(Warning: Disturbing Graphic Images)
Over the years, Simpson (‘Greed Diamond’) Timber has polluted Mason County and Shelton Harbor with about the highest concentration of Dioxin (902 ppt in harbor sediments) in the Salish Sea. A hallmark of pernicious corporate greed, when asked how this came to be, Simpson would dissemble by claiming it was a mystery–perhaps Rayonier was responsible? But the company knew exactly how it came to be, as did the government after taxpayer funded federal studies conducted in the mid to late 80’s exposed the truth. Simpson took the Dioxin contaminated ashes from their incinerator bag-house on Shelton’s waterfront and FLUSHED THEM DOWN THE CITY’S SEWERS! When that became too transparent, they began shipping it to uncertified private landfills (their own) in the Matlock area and simply dumped it on the ground, covering the evidence with slash from their forest cutting operations.
Dioxin is the most poisonous of man made chemicals. It persists in the environment, is bio-accumulative (becomes more concentrated as it works its way up the food chain), has NO known ‘safe’ amount–if it can be measured, it’s dangerous–is carcinogenic, mutagenic (birth defects persisting for several generations), damages immune systems, and precipitates learning defects even in the lowest exposures.
The curse of this evil riding the apocalyptic horse of unmitigated corporate greed has become so ubiquitous as it winds its way upward in the food chain toward its human progenitors, that human mothers now have substantially higher levels of Dioxin (4x-10x) in their breast milk than what is allowed by laws regulating commercial dairy cow milk for sale. Yet the City (Shelton) that just keeps on giving spends its limited resources and political capital on protecting its citizens from bikinis rather than the cancer laden air pollution they along with their children inhale on a daily basis. NOTHING is being done to remove the Dioxin from Oakland bay or Shelton Harbor while laws banning bikinis from City limits are passed.
Gateway to Industrial Blight
Not to worry, however–the U.S. shares the joy of the effects of these industrial toxins with our foreign cousins. Official policy will not tolerate a birth defect gap to develop within the penumbra of our campaign to introduce ‘democracy’ on the wings of our drone aircraft around the globe.
Iraqi Birth Defects Worse than Hiroshima
The United States may be finished dropping bombs on Iraq, but Iraqi bodies will be dealing with the consequences for generations to come in the form of birth defects, mysterious illnesses and skyrocketing cancer rates.
Al Jazeera’s Dahr Jamail reports that contamination from U.S. weapons, particularly Depleted Uranium (DU) munitions, has led to an Iraqi health crisis of epic proportions. “[C]hildren being born with two heads, children born with only one eye, multiple tumours, disfiguring facial and body deformities, and complex nervous system problems,” are just some of the congenital birth defects being linked to military-related pollution.
In certain Iraqi cities, the health consequences are significantly worse than those seen in the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Japan at the end of WWII.
The highest rates are in the city of Fallujah, which underwent two massive US bombing campaigns in 2004. Though the U.S. initially denied it, officials later admitted using white phosphorous. In addition, U.S. and British forces unleashed an estimated 2,000 tons of depleted uranium ammunitions in populated Iraqi cities in 2003.
DU (depleted uranium), a chemically toxic heavy metal produced in nuclear waste, is used in weapons due to its ability to pierce through armor. That’s why the US and UK were among a handful of nations (France and Israel) who in December refused to sign an international agreement to limit its use, insisting DU is not harmful, science be damned. Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s refusal to release details about where DU munitions were fired has made it difficult to clean up.
Today, 14.7 percent of Fallujah’s babies are born with a birth defect, 14 times the documented rate in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Fallujah’s babies have also experienced heart defects 13 times the European rate and nervous system defects 33 times that of Europe. That comes on top of a 12-fold rise in childhood cancer rates since 2004. Furthermore, the male-to-female birth ratio is now 86 boys for every 100 girls, indicating genetic damage that affects males more than females.
Shelton: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs
If Fallujah is the Iraqi Hiroshima, then Basra is its Nagasaki.
According to a study published in the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, a professional journal based in the southwestern German city of Heidelberg, there was a sevenfold increase in the number of birth defects in Basra between 1994 and 2003.
Mercury in Olympic Mountain Alpine Lakes
According to the Heidelberg study, the concentration of lead in the milk teeth of sick children from Basra was almost three times as high as comparable values in areas where there was no fighting.
In addition, never before has such a high rate of neural tube defects (“open back”) been recorded in babies as in Basra, and the rate continues to rise. According to the study, the number of hydrocephalus (“water on the brain”) cases among new-borns is six times as high in Basra as it is in the United States.
(On a side note, these pictures are rather sanitized compared to other even more difficult to look at images. See here if you can bear it.)
This isn’t isolated to Fallujah and Basra. The overall Iraqi cancer rate has also skyrocketed:
Official Iraqi government statistics show that, prior to the outbreak of the First Gulf War in 1991, the rate of cancer cases in Iraq was 40 out of 100,000 people. By 1995, it had increased to 800 out of 100,000 people, and, by 2005, it had doubled to at least 1,600 out of 100,000 people. Current estimates show the increasing trend continuing.
As Grist’s Susie Cagle points out, “That’s potentially a more than 4,000 percent increase in the cancer rate, making it more than 500 percent higher than the cancer rate in the U.S.“
Dr. Mozghan Savabieasfahani, an environmental toxicologist based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, told Jamail that “These observations collectively suggest an extraordinary public health emergency in Iraq. Such a crisis requires urgent multifaceted international action to prevent further damage to public health.”
Instead, the international community, including the nation most responsible for the health crisis (hint: it starts with a “U” and ends with an “S”), is mostly ignoring the problem.
To make matters worse, Iraq’s healthcare system, which was once the envy of the region, is virtually nonexistent due to the mass exodus of Iraq’s medical doctors since 2003. According to recent estimates, there are currently fewer than 100 psychiatrists and 20,0000 physiciansserving a population of 31 million Iraqis.
Dahr Jamail was on Democracy Now this morning discussing the horrific effects of military-related pollution in Iraq:
Yanar Mohammad, President of the Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq was also on Democracy Now and addressed the toxic legacy of birth defects in Iraq.
John M. Kelly # says,
Raina – it is important that everyone understand the toxicity of DU. It is not just babies that are being harmed by the enviromental degradation in Iraq (and elsewhere) that DU munitions are part of. But it is vitally important to recognize that it is not radioactivity from DU that is at the root of these effects on health. DU is not radioactive, but the metal itself is toxic. When you ascribe the observed defects to radioactivity, it is easy for others to dismiss your outrage because your factual basis is wrong. Fix this, and your piece gains power. Love your work – John (March 21, 2013)
SnappyJ (@fuppin_cyclist) # says,
If these stories were on the 6 o’clock news in peoples faces – I believe we would see far more activism against war. The sanitised news put out on the mainstream is a dereliction of journalistic duty and criminal. Such a tragedy for these people. Thanks for writing this article. Very powerful. You just hope justice will someday be served on the perpetrators of this.
