

The verdict means the companies that once made lead paint and pigment could be held responsible for millions of dollars in cleanup and mitigation costs, though the state never put a dollar value on its lawsuit.

Superior Court Judge Michael Silverstein will decide later how much, if anything, the companies must pay.

[]

The first trial ended in 2002 with a hung jury. The jury in the latest trial began deliberating Feb. 13 following more than three months of trial.

Jurors Wednesday found one of the four companies named in the suit, Atlantic Richfield Co., was not responsible. But it [] found the three others were: Sherwin-Williams Co., NL Industries Inc. and Millennium Holdings.

The state argued that lead paint created a sweeping public nuisance that has poisoned tens of thousands of children since the early 1990s and contaminated hundreds of thousands of homes.

The state brought in doctors, who described how low levels of lead can be dangerous to a child and how lead-poisoned children can suffer behavioral disorders, gastrointestinal pain, brain damage and even death.

Minor quibble with the Boston Globe headline writer: A defendant in a criminal trial is guilty. A defendant in a civil trial is liable for damages.