July 15th, 2010
ROME — A court-ordered study has found that electromagnetic waves beamed by Vatican Radio leave residents living near the station’s antennas at a higher risk of cancer, Italian media said this week.
“There has been an important, coherent and meaningful correlation between exposure to Vatican Radio’s structures and the risk of leukaemia and lymphoma in children,” the report said, according to the daily La Stampa.
The report also warned of “important risks” of dying of cancer for people who had resided at least 10 years within a 5.5-mile radius of the radio’s giant antenna towers near Cesano, about eight miles north of Rome.
A Rome judge ordered the report in 2005 as part of an investigation into a complaint filed in 2001 by Cesano residents who alleged health hazards posed by the electromagnetic waves.
A 2001 investigation by Italy’s environment ministry showed that magnetic fields in the area were six times more powerful than allowed, while Rome’s Lazio region estimated that the rate of deaths from leukaemia among children in the Cesano area was three times higher than in adjoining areas.
Vatican City, the world’s smallest state, is an enclave of Rome covering 0.17 square miles.
Source: The Vancouver Sun
Tags: cancer
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July 9th, 2010
To those who say that government isn’t the answer to our problems, we offer this rather egregious list from Move On of the top-10 reasons we need more — not less — governmental oversight.
Exxon Mobil made billions in profits, and yet paid not one dime in federal income taxes in 2009.
The 2005 energy bill had a little known provision, commonly called the Halliburton Loophole, which exempted natural gas drilling from the Clean Water Act. The result? Water so contaminated that you can light it on fire.
Massey Energy was cited more than 2400 times for safety violations in its mines, but chose not to fix potentially lethal problems because low penalties meant it was cheaper to simply keep paying the fines. This spring, 29 miners were killed in an underground explosion at a Massey mine in West Virginia.
Michael Taylor was the FDA official who approved the use of Monsanto’s Bovine Growth Hormone in dairy cows (even though it’s banned in most countries and linked to cancer). After approving it, he left the FDA—to work for Monsanto. Until last year, when he moved back to the government—as President Obama’s “Food Safety Czar.” No joke.
Internal Toyota documents outline how the company was successful in limiting regulator actions in the recalls last year—saving hundreds of millions while the death toll continued to climb.
GE and its lobbyists—including 33 former government employees—have successfully lobbied Congress to override Defense Department requests to cancel a GE contract to work on a new engine for the Joint Strike Fighter jet. GE will need $2.9 billion to finish the project.
Top executives at 9 big banks including Citibank, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley paid themselves over $20 billion in bonuses just weeks after taxpayers bailed them out to the tune of 700 billion dollars.
During the waning days of the Bush administration, officials responded to a long-term lobbying campaign by pre-empting product liability lawsuits for dozens of entire industries. They bypassed Congress entirely and rewrote rules ranging from seatbelt manufacturing regulations to prescription drug safety.
Sunscreen manufacturers including Johnson & Johnson and Schering-Plough, in the interest of profits, are opposing an FDA proposal requiring full reporting on sunscreen labels. The New York Times just confirmed that current SPF ratings don’t even measure sun rays that cause cancer.
And of course BP—a company with a record of 760 drilling safety and environmental violations—was granted safety waivers in order to operate the deepwater drilling rig that ultimately created the worst environmental disaster in US history.
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June 23rd, 2010
In 1933, the Johns-Manville Company settled with an attorney on behalf of 11 former Manville employees, all asbestosis victims. The attorney received $30,000 for the victims, in exchange for a written promise that he would not “directly or indirectly participate in the bringing of new actions against the Corporation.”
This fact did not come to light for more than 45 years. In the meantime, the company was able successfully to avoid damage suits. Had the public known about this settlement, it is likely that the hazards of asbestos would have come to light decades earlier.
Companies like Alcoa that used asbestos in its daily manufacturing processes have denied knowing that asbestos exposure could be a danger to those who worked closely with the mineral. In fact, these companies have managed to set the late-1960s as the benchmark for when they could have known about the dangers of asbestos — nearly 40 years later!
Asbestos has been linked to mesothelioma, an aggressive and deadly form of cancer. It is difficult to diagnose and symptoms often take 20-30 years to manifest. Usually, by the time symptoms show up, it is too late to save the patient.
Tags: Asbestos, asbestos exposure, Asbestosis, cancer, Mesothelioma
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