Re: EPA Will Not Withdraw Its Mercury Plan

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 4/30/04 9:40:50 AM, dma_nc1@... writes:

<< I dont understand how this president has gone this long without

being Impeached!

>>

I'm sympathetic to your positions. But PLEASE save these posts for another

list. It is very hard to keep up with the volume and there just isn't room for

politics. Thanks.

Nell

[Guest guest]

I dont understand how this president has gone this long without

being Impeached!

>

> E.P.A. Will Not Withdraw Its Mercury Plan

> By THE NEW YORK TIMES

> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/politics/30MERC.html

>

> A$$$$$$$HINGTON, April 29 -- Rebuffing pressure from Democrats and

> environmental groups, the Environmental Protection Agency

announced on

> Thursday that it would not withdraw its plan for regulating

mercury from

> coal-fired power plants.

>

> But the agency's administrator, O. Leavitt, said it would

take

> an additional three months before issuing a final regulation. The

new

> deadline, March 15, 2005, would become especially significant if

control

> of the White House changes in the November election.

>

> Senator Kerry

>

<http://www.nytimes.com/top/news/washington/campaign2004/candidates/j

ohnfkerry/index.html>,

> the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is among the 45

> senators and 10 state attorneys general who have asked the agency

to

> withdraw the proposal.

>

> The proposal allows power plants to buy and sell the rights to

emit

> mercury, with a target of reducing emissions 70 percent by 2018.

> Environmental groups argue that the Clean Air Act calls for strict

> plant-by-plant controls by 2007.

>

> *

> The material in this post is distributed without profit to those

> who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included

> information for research and educational purposes.

> For more information go to:

> http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html

> <http://oregon.uoregon.edu/%7Ecsundt/documents.htm>

> http://oregon.uoregon.edu/~csundt/documents.htm

> <http://oregon.uoregon.edu/%7Ecsundt/documents.htm>

> If you wish to use copyrighted material from this email for

> purposes that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission

> from the copyright owner.

>

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

about the Health Risks of Mercury

BUSH FICTION: The Bush administration doesn't allow politics or

ideology to interfere with science-based decision making.

FACT: " Throughout an E.P.A. draft of the proposed regulations

circulated in November, a White House staff member crossed out the

word " confirmed " from the phrase describing mercury as a " confirmed

public health risk. " In some instances, sentences in the final

proposals were changed to mercury " warrants regulation. In another

case, a toxicologist with the Office of Management and Budget

recommended changes to a sentence saying children exposed to mercury

in the womb " are at increased risk of poor performance on

neurobehavioral tests. " The final sentence that was published said

children " may be at increased risk.' " [New York Times, 4/7/04]

> >

> > E.P.A. Will Not Withdraw Its Mercury Plan

> > By THE NEW YORK TIMES

> > http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/politics/30MERC.html

> >

> > A$$$$$$$HINGTON, April 29 -- Rebuffing pressure from Democrats

and

> > environmental groups, the Environmental Protection Agency

> announced on

> > Thursday that it would not withdraw its plan for regulating

> mercury from

> > coal-fired power plants.

> >

> > But the agency's administrator, O. Leavitt, said it

would

> take

> > an additional three months before issuing a final regulation.

The

> new

> > deadline, March 15, 2005, would become especially significant if

> control

> > of the White House changes in the November election.

> >

> > Senator Kerry

> >

>

<http://www.nytimes.com/top/news/washington/campaign2004/candidates/j

> ohnfkerry/index.html>,

> > the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is among the 45

> > senators and 10 state attorneys general who have asked the

agency

> to

> > withdraw the proposal.

> >

> > The proposal allows power plants to buy and sell the rights to

> emit

> > mercury, with a target of reducing emissions 70 percent by 2018.

> > Environmental groups argue that the Clean Air Act calls for

strict

> > plant-by-plant controls by 2007.

> >

> > *

> > The material in this post is distributed without profit to those

> > who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included

> > information for research and educational purposes.

> > For more information go to:

> > http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html

> > <http://oregon.uoregon.edu/%7Ecsundt/documents.htm>

> > http://oregon.uoregon.edu/~csundt/documents.htm

> > <http://oregon.uoregon.edu/%7Ecsundt/documents.htm>

> > If you wish to use copyrighted material from this email for

> > purposes that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission

> > from the copyright owner.

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

[Guest guest]

Our children have been poisoned by MERCURY. The president has sealed

documents relating to hundreds of cases of Autism and trying his

hardest to protect Eli Lilly from lawsuits! It is Political!

Bush administration moves to suppress documents on vaccines

By Joanne Laurier

10 December 2002

Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the

author

The Bush administration asked a federal claims court on November 26

to seal documents relating to hundreds of cases of autism allegedly

caused by a mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, used in

childhood vaccines.

The government's legal action comes on the heels of an insertion

into the Homeland Security bill that protects Eli Lilly, the drug

company giant that developed thimerosal, from lawsuits involving the

additive. The bill removes all liability from the pharmaceutical

industry and health officials for the injuries and death resulting

from the preservative.

The connections between the Bush administration and the

pharmaceutical company are extensive. Eli Lilly's chairman and CEO,

Sidney Taurel, was recently given a seat on the president's Advisory

Council on Homeland Security and Mitch s, former president of

Lilly's North American operations, is currently the White House

budget director. Former president Bush sat on Eli Lilly's

board of directors.

In asking for the documents to be sealed November 26, Department of

Justice (DOJ) lawyers asked a special master in the US Court of

Federal Claims for a protective order on behalf of Tommy G.

, the secretary of Health and Human Services, whose

department administers a government fund to compensate people

injured by vaccines. DOJ lawyers claim that the law creating the

fund gives the secretary jurisdiction over which information is

released and they argue that automatic disclosure of the documents

would take away that right. The claims are being heard by Special

Master Hastings in a `vaccine court'—part of the National

Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVIC)—that was created in 1986,

when the government fund was established.

The vaccine court was set up to speed compensation claims and help

protect vaccine makers from having to pay large punitive awards

decided by juries in state civil courts. Claims must be filed within

three years of a child's first symptoms (autism, however, is

typically not diagnosed until 18 months after the first symptoms

appear) and the program grants a maximum of $250,000 for proof of

injury—a sum considerably lower than the typical award for autism in

a state court. It also takes four to five years to reach a decision

under NVIC, according to Portland lawyer Mike , who

represents hundreds of families in suits against the pharmaceutical

companies.

The court is currently hearing approximately 1,100 claims brought by

the families of autistic children, who claim that thimerosal has

caused autism and other neurological disorders in children.

The request by the Bush administration would prevent plaintiffs who

later go to civil court from using evidence gathered during the

required vaccine court proceedings.

" There is no secret here. What the petitioners are arguing for are

enhanced rights in a subsequent civil action, " complained Justice

Department attorney Matanoski to Reuters Health.

The order, which amounts to punishing of the families of injured

children, will require that plaintiffs incur the time and expense of

regenerating evidence in a civil suit.

" The vaccine program is a public health program—every child has to

get inoculated, " Sallie Bernard of the parental advocacy group Safe

Minds told the WSWS. " Therefore the public has the right to know

every aspect of the program. "

Mercury-based thimerosal was added to vaccines to safeguard against

production-related contamination. The Federal Drug Administration

began urging vaccine makers to eliminate the substance in mid-1999,

as did the Public Health Service and the American Academy of

Pediatrics. The World Health Organization still defends thimerosal,

which is currently being manufactured in vaccines sent to the

underdeveloped countries. Thimerosal helps vaccines survive dirty

storage conditions and allows for cheaper packaging in multi-dose

bottles, as opposed to single-dose vials.

In 1999 the Institute of Medicine, an associated organization of the

National Academy of Sciences, concluded that the evidence

was " inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship between

thimerosal exposures from childhood vaccines and the

neurodevelopmental disorders of autism " and other problems, but

added, " However, data on mercury toxicity more generally suggests

that the hypothesis is biologically plausible. "

In the midst of the heated response by advocacy groups and law firms

involved with the thimerosal controversy to the DOJ's attempt to

seal documents, a study was published November 30 in the British

medical journal The Lancet. Its findings claimed that infants who

received vaccines containing thimerosal had levels of mercury in

their blood that were within the federal safety limits. The study

examined 33 infants from two to six months who were injected with

thimerosal-laced vaccines and 15 infants that were administered

mercury-free vaccines.

Sallie Bernard of Safe Minds commented on the report: " Thirty-three

blood draws cannot do justice to a known neurotoxin. One major

shortcoming of a small sample size is the low chance of including

infants who are especially sensitive to mercury's effects, or who

may have detoxification difficulties. The blood was not drawn at

peak levels, and the samples were not randomly drawn, but were

convenience samples and therefore not representative of all infants

in terms of health status, socioeconomic status, ethnicity and other

potentially important factors. Also the amount of the dosage used in

the study was considerably less that the typical dosage administered

throughout the 1990s. "

" This study is an example of the fact that as yet there has not been

enough time or resources allocated to complete much-needed, genuine

investigations, " stated Bernard, who expressed alarm at the

prominence The Lancet had given to the finding.

She further questioned the objectivity of the study's author, Dr.

E. Pichichero of the University of Rochester, who has

extensive ties to the vaccine manufacturers. In a disclosure

statement for an article in the American Academy of Family

Physicians newsletter of April 2000, Pichichero admits to receiving

research grants and/or honoraria from Abbot Laboratories, Bristol-

Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Merck, Pfizer Labs, Roche, among a host of

others. Pichichero's work has been cited in 21 vaccine patent

applications. Bernard pointed out that the University of Rochester

web site describes Dr. Pichichero as an immunologist, not a

toxicologist.

Thimerosal came under scrutiny due to the dramatic rise in autism

throughout the 1990s. Early on in the decade several new thimerosal-

based vaccines were added to the standard childhood schedule,

leading to an augmentation of two to three times the doses of

multiple vaccines. According to the Federal Drug Administration's

(FDA) web site, prior to the recent initiatives by the agency to

reduce or eliminate thimerosal from vaccines, the maximum cumulative

exposure to mercury via routine childhood vaccinations during the

first six months of life was 187.5 micrograms. The FDA states

that " an exposure to more than 62.5 micrograms within the first

three months of life significantly increases a child's risk of

developing autism. " An FDA review conducted in 1998 revealed that

children who had received the full complement of childhood vaccines

were potentially exposed to mercury levels 30 to 50 times the

acceptable levels established by the Environmental Protection Agency

(EPA).

The number of children who have been affected by autism leaped from

1 in 2,000 in 1970 to 1 in 250 in 2000. (The National Vaccine

Information Center reports clusters in areas of New Jersey and

California of 1 in 150). Concurrently, the number of children

diagnosed with learning disabilities has now reached 1 in 5.

Another Safe Minds advocate, Lyn Redwood, a nurse practitioner whose

husband is a physician, told the WSWS the story of her son Will. " He

was normal until his second year of life. He then began to regress—

he lost speech, eye contact and became withdrawn and despondent. "

When Will was diagnosed with autism she began investigating her

son's quantity of mercury exposure and discovered it was 125 times

the allowed level. It is her belief that Will suffered from delayed

neurotoxicity which led to the onset of autism.

" In the early 1990s, two new vaccines were added to the vaccine

protocol for the first six months of life. I believe that caused

what we see now as an epidemic of autism in children. You can see

that most clearly in California, the state with the best tracking

records, " said Ms. Redwood. California recorded an increase of 273

percent between 1987 and 1998 in the number of children entering the

California development services system with a professional diagnosis

of autism, according to the California Department of Developmental

Services.

She continued: " The Homeland Security Bill has now moved all cases

to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Act, which has a three

year limitation. My case was in the batch of 1,000 cases, but the

statute of limitation has closed the door on us and also the

majority of parents who remain unaware of the statute. "

The Houston-based law firm of Waters & Kraus filed the first known

lawsuit alleging thimerosal's connection to autism. The firm is

leading a consortium of 10 firms nationwide that are actively

prosecuting cases of this nature.

The lead attorney for the consortium, Andy Waters, obtained through

Safe Minds an unreleased confidential report by scientists of the

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) which states: " As for the exposure

evaluated at 3 months of age, we found increasing risks

of `neurological developmental disorders' with the increasing

cumulative exposure to thimerosal ... within the group

of `developmental disorders' ... for the subgroup called `specific

delays,' and within this subgroup for the specific

disorder `developmental speech disorder,' and

for `autism' `stuttering' and `attention deficit disorder.' "

Mr. Waters told the WSWS: " It defies coincidence between double the

vaccines and the dramatic upsurge in autism. But this should come as

no surprise, given that the government and its allies are in control

of public policy. Eli Lilly gave more money to the Republican

campaign than any other pharmaceutical company in an industry that

gave $20-40 million. The DOJ and the administration are owned by the

pharmaceutical companies. They want to seal the files to prevent

proving the case against these companies. [Attorney General ]

Ashcroft is owned by the industry and the Democrats are waffling all

over the place, so the administration's move comes as no real

surprise. "

" With the cases sealed, Eli Lilly will move for a dismissal and all

my cases are filed against Eli Lilly, " Waters continued. " This will

be a long battle against people who have all the resources and

motivation. They control the pier-reviewed medical and scientific

journals and all the research money. It will be a long and difficult

fight. "

Waters added that " no amount of money can give these children back

the potential that they were born with, and no amount of money will

comfort the parents that watched helplessly as their children

literally just slipped away. "

See Also:

Bush's double standard: protecting corporations, victimizing workers

[18 November 2002]

>

> In a message dated 4/30/04 9:40:50 AM, dma_nc1@h... writes:

>

> << I dont understand how this president has gone this long without

>

> being Impeached!

>

> >>

>

> I'm sympathetic to your positions. But PLEASE save these posts for

another

> list. It is very hard to keep up with the volume and there just

isn't room for

> politics. Thanks.

>

> Nell