(Part 1, ‘Forgetting the Principles’ is here)

By now, you’ve gotten your cup of hot, McDonald’s coffee as suggested at the end of my last post on litigation. Our court system was designed to compensate victims and rectify social injustices in America. These principles have been immortalized in songs like Neil Young’s “Southern Man”. However, the latest views of litigants has been concisely expressed in a country song written by West and Pahanish, (and sung by Toby Keith). This proclaims that America is so quirky, one can ‘Spill a cup of coffee and make a million dollars‘. Has litigation come to this? Instead of resolving society’s ills, it represents nothing more than greed? Since my specialized diet doesn’t permit me to eat in restaurants, I just made a call to a local branch of the McDonald’s restaurant chain. This company, sued when a woman suffered burns from spilling a cup of their coffee, does have warnings on their coffee cups. The employee answering the call humored me and read it out over the phone. It says, “Caution: Handle with Care – I’m Hot”. Here it is, captured in glorious technicolor.

Well, “D’uh”, as the kids say, appears to be the only appropriate response to that statement.

If you’re like millions of typical consumers, you’ve probably heard that a woman was burned when her coffee spilled and filed a law suit, an effort for which she was richly rewarded. That sparse, partial truth would tend to make us believe this was just another sign of greed on the part of litigants; slackers who search the globe for incidents they can take to court for personal gain. However, laughing at this suit before reviewing the actual facts is akin to drinking another beverage. That one is called ‘Kool Aid‘—a drink forever associated with people buying into harmful myths about their cultural groups.

Interestingly , the facts about this infamous suit against McDonald’s were presented for our consumption the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), well versed in the American corporate culture. Their account was written in defense of this litigant and against the company deemed by the court as having been reckless. Considering the WSJ to be a highly reputable source for these facts, their 1994 review of this matter was my primary source for this discussion and additional confirmations/details are offered by attorney Jon Mitchell Jackson, here.

To summarize: An elderly woman suffered extensive third degree burns within seconds of her coffee hitting her lap while seated behind the wheel of her car. Most adults would have a reasonable expectation of discomfort from the spillage of a hot beverage and accept mild to moderate burns as the natural consequence for such carelessness. However, such a spill should not cause the kind of damage seen in this case, requiring hospitalization and skin grafts. Patrons of this establishment have no idea that their brew is supposed to be maintained at or above 180 degrees, well above the temperature required to cause severe burns in very little time.

The article revealed that McDonald’s acknowledged this fact but considered the number of people who would be injured as insignificant. In keeping with this casual view of their casualties, they doled out more than a half million dollars in settlements to those customers deemed ‘deserving’ among the 700-plus complaints received about their coffee temperatures. In one startling bit of insight into this kind of corporate stance, the defense felt the woman’s advanced age made her skin more likely to sustain severe damage, thereby mitigating their responsibility. Isn’t the whole, ‘blame the victim’ thing going too far when you consign genetic diversity, age, and sex to the status of faulty human engineering (how dare that woman grow old!)? Perhaps the warning on the cup should read, “Caution: Contents potentially damaging to people over 70. Drink it while young and in full possession of your recuperative powers.”

Are you still waiting in line to purchase this particular brand of corporate Kool Aid?

Myths cannot support a population yet they are created because someone profits from them. Sustainable social and economic development requires an acceptance of reality. We prefer our myths even though their origins don’t rest in divinely inspired prose. Madison Avenue appears to have inspired most of this rhetoric. The myth of the free marketplace is just that, because markets were meant to serve humans in all our glorious strengths and weaknesses. Instead, human characteristics are ignored by corporations engaging in bad behavior for reasons of frank greed. Wasn’t McDonald’s able to generate healthy profits from a more temperate brew? Profits made from companies imposing heavy risks to their consumers can inflate those profits and yield a form of corporate obesity. Boards of directors may find it satisfying but the general population sustains inordinate levels of damage from hazardous goods and services when corporations choose to grow fat instead of strong. The culture of ‘never enough’, affects us all.

Risk taking behavior by our human citizenry should certainly be acknowledged. Perhaps we ought to consider whether it is careless to drink hot beverages in one’s car where movement and divided attention increases the probability of a spill. The jury reduced this woman’s award by twenty percent in recognition of individual responsibility. However, when you purchase a cup of coffee via the ‘drive-through’ window of a restaurant, one assumes the safety concerns to be no different than prior experience would indicate. The company could discourage such activity by informing customers of the unusually high beverage temperature or simply by requiring consumers to buy their coffee indoors.

The current warning on their cups insultingly maintains the joke that consumers are too dumb to apprise their own risks. It takes some degree of self-confidence and educational background to register a complaint when everyone around you is saying, “Of COURSE it’s hot, Stupid!” So this warning doesn’t educate but rather humiliates genuine victims and prevents us from demanding the information being intentionally withheld from us in commerce. We deserve to know what it is we are paying for in any transaction. Otherwise the commercial contract should be considered invalid because the terms aren’t clearly delineated. Cite the temperature on the cup or menu listing and then we’ll take it from there in terms of choosing safety or opting for optimal aromatic value. Frankly, I’d want also want to hear from a specialist in gastrointestinal medicine about the wisdom of ingesting foods above certain temperatures. However, that is for me to research once I’ve been ‘warned’ of unexpectedly high cooking temperatures.

Consumers are fortunate this woman didn’t suffer in silence. That is the custom of many stoic Americans, accustomed to being dismissed as whining wimps for needing access to medical care or objecting to the inclusion of carcinogens in our soaps. This is particularly true of women and members of minority groups. Complaining is yet another invitation to the dismissal of our competency to participate fully in American culture. Nor did this woman settle for the dismissal of her most reasonable request for compensation by the company before filing her law suit. That modest eight hundred dollars requested to cover medical bills and some of her suffering would also have left us in ignorance of how corporations have become the model of American citizenship. It is a testament to the fact that reasonable adults are willing to negotiate their problems outside of a court room. However, in this case, the other ‘party’ was made of paper, lacking the same anatomical vulnerabilities as the plaintiff, couldn’t ‘empathize’.

Thank goodness an experienced lawyer was willing to conduct a competent investigation into the problem. Professional competence overtook the overconfidence of privilege in the matter lacking any rational foundation for it’s policy and for failing to recognize the harm they brought to this particular person. This lawyer’s careful scrutiny of the circumstances enlightens all of us about our need to scrutinize companies for their role in providing us with needed goods and services in good faith that the benefits and risks are clearly understood by their customers. Since we can’t trust our institutions to be honest with us, having public records of legal settlements would certainly reduce the number of people who are injured through hazardous products or non-disclosure of avoidable risks when enjoying one’s purchase. It would also benefit industry by allowing them to discount frivolous suits. If their policies are within the bounds of acceptable practice, good companies need not be pushed into making ‘pay-offs’ from baseless legal actions just to avoid adverse publicity.

The WSJ article has a wonderful discussion of jaded jurors who were prepared to laugh at this case themselves – before seeing the evidence. Jury duty is quite a wake-up call to our collective consciences. McDonald’s apparently refused a reasonable offer of settlement by the plaintiff’s attorney and then a proposed resolution in a court-ordered mediation. Their faith in the willingness of jurors to drink this brand of verbal Kool Aid was boundless, yet misplaced. We must again be grateful for that hubris because any sealed settlement would have resulted in further injuries. There is much to be learned from this case about corporations following such a path versus the respect that the owners, managers and employees of well-run, sustainable corporate entities are due for making the world turn.

A wake up call is required to counteract those ‘fast food’ misrepresentations of reality just as many municipalities are now requiring disclosure of fat and salt content for fast food to show how it differs from real or ‘slow’ food. We see many inexplicable positions dispensed in tweets, sound bytes, slogans on placards and on coffee cups, appealing to a fast food form of philosophy. Corporate deceptions about life-style choices being the cause of all ills is belied by their misbranding of many medications and foods as reasonable selections. The NY Times pointed out the “Smart Choice” label appearing on boxes of Fruit Loops cereal, despite sugar being the largest percentage of ingredients in that ‘food’. That certainly makes me wonder why it isn’t stocked on the shelves of the candy aisle of grocery stores instead of taking up space in the cereal aisle. Women are learning that statins don’t work well for them, despite the huge number of prescriptions given to both sexes for their ‘health’. Yet all we hear is how cholesterol is the enemy rather than the drugs used to fight it which may not be compatible with every patient’s physiology.

This NY Times article explains the use of settlements to induce makers of generic drugs to refrain from producing competing products with holders of expiring patents. The price of the original drug remains high while profits are shared among those whose very existence is based on the concept of competition in the marketplace. Consumers are damaged in multiple ways through this misuse of the legal process. If precedents in patent law for drugs were set through trials on these admittedly complex matters, this repetitive process harming the public would end. Leaving the question of patent expirations unanswered means consumer dollars pay for a ‘win’ negotiated by both sides. Under what system of government does a court decision harm individuals who aren’t even part of the process? The law genie has escaped from it’s constitutional wrappings and become another tool for earning money instead of setting guidelines for civilized behavior between ‘individuals’ if one wishes to refer to corporations as such.

Our justice system requires our full participation. Settlements are certainly preferable to prolonged and expensive trial ventures but not when they extend or institutionalize bad practices. Secrecy allows companies to pass these costs onto all their consumers. The McDonald’s trial might not have been necessary if any of their multiple settlements with other burn victims had become a part of the public record. Just a few of those made public might have been enough to prompt consumer watch-dog groups to warn citizens of that hazard. Perhaps multiple settlements might have led to an investigation into this industry practice. Of course, publicly recorded settlements might just have led this company to solicit professional advice and go on a moral diet, trimming some of the fatty profits derived from superheated beverages sold without disclosure of risk.

Having settlements entered into the public record would result in a change in our culture which has come to believe that anything, eaten in secret, has no calories. Corporate citizens suffer from obesity just as our human citizens but that can only happen in the ‘dark’.

Part III (Enforcing the Principles) will highlight my personal interest in these matters. I am not just an ‘Acceptable Risk‘, but also a litigant. I am the plaintiff in the following action:

Queens Civil Supreme
Index Number:  014425/2002
Case Name: RUBIN, BARBARA 3/P vs. MARATHON JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER/PRO-TECH PEST CONTROL
Case Type:Negligence
Track: Complex

Yes, complex indeed but the principle at the heart of the suit – full disclosure—is far from complex. TBC

Postscript: Interesting article here at the NY Times describing new commitment to justice on the part of lawyers. An encouraging read.

Certain cultural premises cannot be hidden although they may be dressed in the finest of linen. Certain terrifying realities about how women in society are viewed have come shining through the writings of two nationally prominent columnists in the NY Times – Nicholas Kristoff and David Brooks. While this blog concentrates on issues affecting health, the fact remains that women are disproportionately harmed by the corporate domination of research which develops and promotes the sale of environmentally and biologically harmful products. The decline in women’s health is considered more of an inconvenience and expense than a national indicator of misogyny. It is all disguised as being a necessary evil if you wish to reap the rewards of a of free-market economy. However, it is hard to call such an economy ‘free’, when it takes so many prisoners among the most vulnerable of consumers. These next three posts discuss columns written about violence involving women. I was shocked at what these columnists said–and failed to say– about my culture.

I came late to feminism due to a combination of inherited and earned privilege, which can sharply skew perception (and acceptance) of reality. A happy, lower middle class childhood meant luxuries were limited, but life was sweet, as loving parents sheltered me from their day to day struggles. There was sufficient food, a roof over my head and an education sharply monitored and reinforced by them. A second generation American, I grew up among those who escaped terrible persecution to come to the US. The worked in factories and even sweat shops, while going to night school, so their children would have better lives. Next to my chair in synagogues would sit elderly women with tattooed wrists. They were treated well in their families so my realization of how women are actually regarded in society was delayed.

That background prepared me to be more accepting of the observations and information that later came my way about hardship and its relationship to class and race. I learned about gender-privilege when faced with it again and again on the job. Reading the writings of anguished women thriving, or barely surviving, in the face of such obstacles led me to begin examining my own privilege. It became easier to recognize just how the inclusion of women within a culture is a gift bestowed upon us by men. It is just as swiftly withdrawn by men for any real or perceived infraction of their codes. As these columns reveal, women are actually held responsible for rectifying the failures of men which perpetuate the oppression of women.

Sisyphus , that mythological King who was condemned to spend all eternity pushing a boulder uphill, must have been a woman.

Meanwhile, Glaxo-Smith-Klein, maintains their earlier studies were conclusive in ruling out such adverse impacts for their product. However, if this item in the Triangle Business Journal is correct, legal settlements have already been made in more than 700 cases concerning this drug.

Wouldn’t it be cheaper to go to court and prove the drug did not have these adverse effects if the evidence were compelling? Or, are the costs of legal settlements merely part of the cost of doing business today? After all, given the enormous amount of dollars flowing into the coffers of some multi/trans-national corporations, settlements may be easily absorbed compared with the costs of further research and possible removal or modification of a product already in the marketplace.

This brings up important questions about plaintiffs’ attorneys. How moral it is to press for settlement after settlement in repetitive claims of harm for a product, rather than conduct a court-room trial on the matter? Trials set precedents and serve to limit future harm to those likely to repeat the experience of prior litigants and become the next generation of plaintiffs. Is litigation taken to the floor of a courtroom instead of a ‘back-room”, actually the most moral course of action?

Regardless, this may be indicative of how to best resolve discrepancies between a marketing firm’s data and the actual experiences of patients using a given product. The pool of available data about the incidence and nature of illnesses and injuries increases exponentially, when patients are enrolled in a public option for health care insurance. The potential savings alone from analysis of this data ought to pay for much of the costs for such coverage. This would certainly assist the FDA greatly in making tough decisions about approving drugs for sale, when to withdraw them or require further testing. As the public option would also be funding drug purchases, a great deal of attention would be paid to drug efficacy and the potential for adverse effects.

Here is the letter which went to the Times:

Re: NY Times editorial, “More Questions about Avandia” (7/5/10)

To the Editor,

Your editorial illustrates extremely important economic benefits to having a ‘public option’ in the provision of universal health care. Data regarding possible adverse outcomes from use of the drug Avandia, was only accessible because the 227,000 patients studied had Medicare coverage. Insured patients have records permitting impartial review of large numbers of cases.

Tallying the enormous price tag accompanying tobacco-related illnesses (CDC estimates $193 billion dollars annually in productivity losses, mortality and morbidity) led to ground-breaking legislation restricting smoking in workplaces. Diminishing rates of cardio-vascular disease have already reduced costs and much human suffering.

Universal health insurance in Europe brought about REACH, the requirement that vendors prove the safety of chemicals in products before marketing. The value of the ‘public option’ in matters of public health research and policy is clear.

Barbara Rubin

Postscript:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/health/policy/13avandia.html?nl=health&emc=healthupdateema2

More history about the research and development of Avandia.

This post began with an ad for perfume. For infants.

The fragrance industry has been under scrutiny by various consumer watch-dog groups given the fact that they are not subject to FDA regulatory oversight for product safety. Nonetheless, some fragrance chemicals have been identified as reducing lung function, disrupting hormonal levels, affecting the function of various organs and central nervous system activity etc. A summary of adverse effects upon users and secondary ‘consumers’ passively inhaling these chemicals can be found here:

http://www.ieconnections.com/archive/feb_08/feb_08.htm#article3

It is to be assumed – as with smoking – that consumers would take care in selecting the safest among such products for personal use and to minimize imposing unwanted contact with them upon co-workers, family and friends. Many workplaces now request employees not use ‘plug-in’ air fresheners emitting these chemicals into the air on a constant basis. Some landlords request that scented candles and incense not be burned inside their rental units as chemical absorption into sheet rock and carpets might discourage future potential occupants from renting those units.

Until such time as the industry chooses to offer full disclosure of each product’s ingredients, the wisdom of the selections made by consumers remain unconfirmed in fact. Of course, advertising continues to bombard the public with urgent messages that our health is in danger if we don’t spray fragranced disinfectants all around us. Our social standing is dependent upon the scents and colorants added to our personal care products from hair dyes to moisturizing lotions. Our mental health cannot be optimized unless chemicals imitating the odors of flowers, spices or ‘fresh air’ are floating about our homes, schools and offices.

When this ad came to my attention recently, I was simply amazed to see even the suggestion that the smell of fruit – when paired with the activities of caring for an infant or child – will lead to increasingly loving memories of that time once it is past. The scent is to be applied to the child instead of the nursery or care-giver. Interestingly, directions are given to apply the perfume to the clothing because application to the skin might ‘importune’ the child, even though efforts were made to ‘minimize’ potentially allergenic content.

The company marketing this product is based in Canada but markets extensively throughout the USA. I sent the following letter to Health Canada and the FDA with copies to pediatric physicians and the American Lung Association. Turning infants into consumers of perfume for parental enjoyment and the imprinting of memories is simply something that does the entire system of marketing in these two countries a great disservice. To all of you ‘consumers’ reading this blog, I encourage you to assist our corporations in making their best choices among the products they sell by speaking to them directly with your comments and indirectly (but most powerfully) with your consumer dollars. Patronize companies offering full disclosure of ingredients, particularly when buying products which will directly or indirectly affect children. We shouldn’t be playing Russian Roulette with our children given recent statistics on the incredible rates of chronic illness and learning disabilities among these most precious of our natural resources. Patents protect businesses from having their formulas hijacked by competitors. Trade ‘secrets’ merely keep consumers in the dark while competitors ferret out the information through laboratory analysis.

We should just ask for the information or consider buying from those willing to share it openly on labels or MSDS sheets. It makes no sense to buy a product that is supposed to enhance our life-styles but which interferes with life processes – our bodies – instead. Further consumer dollars merely make their way into the coffers of physicians and pharmaceutical companies while we combat the side effects of our adopted ‘life-styles’. It is the work of a moment to look at a package and see if it offers full disclosure of ingredients.

Take that moment and transform our economy into one of true capitalism in which informed consumers dictate which products deserve to be sold in our marketplaces and those needing to be changed or removed from our store shelves. That is a truly ‘free market’ philosophy. This is about a lot more than just perfume. For infants. However, there is no reason why we shouldn’t begin there. Here’s the letter:

To Whom It May Concern,

An advertisement for perfumes to be used on babies as young as one month of age, touts the emotional benefits to be found by mothers. The ad speaks of mothers finding satisfaction in later years by memories evoked by this scent being associated with the early years of care-giving.

http://us.fruits-passion.com/order/item.aspx?idprod=584&idcat=0

The corporation is based in Quebec but markets throughout the United States as well:

http://corpo.fruits-passion.com/en/profile/index.asp

As a retired developmental disabilities specialist, I find this to be of some concern. The perfume industry is not regulated in North America to the point of having to disclose ingredients for their products. We know from many sources that fragrances are rife with thousands of possible ingredients, of which a significant number have never been tested for the full range of their possible health effects. We do know that some fragrance chemicals cause reductions in lung function even for healthy adults; some are associated with central nervous system depression, endocrine disruption or may have have sensitizing/allergenic properties.

http://www.ieconnections.com/archive/feb_08/feb_08.htm#article3

Instructions for using this product includes warnings not to ‘importune’ a baby by putting the solution directly onto skin but to apply it to baby’s clothing. Health statements appear saying that efforts were made to minimize allergenic ingredients but the only specific information offered is that the product contains no alcohol, parabens or colorants. Recent research from Germany cites measurements of emission from scented toys which exceed permitted concentrations for some ingredients by EU standards or have been banned.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20307885

I recommend that Health Canada and the USFDA review this advertisement and consider the manner in which it is advertised and health claims issued (does ‘importune’ mean ‘endanger’?). Since this fragrance is being advertised as beneficial to mothers, why apply it to a baby or their clothing where it will be inhaled by the infant even during periods of sleep when there is no contact with the parent? Do these chemicals come out in the wash so there are no cumulative effects increasing emissions over time and repeat applications?

We cannot know because the fragrance industry has no mandate to disclose ingredients to consumers or any government agency. This is problematic when very young children develop symptoms since they cannot act as informants to offer specific clues as to the nature of their ailments. If a registry of ingredients for all products directed for use on or around children exists, then pediatricians and parents could at least submit FOIA requests for information about possible sources of health problems arising around the same time as the use of a particular commenced in a household.

Given our current state of knowledge about known and potential toxicity/allergenicity effects of some fragrance constituents, it is only sensible to have such a registry. Fragrances are added to many products intended for use on children including skin lotions and medicants, toys, laundry products and room disinfectants etc. Improved access to possible sources of developing problems so common in childhood such as asthma and allergies, can only assist the fragrance industry in better designing its products for that targeted consumer groups. At the same time, it addresses issues pertaining to public health.

Thank you for your attention.

Barbara Rubin

Given the fact that over seven million people live in public housing because they cannot afford to live elsewhere, these residents are basically required to become unwilling consumers of tobacco by-products. Of course, multi-unit housing is quite common in the private sector with a small but slowly increasing number of landlords mandating (but rarely enforcing) lease stipulations requiring smoking to be done outdoors. Property values come into play given the fact that smoke contaminates the environment with “… more than 250 poisonous gasses, metals and chemicals… .” Taking the extreme measures required to decontaminate these premises from residues (considered a tertiary form of passive tobacco consumption) also assumes landlords possess the knowledge of what needs to be done and the financial resources to expend on the astronomical costs of remediation.

A key concept described is that smoke cannot be prevented from drifting throughout an apartment nor can it be stopped from entering surrounding units. Residues from these poisonous substances are present in the urine of those exposed to smoke by both inhalation and contact with nicotine-contaminated materials.

Remember the discussions that followed the 9/11 attacks about the uselessness of employing duct tape and plastic sheeting to combat chemical warfare? Beliefs that gases coming from lit cigarettes can be contained within four walls, or absorbed by air purifiers, are part of a faulty public perception based in advertising.

Industry is happy to exploit the ever-present human desire for immediate gratification through fast acting chemicals to kill bugs and clean the furnace, regardless of the collateral damage done by those products. We want to cover the walls and floors with something cheap and decorative that will last forever.

We have a Disneyland-ish expectation that the poisons around us dissipate within hours, if not minutes. Affected people are expected to spring back to full health and vigor, like those animated characters in cartoons who have been flattened by bulldozers or dropped off of cliffs.

We measure residues by smell, never considering that most products today are marketed with perfumes or masking fragrances to hide the odors that normally signal chemical hazards. Carbon monoxide is odorless, yet we evacuate neighboring apartments when a stove leaks, and monitors are legally required in many states. Why aren’t we just
as concerned with cigarette smoke?

We now know that the dangers of tobacco are not limited to the delayed effects of exposure to its carcinogenic properties. Smoking bans have led to impressive reductions in cardiac and respiratory disorders in non-smokers, merely through restrictions in areas such as workplaces, occupied for only part of the day.

Imagine being freed of contact with such hazardous substances in smoke-free residences. Those choosing to smoke can always go to an outside designated location. Where will you go with your three-month-old infant or elderly parent suffering from COPD? Eventually, the costs of environmentally induced illnesses will lead to recognition of just how easily toxic fumes spread within buildings and permit a NIOSH or OSHA-like agency to assess indoor air quality within residential settings. That will lead to least toxic formulas being developed for pesticides, construction materials, cleaning products etc. Application methods will not just be determined by efficacy but also by residual amounts present in and around locations of product usage.

Please write a letter to the editor of this journal and thank them for offering important articles like this one for free access to all. Then ask them to solicit and publish research on other indoor air quality issues.

Be an armchair activist. Only through such articles can we remove the taint of industry claiming there is no ‘sound science’ to restrain their right to sell any product or service. However, without public awareness of that science, we can’t make informed decisions as consumers and voters.

My letter (unpublished) was as follows:

To the Editor,

Thank you for offering free, public access to the full text of the article, “Regulation of Smoking in Public Housing.”. This valuable information is now well summarized with references to sound science and policy for use by a concerned public.

This effort to reduce preventable morbidity and mortality among residents of public housing also brings to the forefront some long-avoided issues in indoor air quality. Measurements of toxic particulates drifting from application sites for paints, adhesives, pesticides or cleaning solvents into adjacent air spaces deserves the same attention as the migration of tobacco smoke. For instance, studies of environmental nicotine persistence are typical of how many toxic chemicals bond to dust and become embedded in our permeable belongings.

Citizens require oversight of residential air quality just as workers receive certain protections through the NIOSH and OSHA agencies. It begins with full disclosure of chemical use in and around residences so occupants have the potential to choose relocation over health risks. Physicans cannot respond appropriately ti illnesses induced by toxic exposures in the absence of patient awareness.

Barbara Rubin

In war, you know the identity of your enemy. Nicholas Kristoff asks an excellent question in this Op Ed piece for the NY Times, “Do We Really Want the Status Quo on Health Care?“. It identified lack of health care as part of the current status quo. The next question to ask here is just who or what is the enemy, taking out so many non-combatants each year? Is it health care costs? Certainly a single payer system would go far towards cost containment since the private sector is guilty of price fixing in setting values upon products and services – be it a mortgage or an MRI. Health care constitutes more than 17% of our gross domestic product for other reasons.

It’s a bit ridiculous to claim it is ‘overuse’ of services as we hear from the ‘party of No’. The last time I checked, people in the market for entertainment chose Disneyland over a visit to an orthopedist. Services are certainly not ‘overused’ by those without insurance and the many people who are ‘under-insured’. The latter individuals forgo many exams and medications due to co-pays and the need to cover that next health insurance premium which is really retained for catastrophic coverage. Nor are services ‘overused’ in the quest for a proper diagnosis in a culture of health care that is oriented to the control of symptoms instead identification of their source. Drugs may be ineffective for their intended purpose and many lead to serious adverse effects as well. Seeking out multiple physician opinions to obtain health care with a good outcome is not ‘over-use’ but a necessity until medicine matures sufficiently to return to cure-oriented treatments. This is well understood – and feared – by many Americans. I personally know one, very well insured person, who suffered a stroke rather than see a physician for check-ups to learn about having chronically high blood pressure and silent kidney damage.

If it is ‘just’ about sickness, then we need to utilize the renewed Patriot Act in order to force Congress to legislate universal health care. The enemy must find it incredibly comforting to know that Americans require huge amounts of health care because we are an exceedingly ill nation.

• One quarter of children have a chronic health condition.
• Nearly half of all adults have a chronic health condition.
• Our seniors, comprising more than 12% percent of our population will predictably require care and ‘end of life’ services. Medicare exists to provide them with a considerable degree of coverage for their conditions without the attendant blame for needing health insurance which is accorded to younger Americans without the funds to pay for it.

We are a nation of patients. Debating about caring for the sick is entirely based upon a premise that our country is first an economic system rather than a constitutional entity. The health care debate centers around the notion that offering a cost-effective public system of medical coverage to its citizens is unfair to industry because it removes a share of potential consumers from the marketplace. All discussion of competition between insurers (not even providers of care) relegates the science of medicine to an equal rung on the marketplace ladder with, say, that mysterious metal coil we call a ‘Slinky’. Are these really products and services we wish to consider identical to the marketing of toys within the marketplace?

If you can’t afford bread, it will be provided to you. However, you may have to ration those loaves carefully to last you for the requisite period necessary. Can a lesser tier of insurance provide a ‘half-cure’ for a disease? Ask any physician if you should take seven days of antibiotics for an infection which requires fourteen days of medication to achieve a cure. Patients have been known to cut short the length of treatment time for many infections in the hope that rationing their medication for their current illness will save costs for new prescriptions for their next illness. We know now that this approach merely leads to the growth of antibiotic resistant infections and far greater illness (not to mention costs) than had we assisted them with the full price of earlier treatments. Seizures are quite difficult to control in many patients without a minimum level of drug support and often combinations of drugs. The nervous system may not recognize the notion of ‘compromise’ based upon income. Should the acquisition of seizure medications be dependent upon the same economic system that markets that mysterious coil of metal we call a Slinky? Does our national identity become so lost if medical care is provided to all that it is better to consign 45,000 people each year to death for lack of medical insurance? Any war with that level of annual casualties would have the public taking to the streets in protest. Of course, this figure doesn’t even factor in deaths due to being ‘under-insured’. Again, how much compromise can one safely make with costly high blood pressure medications?

As with most issues which appear to be full of contradictions, philosophy dictates that we must check our assumptions. The ‘right’ side of the legislative debate (or the wrong side for purposes of this blog post) relegates the art and science of medicine to a commodity instead of a life preserving or life-saving practice. If medicine is strictly a commodity then it will remain available only to those with sufficient income for a comprehensive tier of medical insurance. The minimum wage only offers sufficient income to deprive earners of federal medical coverage granted to the ‘legally’ poor. The majority of insured Americans will eventually find themselves ‘under-insured’ in a marketplace where every buyer is guaranteed to need their full investment back when they get sick. With the escalating numbers of sick and disabled Americans, no insurance company can be considered a sustainable entity as fewer healthy people purchase their policies.

Since capitalism invites unsustainable businesses to go out of business, should medical care be considered part of that process at all? Medical care for humans isn’t a ‘choice’ as it is with veterinary care for pets. One can put down a sick Doberman or withhold treatment but is that option open to you with Aunt Edith? It would seem that regarding medical care as a commodity is the surest way to create death panels based upon income levels alone. Only the poorest, the elderly and the wealthy will be able to access care unless the insurance risk pool grows to include everyone AND we begin to deal with the excessive rates of illness. Controlling environmentally induced ailments will not just slow the rate of inflation but reverse it.

Let’s move on to another radical assumption about ourselves as Americans. Requiring a basic level of wealth in order to access health care services says that we are first and foremost consumers, rather than citizens. Our last administration was fond of terming us, “consumers” and the presidency as akin to the CEO of America. As consumers, we become subservient to corporations which claim they must not be required to compete with a government capable of offering the same essential medical services to its legal residents at a lower cost, i.e. Medicare. Why can’t they compete? Is there some reason corporations are supposed to be underwritten by the government to ensure the availability of customers or a particular profit margin? If the products and services of a company are out of range of most consumer’s wallets, wouldn’t any company naturally diversify or go out of business? Isn’t it corporate welfare to consign American citizens to the mercies of private insurers with no other options? Does that even guarantee any level of competition will exist?

By the time G.W. Bush left the gubernatorial chair of Texas, medicaid payments were so reduced that doctors could not afford to maintain a practice in poorer areas. United States ‘consumers’ were crossing the Mexican border to obtain services from clinics in Mexico. The government failed to meet even the meanest corporate standard of payment for essential services and certainly health care professionals are entitled to a living wage! A definite end to any government challenge to business.

No economic system should be confused with determinations of basic morals and ethics. Canada and European nations don’t classify medicine in the same category as other commodities. For the average commodity such as housing, food and clothing, one budgets according to one’s income. Those who can’t own, rent. Those who can afford to do so choose lobster over tuna. The cost differences between various brands of clothing is quite broad. Consumers choose accordingly but still remain housed, fed and clothed for the most part. Citizens in dire straits however, do receive food, clothing and housing. Why then is medicine assigned a lower rung on the ladder of necessary products and services? National identity is at the heart of this debate, not capitalism and competition. Further erasing the notion of competition being at the heart of this debate – revealing as such a position may be – true competition no longer appears to be part of our major industries. Price fixing is common today, as I recently found when looking at independent and assisted living facilities. Astonished by the notion that a small room in such a facility was deserving of a monthly, $2,100 price tag, even with a meal plan. I was informed by one manager that it was only fair not to undercut the prices of their competition too greatly. The presence of government options with little or no profit margin restores an absolute value to such products and services once more. All we’ve known in recent decades is relative value – the minimum profits agreed upon by trade associations without regard for demand in relation to production costs (varying according to quality).

Price fixing is the purposeful undermining of capitalism in order to restrict ‘fairness’ to corporate entities instead of the consumer. It restricts efforts to promote increased quality among similarly priced services wherever there appears to be sufficient numbers available to feed at the shared trough. Only when the numbers of ‘consumers’ available to take these small rooms in senior communities decreases, can a fall in charges can be expected. These ‘homes’ have many rooms going empty which is not, apparently, a threat to their continued operation. This is not a function of competition but of tacit agreement between corporate entities that one must take every last penny from a consumer’s wallet before declaring one’s profit to be at an acceptable level. Rooms go empty rather than be accorded an actual value which would be within the means of far more consumers and still be profitable for the vendor.

I had a similar experience with used car dealers. None would disclose what a car was worth until they learned of how much money I had to spend – carefully calculated by them according to my income. The worth of the car appeared to change with each successive journey the salesman made into his boss’s office during negotiations. I believe Saturn became a popular car based upon its sales policy of one price for all customers. Imagine that – a product with a singe value accorded to it regardless of consumer income. Comparing that view to that of the salesman in that assisted living facility is the best illustration of how capitalism has mutated into a form of gangster capitalism. When politicians begin expouding about maintaining a ‘free marketplace’, we must remember that the marketplace is never free when profit margins are pre-determined by official or unofficial trade associations. Instead of increasing quality and advancing new technology, vendors band together to break any newcomer so foolish as to actually exceed their level of service quality for the money in a sustainable manner.

Capitalism was supposed to spur the pursuit of excellence in industry. Progress depends upon it instead of solely relying upon tax incentives for industry to embrace new developments as older – and often hazardous – products and services are banned.

We must further go to the nature of our justice system which promises injuries can be redressed. With so much illness either known or suspected to be the result of pollution – a byproduct of industry which is largely ignored by government regulators – how can we permit it to go untreated? How can we wrest the costs from the victims of pollution? We’ve seen lead removed from paint and the outrage over of imported toys possessing that toxic ingredient. We’ve seen anti-smoking legislation reduce cardiac events by one third in participating municipalities. Pollution emanating from many uncontrolled sources is also causing asthma, heart disease, autoimmune disorders and cancers among other disorders. Why is the individual held responsible for their medical treatments when causation goes undeterred? This is an issue of justice as much as it is one of national identity. Are we citizens or consumers? If the elderly are allowed medical care, it is ageism to declare younger citizens to be dispensable in all matters medical.

Obviously, the real enemy is sickness. We have consistently failed to meet it on the honorable battlefield of medicine because – that’s right – we left the field of battle to lobbyists and their corporate sponsors telling dying people that it is better to be dead than participate in ‘socialist’ medicine. What, pray tell, should we do when reaching retirement age? Commit hara-kiri rather than accept evil, government-sponsored Medicare?

We know that voters began demanding universal health care, preferring a single payer option just one year ago, before slogans and tea parties began to frighten the average person into believing they are better off without health care than with an incomplete plan of action – as if any taxes paid towards that effort would ever even approach the charges of the average health care plan in America. That would not be the case if healthy Americans were paying reasonable premiums to, say, Medicare instead of a private insurer where overhead would automatically be greater lest an American CEO be left behind. Paul Krugman gives an excellent synopsis of the insurance game lest anyone remain in denial of how this process works.

Sickness may be the enemy but ignorance and denial leaves us without the weapons to fight it. We are thus far unarmed in a battle which is not about life. It is about ideologies which are counter to both the ideological basis upon which we are governed and to capitalism, our presumed economic system. There isn’t much more you can get wrong in politics.

Once the public realizes that freedom of speech does not ensure accuracy of content, we may begin to take our personal responsibilities more seriously, having fiddled while the District of Columbia burned. But don’t expect treatment at your local ER for your wounds unless you have great insurance. When Massachusetts voters decided that, having attained universal health care for their fellow Bay Staters, the remainder of the country could go without lest any part of that cost devolve upon them, it was clear that Americans no longer wondered about what was to happen the day AFTER tomorrow.

Perhaps the new conservatives they elected will be happy to suspend their health care once their state’s allotments no longer cover their citizens. Pretending you aren’t part of a larger nation is always a mistake. It takes an entire nation, not a village. Villages are razed all around the globe daily by the bullies and their minions- who also don’t think about the day after tomorrow.

Chemical induced injuries of war are still with us. Terminal illness is mounting among the rescue workers, as revealed in this news article titled, “9/11′s Delayed Legacy: Cancer for Many of the Rescuers” . Additionally we should recognize the health effects suffered by the crews which spent a year removing the carnage of 911. Their participation can easily be compared with that of military construction crews serving our nation such as the Seabees.

I recall those terrible days following the collapse of the towers and the helpless feeling as those black clouds passed over our city. The particles stained our buildings and became one with our bodies as we inhaled their unspeakable contents. As the shock of the attack upon home soil began to fade, further betrayal was experienced when subsequent hazards in the form of poisonous fumes were not just downplayed but actually suppressed by officials. Our leaders had a duty to ensure New Yorkers and responders were adequately warned and protected. Having been disabled myself by toxic fumes just a couple of years earlier, seeing the live footage of workers wearing flimsy surgical masks -if anything at all – was shocking, to say the least. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the hazards of a basic, average building fire and the events of 9/11 were most definitely not ‘average’ fires contributing some transient particulate pollution problem to a confined area. The magnitude of the destruction here could not have left anyone with a grain of sense in doubt as to the immediate and deferred effects.

In the immediacy of the moment, the responding heroes used what was at hand. That meant filters filled, quickly becoming useless so that responders couldn’t function with them in those early hours of the crisis. However, the situation didn’t appear to change over the successive days and weeks as misinformation was generated and publicized.

Someone recently found copies of letters to the editor of the New York Post which I had written in reply to that misinformation. They are reprinted below and should serve as reminders that contaminants in our air are largely unknown to us; greatly mischaracterized by those with profits at stake and often dismissed outright as folly on the part of fear-mongering hypochondriacs. In reality, we see that they do indeed pack a lethal punch in the form of many diseases our strongest and healthiest should never, ever have contracted in their youth. We are just learning about the impaired health of area residents and one of the letters below deals with school children.

From where I stand, we’ve learned nothing but, perhaps, how to be better at evading the truth. We are all veterans of lies which pit citizens of other nations against us and American against American here at home. Conflicts based in true misunderstanding can be resolved. Wars can bring about an end to tyranny. Unfortunately, when conflicts of interest are all that matters, profits from the immediate resumption of commerce and acts to mitigate future liabilities led us to sacrifice more of our best and brightest. Start digging more trenches over at Arlington. There are uncounted veterans of great LIES.

Letter to New York Post, Re: New York can Breathe Free, 9/21/01

To the Editor:

Your article of 9/18/01 entitled “New York can Breathe Free” is a prime example of inadequate research and concern for the residents of this city. The quotes given from only one medical source gives one the impression that anyone foolish enough to have symptoms of respiratory distress from the continuing rain of particulate matter pollution emanating from the WTC site is an alarmist who needs to see a doctor for “reassurance”.

I refer your journalist to the EPA, CDC and any other agency concerned with the public’s health and safety to see articles (predating this tragedy) about the serious health threats stemming from the normally high
concentrations of particulate matter in our air. Add to this the matter from pulverized concrete and glass, burning jet fuel, melted plastics, smoldering electrical wire etc. which will be rising for weeks and months to come and a real danger to our residents is exposed. Since there is an extremely high rate of asthma in this city, concerns must be expressed for the added burden this pollution presents which will claim more lives.

The treatment for asthma itself increases the assimilation of particulate pollution internally. Broncho-dilating medications open the constricted airways permitting more particles to enter the deeper recesses of the lungs.
Steroids are then given to reduce resulting inflammation. No one addresses the absorption of toxins bound to the dust particles which can have other systemic effects.

It is time to stop the pretense that the public does not continue to be at risk from the WTC tragedy and the proliferation of bad advice coming from official agencies and some media sources.

We should be providing HEPA filters to classrooms and offices in this city and outlying areas. People should be wearing filter masks in areas of the highest concentrations instead of relying upon medications to relieve
symptoms while exposing themselves to further pollutants. Physical exertion should also be minimized in these areas, perhaps cancelling gym classes for our children.

As for our rescue/cleanup workers, they should be wearing the highest quality respirator equipment that can be provided with frequent changes of cartridges as intake valves become clogged with contaminants. Contaminated clothing should NOT be laundered only to contaminate the rest of the family’s clothing. It should be placed in sealed plastic bags and discarded!

I would like to see the Fire Department issue an order that their men all follow these safely precautions just as the Police Department had to take safety matters into their own hands last year in the matter of the pesticide
spraying for West Nile Virus. The police department frequently had escort duties for spray trucks but had no exposure prevention guidelines to follow. A memo was finally issues within the department to tell officers how to minimize their exposure. All we heard from our health department, echoed in the pages of our newspapers, was that the spray did not constitute a health risk. Let us not make the same foolish assumptions here.

We must realize that the city administration and our regulatory agencies are all trying to prevent panic and disorder. However, panic arises when people cannot trust the information they receive, not when the truth about problems along with remedial procedures are presented. We are not children but adults living in the shadow of tragedy who need reliable information so we can take care of ourselves and help our neighbors.

Barbara Rubin

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Letter to New York Daily News, Re: Stuyvesant Students Sickened (10/18/01)

To the Editor,

Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Whitman continuously repeat their mantras of how safe the air is to breathe in lower Manhattan. Chancellor Levy occupies an office in Stuyvesant High School for a few days to show he is not subjecting children to an environment which he, himself, would not occupy. These words and gestures are meaningless to each student and teacher who is showing symptoms of respiratory distress or toxicity from
the very real fumes and abrasive dust particles emanating from the nearby ruins of the WTC. Measures to keep out such materials through the sealing of the building only generated a different toxin in the form of elevated carbon dioxide levels. Excessive CO2 levels also causes illness and can induce anxiety symptoms.

It is time we realized that we do not need the approval of those in authority to confirm what our bodies and minds are telling us about our environments. It is past time for us to free ourselves of feelings of
self-consciousness or fears of ridicule when we are made ill by environmental contaminants. For those fortunate enough to be symptom free at this time, the stress upon their bodies to stay that way is a waste of
physical resources. For those who are symptomatic, immediate action must be taken to remove them from the vicinity of the WTC. Children and teachers should not be exposed to the immediate and potential dangers for the sake of putting on a show for the tourist industry. “See, it is safe enough for children.” might as well be the caption under this picture, etched against a backdrop of particulate haze occupying the area around Stuyvesant High School.

The persons who suggested the school was ready to be occupied following an extensive clean-up operation must have assumed that the doors and windows of this building, so close to ground zero, would never again be opened. What possessed anyone to believe the rooms and halls would not be re-contaminated
with toxic smoke and abrasive dusts as recovery efforts continue for the next year? Now officials warn (or is it threaten) parents of the gifted young people attending this special high school that if they pull their
children out of school as a health precaution, they will not be allowed to return. The courts need to step in and issue an immediate ruling to prevent academic futures from being held hostage to the pseudo-science being practiced in NYC today.

The administration of this city specializes in denial of physical realities of health risks to the population. They call pesticides “safe”, as if their poisonous characteristics dissipate upon contact with humans versus the
knock out’ value to mosquitoes. They claim roaches are the major culprit in asthma exacerbation while exterminators spray huge amounts of poisons indoors where they remain airborne for many days and leave residues for months due to a lack of sunlight. The labels all state they should not be inhaled yet bus stops are sprayed only minutes before they are occupied by school bound students. Now, tons of rubble spew fiberglass particles into the air and we are told that these fine particulate pollutants are below the “level of concern”. There are no safe levels of exposure postulated for children, the aged or the infirm. Similarly, women appear to have lower tolerance levels for toxicants than do normal, healthy adult males.

Residents should take whatever precautions they feel are appropriate to take at this time, be it the wearing of appropriate NIOSH rated masks in streets or offices, use of gloves and surgical masks when handling office mail or the strategic flight of “at risk” persons from areas contaminated with the by-products of the WTC terror attack. Bowing to the dictates of reality is not a concession to terrorism but a tribute to our intelligence and adaptability. We can and will go on under all circumstances. However, we will do so sensibly with the full realization that the attack upon our persons continues until the last load of rubble is cleared and the last terrorist cell is disarmed. The costs of ignoring such realities can last a lifetime.

Barbara Rubin

Women in the US have long been fighting the issue of ‘provocative dress’ while arguing our own degree of culpability in male sexual aggression. Men have long been granted a tacit permission to be ‘overcome’ by the sight of female flesh and driven to violence in consummating their justifiably intense desire. ‘Dress’ has been addressed most prominently in court transcripts of rape trials, to the point of being included in the hard-won ‘rape shield laws’. These bar the prior sexual history of victims from being introduced into evidence. However, attorneys can still get matters of dress placed before juries under issues of implied ‘consent’ and, failing that argument, for purposes of evidence of struggle and semen/blood residues. They know the power of the universal acknowledgment that men are strong – except when confronted by feminine pulchritude. As reward for being the warriors of society, it should be theirs for the taking, given any degree of ‘encouragement’.

When we examine current norms for modest dress around the globe, the above article should tell the whole tale. Men will arbitrarily choose any degree of cover for a woman as sufficient or insufficient ‘assistance’ for them to avoid damnation by salacious thoughts and impulses. Be it sleeves below the elbows, skirts below the knee or a complete absence of flesh showing beneath volumes of fabric, men are at war with themselves in matters of sexual violence.

Even when women have become accustomed to having no region of flesh exposed to view, it can still be deemed inadequate by males to keep them sinless with regard to sexual attraction and behavior. Then comes the mandated protection of travel only with a male relative or other ‘owner/protector’ figure. That declares a woman as unavailable for one’s lust and thereby helps tame the sexual urge. Fear of other men, rather than respect for the woman appears to be the guiding impulse.

In the US where a large part of the country experiences very warm temperatures, will shorts or halter tops be considered normal garb or as a too-great temptation for male libidos? If it is bared, is it available to touch? If a part of a man is bare, would a man find it acceptable to be touched there…, by another man? If not, why assume it is acceptable to touch a woman without an explicit, verbal invitation to do so?

This news article is no less relevant to American women than to Sudanese women. Equality in the US will be denied us as long as men can point to other nations and extol the virtues of what has been marginally attained here. Freedom by comparison is a very dangerous way to conceptualize an absolute.

The following letter was sent to the editor:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/world/africa/08sudan.html?hp

Re: NY Times Article, “Sudan Fines Woman Who Wore Pants” by Jeffrey Gettleman and Waleed Arafat (9/7/09)

To the Editor,

This important case regarding legal mandates for women’s dress has been sparsely covered in the US, despite a relevance in the struggle for equal rights here at home. It is illustrative of how norms regarding modesty are mainly determined by male fears of temptation. The US has rape shield laws which limit introduction of information about prior sexual history for female victims at trial and about their clothing choices as well. However, dress remains uppermost in people’s minds when evaluating issues of ‘implied consent’ or when seeking evidence of ‘struggle’.What is sufficient to please?  Cultures differ vastly in this regard.

Requiring a victim to exercise ‘caution’ is never enough in a society willing to excuse violence upon any provocation other than self-defense. Prosecuting men for lack of inhibition is a better choice than prosecuting women for exhibition. The message remains clear and unchanging no matter the current, but ever-changing, societal norms.

Barbara Rubin

UPDATE: The Miami Herald has a follow-up on this story here -
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/world/AP/story/1227403.html

For those who have not seen the original article, it is here.
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Dear Wendy,

I appreciate your editor passing along my letter to you, as well as your reply. Unfortunately, I failed to make my point adequately. I certainly expect a WSJ contributor to have a working knowledge of the industry you are covering so am not surprised you have covered issues about this in the past. Unfortunately, this article fails to offer that same balance of knowledge to your readers. My critical look at this article is about what the reader fails to learn, rather than what you may or may not know. A brief mention of the facts about the absence of regulation in the ‘natural’ market sector and a line about this particular company’s track record was needed, given your assertion that Scotts is somehow doing something extraordinary through expanding their marketing into a realm that has a name with no meaning attached to it. The pursuit of profit is not new nor extraordinary. It is a positive step taken by all businesses for their expansion. Whether or not it is a positive step within a marketplace which respects the consumer as a partner in capitalism, is another issue entirely.

Reading some of your other writings on this subject, you refer to pyrethrum as a natural insecticide. In fact, have you ever seen a product which only incorporates pyrethrum? A synergist called piperonyl butoxide has been added to those formulations which render them highly toxic. Pyrethroids are synthesized versions of pyrethrum with a similar ‘punch’ through the addition of synergists, other pesticides (combinations are common) and even the delivery solvent which is toxic in itself. There is nothing natural about these products other than the urge for deception in the marketplace.

Pyrethroids caused brain damage in many who served in the Gulf War of 1990. Landmark studies by Robert Haley and Mohammed Abou-Donia showed the effects of combinatorial exposures to pyrethroid insecticides with DEET and other chemicals. The results can be disastrous. The misapplication of the term ‘natural’ to marketed poisons may cause disability and death to some people. We know these pesticides have already invaded our waterways despite being the solution to presumably more toxic organophosphates.

Banned in recent decades as too toxic for casual use, former vendors like Scotts also defended those as terrific products. Industry never admitted their hazardous natures, content to protest the withdrawal from the marketplace as a political issue. Add in some more slander about Rachel Carson and you have a terrific denial of reality. In case you haven’t looked at the history of pesticide regulation, DDT was only banned because mosquitoes had, by and large, become resistant to it. No environmentalist ever had that much clout!

You described your ‘demo’ experience with the sprayer as an advance over existing technology. Do you actually know this to be a good choice of equipment for applying poisons? Do you actually have knowledge of the chemical you applied, its persistence, degree of potential drift via that appliance or efficacy in comparison with wettable powders which might not travel as far as a sprayed liquid?

Lastly, completing a piece about ‘weeds’ with a comment about knocking out fire ants seemed to be a complete non-sequitur. It compares the very real hazard presented by fire ants with dandelion control. If one is safe enough to do around grandma, why not the other? In fact, the use of pesticides to fight fire ants may be a good idea but not if done with a sprayer or with many available chemicals. Perhaps alcohol might work as well or CO2 gas. Pests can be killed via many strategies which do not require lasting damage to the environment and the user.

Every lawn is surrounded by people who have no say concerning their forced exposure to chemicals applied by its owner. Second hand smoke is outlawed because it causes cardiovascular and pulmonary damage to unintended consumers. Pesticide drift is not regulated despite being carcinogenic, neurotoxic, disruptive of reproductive and developmental health, endocrine systems, an irritant and sensitizer and a persistent pollutant of ground water. The list is much longer but I will spare you the rest. Until the consumer has a passing understanding of pesticide drift, persistence and the contamination of indoor environments, they can never weigh the importance of their goals in applying them. Having a golf course quality lawn does not compete with guarding their property against termites or fire ants.

I am basically objecting to the absence of risk/benefit discussions from such articles. Business entails risk and good economic policies ought to be directed towards helping business people minimize risk. It should not simply transfer risk from the vendor to the consumer because we all ultimately pay for the results. One in six children is now developmentally impaired in some measure; nearly a third of adults between 16 and 60 have health problems. It is time for industry to realize the connection between falling productivity and rising health care costs. They share the same underpinnings and a lot has to do with industry’s stocked shelves of toxic products. If a consumer is going to select a ‘natural’ alternative to a product they deem undesirable, we need to be clear on if it is actually an alternative at all.

Ask vendors whether or not their natural products will adhere to public perceptions of that label (‘natural’) or just legal standards for such adjectives.

Barbara Rubin

Most of us aren’t buying pigs these days, but products containing pig parts abound, a hundred times further down the line from the porker’s origins as a farm-dwelling mammal. Good old Porky is transformed, not just into sausage but also medicine, floor wax, glue, crayons, lipstick, buttons and antifreeze.

That raises the question of why we put our trust in salesmen who not only lack solid scientific understanding about their own products but have no legal obligation to provide it to us. The Wall Street Journal recently demonstrated this form of folly in an advertisement masquerading as a news article.

Gwendolyn Bounds advises us of a new type of lawn care product, in development by the Scotts Corporation, which falls within a class she calls the “naturals”—products derived from non-synthetic source materials like soy. Ms. Bounds, like the CEO of Scotts, her sole informant for this discussion, never actually states that these “naturals” are less toxic/safer than other products. But the average reader is sure to interpret the story as one of a corporation committed to making a non-toxic product that kills pests and weeds, all because U.S. law has no definition for the use of the term “natural” in marketing. All a company has to do is submit information about its product’s active ingredient to satisfy regulators, who are solely concerned with bestowing marketing approvals for such ingredients.

The consumer needs to be informed of the full contents of the final, marketed product, which will have added ingredients serving to prolong shelf life, provide ease of delivery to surfaces and increase the ‘punch,’ or actual toxicity. How many times have we heard that lovely little chrysanthemums provide us with low-toxicity pesticides called pyrethrum? Yet the applicators don’t tell you it is combined with solvents and synergists, which jack up the level of toxicity and diminish bodily defenses against it.

Delivery devices were discussed in the article, but we weren’t told that such things aren’t regulated at all on a federal level. Ms. Bounds may have used a new sprayer to apply a “more targeted” dose of poison to an area, but she has no idea of how far the drift from it will go as the poisons volatilize into the air over the next few weeks. There was no mention of how long the delivery solvents will cause residues to stick to shoes and bare feet, so the poisons can be tracked into your home and car.

The CEO of Scotts has a lot of help in ensuring his product line is warmly regarded by those who believe they are being told the truth. Unfortunately, until word definitions are entered into a new dictionary of MARKETPLACE DEFINITIONS, as opposed to those of standard English, health care spending will continue to increase significantly from one year to the next. We are at the mercy of the marketplace and our own, willful ignorance. Caveat Emptor, indeed. Particularly when it comes to press releases, er, articles in business periodicals.

My letter to the WSJ:

______________________________

Re: WSJ article, Where the Grass is Made Greener by Gwendolyn Bounds

To the Editor,

The primary informant for this article is Scotts’ CEO, rendering it an advertisement which denies readers crucial information about the science of pest and weed control. Industry has no duty to reveal the contents of their products, and consumers have no legal ‘right to know’ under trade secret laws. The term ‘natural’ has no legal meaning and does not exclude toxic constituents from products so labeled.

Before asking consumers to trust a company to sell them poisons (‘cides’), it is a good idea to investigate the track record of that company with regard to employee safety, pollution around manufacturing sites or note past product recalls by regulators. Instead of questioning environmentalists about hypothetical products still in production, the WSJ ought to consult with scientists associated with the EPA at such institutions as the Oregon University Extension Service.

That is the difference between a piece of journalism and a press release. You can do better than this.

Barbara Rubin

______________________________

Useful sources of information do not have to be unbiased. They just need to offer up useful facts:

Genetically Engineered Grass
EPA orders Scotts to stop selling certain pesticides
Corporate Watch UK