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The Government Lies to the American People About the Safety of Gulf Seafood
The Centers of Disease Control (CDC) just announced:
For
the seafood to pose a health risk, the food would have to be heavily
contaminated with oil, and would therefore have a strong odor and taste
of oil.
That is patently untrue.
As I pointed out in June:
Crude oil contains such powerful cancer-causing chemicals benzene, toluene, heavy metals and arsenic.
***
As Bloomberg notes:
“Oil
is a complex mixture containing substances like benzene, heavy
metals, arsenic, and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons -- all known to
cause human health problems such as cancer, birth defects or
miscarriages,” said Kenneth Olden, founding dean of New York’s CUNY
School of Public Health at Hunter College, who is monitoring a panel
on possible delayed effects.
Corexit
breaks down oil into constituent chemicals. So there could easily be
toxic levels in the Gulf of compounds that don't smell anything like oil.
For example, arsenic is odorless. So fish contaminated with arsenic will not smell or taste like oil.
And crude oil contains mercury. Mercury is odorless, so fish contaminated with mercury will not smell or taste like oil.
As McClatchy notes today:
The
Gulf of Mexico oil spill still poses threats to human health and
seafood safety, according to a study published Monday by the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association.***
In
the short term, study co-author Gina Solomon voiced greatest concern
for shrimp, oysters, crabs and other invertebrates she says are have
difficulty clearing their systems of dangerous polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons (PAHs) similar to those found in cigarette smoke and soot.
Solomon is an MD and public health expert in the department of medicine
at the University of California at San Francisco.
In the longer term, she expressed worries about big fin fish such as tuna, swordfish and mackerel, saying levels of mercury from
the oil might slowly increase over time by being consumed by fish
lower in the food chain and becoming concentrating in the larger fish.
As
time goes on, she said, doctors may be warning pregnant women and
children to strictly limit the amount of such fish they eat. Some of
the fish had relatively high levels of mercury even before the oil
spill, she said.
Moreover, Corexit is itself toxic.
Many of the ingredients of Corexit are either odorless and tasteless
or have very different smells and tastes from oil. For example, Corexit
contains propylene glycol, which is nearly odorless, with a faintly sweet taste. And some versions of Corexit contain 2-butoxyethanol which has a fruity rather than petroleum-like smell.
Finally, Corexit interacts with crude oil to form new compounds.
No one has thoroughly studied the range of new compounds which might
be formed by the interaction of Corexit with crude oil, let alone what
they taste or smell like.
And see this.
In addition, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco says that oil doesn't bioaccumulate in fish, and that fish naturally "degrade and process" the oil:
However, as the above-quoted article by the Journal of the American Medical Association states:
Shrimp,
oysters, crabs and other invertebrates ... have difficulty clearing
their systems of dangerous polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) ....
Accumulation of PAHs occurs in all marine organisms.
Benzene, toluene, arsenic, heavy metals and many other components of crude oil also bioaccumulate.
In addition, NOAA admitted in Congressional testimony that dispersants may bioaccumulate.
Finally,
Lubchenco says that we can be assured that Gulf seafood is safe because
only fishing areas which are free of oil are being reopened.
That is also false.
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Actually, the more Relevant Option is the Red or Blue Pill.
Yeah, I don't plan on having any seafood on my plate unlessI know exactly where it came from. Or time to break out the fishing pole and hit some freshwater lakes to suppliment my diet.
Wild salmon not found in GOM, and good for you too.
Anybody notice someone took the time to go through the posts here and junk the anti-BP posts?
BP whores should be banned from the site.
Even if you know where it came from, how do you know where its been? :-)
I don't think the government planned on the fishermen being the ones outting for lying to the public regarding the safety of GOM seafood.
DDT is Good for Me-e-e!
http://www.asds.org/ClassProjects/HistoryDay/Christina09/RachelCarson/DDT_is_good_for_me_files/DDT-Household-Pests-USDA-Mar47c.jpg
Here's a great quote from a Govt. handout:
"DDT was first used during the war for military needs by trained experts and under careful observation. It was used successfully to control the malaria-bearing mosquitoes, typhus-carrying lice, and other insects threatening the health of our Armed Forces. From this we know that DDT can be used safely. In the United States not a single case of DDT poisoning in humans has ever been proved when the material was used against insects."
http://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/DDT-Household-Pests-USDA-Mar47.htm
By that logic, Corexit must be fine too - I'm convinced, how 'bout you?
Got Tuskegee?
That much Oil and Corexit flows into the GOM, we know the GOM is dead, we'll be lucky if iy doesn't kill off a substantial part of the N.Atlantic...there are no two ways about this, it's been written in stone. ..exactly what is the point of standing up in front of a freight train truth like this?
I don't really expect the GoM to become a giant death zone, let alone the Atlantic, but the government has to think we're a bunch of idiots to believe that this isn't going to make a lot of the wildlife unfit for human consumption.
Goerge,
You may be the first sane person who has ever viewed and then published a link to that web site.
That's Disturbing.
Ummmmm, I know I can be slow at times but what web site did GW link to that is disturbing you? You don't mention which one and GW linked to many in this article.
"Ummmmm, I know I can be slow at times but what web site did GW link to that is disturbing you?"
CNN?
Yes, but...CNN can't hold a candle to the vague bullshit rolling out of the White House these days. Remember...CNN is just a malignant toadie. The stunning and embarrassing amount of bullshit that rolls out of the "official source" will deliver 10 kilotons to the forebrain before you can say "WTF?"
I have a strong, tinfoil-hat-inspired feeling that it would be whitehouse.gov. Thank you, thank you...I'm here until the bank kicks me out.
seeing how much of the public remain zombie like and actually eat the seafood.
:)