Project Censored Alerts: teflon in drinking water, computer chip in drivers liscence, read on for more fun, kids!

Project Censored Alerts


Teflon: Potential Health Risks

Perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, is being found in the drinking water around the United States and it could potentially cause health risks. PFOA is a chemical that is used in the manufacturing of Dupont's Teflon. Teflon is a type of plastic that is used to make fire resistant cables, the thin white tape used in plumbing, Gor-Tex and other waterproofing membranes, as well as non-stick coatings for pots and pans.

The problem with this chemical is that it easily dissolves in water, allowing for easier consumption by the public. This chemical has been in use in industry for fifty some years, and Dupont-lead studies have found no PFOA in pots or pans. However, current research has shown that this "Teflon Chemical" is found in people's blood (in the parts per billion range), around the nation as well as around the globe. The risk is that the chemical is potentially dangerous, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now showing a greater concern with the chemical than before. Recent government studies have shown that PFOA can cause developmental effects in laboratory animals at low levels. Other research has shown that PFOA may be linked to cancer as well as pose risk for birth defects. Researchers suspect that most of the PFOA in our blood may come from the breakdown of telomers, which are produced when Teflon is dissolved in water. The Plastics industry is completely denying that PFOA causes cancer and/or birth defects, maintaining additionally that the manufacturing of this chemical does not account for the widespread human exposure to PFOA.

Source: Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) Journal
"Teflon Chemical: It's in Your Pots and Pans and it's probably in you"
by Cheryl Hogue Synopsis by Brent Kidder

Corporations Granted Relief from Pollution Regulations

The thirty companies that own most of the dirtiest power plants in the country have raised 6.6 million for President Bush and the Republican National Committee since 1999, and were given relief from pollution regulations that would have cost them billions of dollars. This is because these companies hired at least sixteen lobbying firms, which met with Dick Cheney's energy task force to help formulate the country's energy and pollution policies. In addition, some plant industry executives were given key positions at the Environmental Protection Agency, which has attempted to exempt many of these corporations from the pollution control requirements by relaxing the rules. Some of the emissions that these companies release include sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide, which pose higher risks to Americans in terms of asthma attacks, lung ailments, and premature death.

Source: Asheville Global Report No. 278, May 13-19, 2004
By Finn Finneran Synopsis by Deanna Murrell

Computer Chips in your Drivers License

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Oct. 6th urged Virginia not to become the first state in the nation to place radio frequency identification chips in its driver's licenses. RFID tags are computer chips attached to tiny antennae that are capable of broadcasting their data wirelessly to anyone with an RFID reader. They are currently used for "contactless" applications such as tollbooth speed passes. Almost everyone carries a driver's license, and RFID chops allow people to be tracked. This proposal would allow anyone to set up a reader and capture the identities and personal information of every person who comes within range. FBI agents, for example, could sweep up identities of everyone at a political meeting, protest march, gun show or Islamic prater service.

Source: Asheville Global Report "ACLU against Chips in VA Driver's: Licenses"
Credit ACLU October 14-20 No. 300 Synopsis by Allison Lewis

Women's situation much worse than before the fall of Hussein.

Since the fall of the Ba'ath regime women have been under siege. They now live in constant fear of abduction, assault and death. Abductions are now so common that daughters are being kept home from school and women cannot leave the house without the accompaniment of male relative. Women who have been abducted are often quietly killed by their families to clear the shame. There are also no statistics because reporting to the police would often times mean death. Those who are not released after abduction are often sold into the flourishing business of prostitution. The poverty that has been afflicted upon these women has left them no other options but prostitution, but those who are thought to be prostitutes are often beheaded.

Women in Iraq once were much better off, and held an enviable status in the Middle East. The Iraq constitution declared the equality of women in 1979, and in the early 80's women were 40% of the work force. Equal pay and benefits were mandated, but in 1991 at the time of the invasion of Kuwait, women's rights began to erode. In 1990, a new penal code was enacted to allow honor killings of women. Article 409 permitted men to kill female relatives who were raped to restore family reputations and any women who were suspected of adultery or engaging in premarital sex could be murdered.

Since the fall of the Ba'ath regime, Islamic fundamentalist groups have emerged with the intent of imposing their views and taking control of Iraq. They are not allowing women to go to work, forcing them to wear veils, and making them second-class citizens. The U.S. government chose the members of the puppet government in Iraq, effectively placing the fundamentalists in power and imposing these sanctions on the women of Iraq. If the Iraqi people had been able to vote and choose their government these people never would have come to power, because few people would have voted for them. America has put Iraqi women in this position, and as long as profits are insured for western investors, change for them is unlikely. A government like the one that has been imposed is less threatening to western profits, with little regard for the women and other people it is ruining.

Source: Covert Action Quarterly Spring 04
"Assault on Iraqi Women"
by Gregory Elich Synopsis by Amanda Pyle

Miami Profiteers Evicting Alameda CA Renters

Protests at Alameda City Hall are becoming a normal ritual lately because so many low-income families are being threatened with forced relocation due to a lack of fair housing laws. A Miami-based corporation is evicting at least 1,200 people from their homes in the Harbor Island Apart complex.

Harbor Island is a group of 10 buildings that were bought by Mark and Ian Sanders of the Fifteen Group out of Miami, Florida, back in 1996. Waiting until the surrounding neighborhood had become gentrified; the brothers recently decided that the time was right to evict the community from their homes to maximize profits by renovating the complex and bringing in a whole new group of higher income renters.

In their mid-30's, Mark and Ian Sanders, owners of Harbor Island and the Miami-based Fifteen Group, own or operate at least 14,700 rental housing units across the nation, have approximately 375 employees and pull in more than $100 million a year between them. Not shy of exposure and apparently proud of themselves, the Sanders brothers have left a trail of displaced renters in their wake as they continue to build their profiteering empire.

Regina Tillman, originally from San Francisco, has lives at Harbor Island since 1978 when the rents were only $117 a month for a two-bedroom unit. The complex had two popular swimming pools then. "It's a modern-day lynching going on here," Tillman said, "a modern day lynching of the community. They're destroying the future of a community and all the families that have resided here for so many years."

Protestors from Harbor Island and supporters have been showing up at recent City Council meetings to demand that the evictions be halted, but little more than lip service has been offered by city officials to denounce the evictions. In addition, no effort has been made through the years to enact a just cause anti-eviction ordinance to stop this kind of tragedy from occurring in Alameda. At this point, only 150 renters remain at Harbor Island. The renters who remain at Harbor Island are determined to stay in their homes somehow and figure out how to fight the Sanders Brothers as best as they can.

Source: San Francisco Bay View August 25, 2004
"Miami Profiteers evicting Alameda renters"
by Lynda Carson Synopsis by: Travis Byrne

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