As the discussion of this proceeds in three (and more) Huffington blogs, guess who is chiming in — in a sponsored blog (his first) as a ‘top food and drug safety expert?’ It’s a Strategy Executive from the IBM emerging technologies group. What is his food safety know-how? Why, it’s in the use of tagging barcodes for food tracking, an area of “tremendous growth,” Paul Chang says. Food safety is a big industry for IBM, which is why they decided to capitalize on the salmonella scare by weighing in on the need for more tech solutions as proposed by the upcoming Food Safety bill, discussed later in this blog.

Salmonella is a problem– but a lesser problem when eggs are grown via healthy practices from the start. Moreover, the bug is killed by cooking.

In response to the newly minted food crisis, an article in the New York Times raises the implicit question: Should we vaccinate hens as they do abroad to prevent such outbreaks? Even though the article reports that, “the F.D.A. said that only large-scale field trials could prove that a vaccine would work in the real world of commercial henhouses,” the salmonella outbreak could easily lead to a call for more vaccines. Hard upon the salmonella scale, CNN reported on a recall of “tainted meat” in Walmart-distributed deli meat sandwiches, which contained listeria, that “could be lethal.” Will public concern over these threats ultimately result in improved Food Safety, or amp up fears that drive the passage of upcoming legislation that ultimately makes food less safe?

So let’s first consider why we permit industries to raise chickens in filthy, inhumane conditions. Or feed them feed they were never designed to eat, that contains unhealthy byproducts? The near inevitable result will be disease and infections in animals and food, with vaccinations and antibiotics used to address the resulting illnesses.

Animals “raised on industrial farms are routinely fed antibiotics to make them grow faster and compensate for overcrowding and unsanitary living conditions,” urges the non-profit organization, FarmAid. “This overuse of antibiotics creates stronger and more drug-resistant bacteria that can cause tragic results.” Such as antibiotic resistance in humans, a rising health concern.

Further, there is little scientific research into whether the antibiotics, vaccines, growth hormones, and pesticides absorbed by livestock are passed along to humans who consume them, though new studies indicate that they may well be.

Though many recognize the downsides to this agricultural, food, and health management infrastructure, it’s less clear how to shift it. The upcoming Safe Food legislation is a good place to begin. If, the bill passes in its current form, how long can the health conscious avoid such foods and choose organic? Will healthy food options still be available long-term without a change in the public policies and resource allocations that support the monolithic food model, and wipe out other smaller, safer food production options?

With the salmonella outbreak immediately followed by the “tainted meat” recall, I couldn’t help but note the timing– a prelude to the impending Food Safety bill S510, coming up this fall in Congress. What a coincidence that the outbreak is perfectly timed to scare the public into spending millions of dollars of tax payer money on legislation which:

• Builds bureaucratic compliance mechanisms that serve the industrial agricultural food chain, while unnecessarily burdening organic growers and small farmers, who operate at a safer, smaller scale. Ironically, growers with safer practices could be driven out of business meeting such requirements.
• Gifts the FDA with unprecedented powers despite its poor track record in enforcing existing safety measures
• Increases costs astronomically while not increasing actual on-site inspections. Perhaps some of those costs are for sophisticated tracking technology rather than actual improvements in safety practices
• Forces across the board compliance with the WTO, a first internationally.

If these twin food scares build momentum for the bill’s passage, the real question may become: what is the cure for an opportunistic infection — of fear?

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Although not stated in the bill’s language, a number of Senators expressed hope that under the next Gubernatorial administration, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation will work to craft improved regulatory guidelines aimed at addressing a host of serious problems that typically are reported followed drilling. Apart from the routine seepage, air pollution, water contamination, and health risks cited, nearly two thousand accidents have been reported. Additional areas of concern noted by legislators include:

• Contamination of water supplies,
• The need for disclosure of so-called proprietary chemicals used in fracking so that health risks can be assessed
• The disposal of hazardous radioactive materials,
• The use of and compensation for public resources, including water and roads,
• The compensation for damages and destruction of property, tap water, and health
• The costs and health risks to first responders of clean-up efforts following accidents,
• Setting appropriate taxation for an enterprise that entails much community disruption and risk; and other complaints

.

Several Senators, including Senator Kevin Parker, of the the 21st district in Brooklyn, noted that the staffing of the DEC, which has sustained major personnel cuts in recent years, is not currently adequate to the task of either defining appropriate policies, or monitoring them. In hard economic times, Parker asked whether gas companies, profiting from New York’s natural resources, would be the ones to bear the additional costs of ramping up staff to address a host of issues arising from prospective gas drilling–or whether New York taxpayers would foot the bill.

“Is natural gas really worth it? “Will we be penny wise and pound foolish to allow fracking to endanger New York City?” Parker asked his colleagues, pointing out that NYC is not only a major economic center of New York State, but also of the U.S.

“Is it worth it to endanger watersheds without proper study? Let’s slow down and prepare for economic opportunities not rush in headlong. Currently, with its disseminated staffing, the DEC is not prepared to do the studies that will tell us whether fracking will endanger New York’s watersheds. Let’s learn from past mistakes. Let’s not forget that the state of Georgia went through water shortage. Are New Yorkers prepared to turn on the tap and not have clean water that to drink?”

Please check out my blog on becoming an environmental health activist here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison-rose-levy/act-now-become-an-environ_b_668656.html

For health science, news, and action, sign up at www.healthjournalistblog.com

Now the laws that most of us assume are there to protect us, our children, our food, our environment, even our drinking water–no longer exist. With gas drilling contaminating water with toxic chemicals nationwide, and 80,000 untested chemicals in use for over three decades, votes in Congress (and the New York State legislature) this week are long overdue. And this is our last opportunity before new legislatures in January to act.

Will health conscious people step up to become Health Activists to support a triad of bills up this week? Or will we remain Health Ostriches, making our personal choices, without making sure that our elected officials enact laws that protect our health?

“We react after the fact when the damage is done. Rather than preventing exposure that could lead to harm, we’re way behind the 8-ball,” says Richard Denison, Ph.D, Senior Scientist of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF.)”We’re all being exposed in ways we don’t understand. We’re not monitoring and tracking. What we’ve learned is that people around the globe are being exposed to hundreds of chemicals, many of which we know from lab studies with animals are linked to serious chronic diseases. Yet that understanding is coming too late.”

Preventive health, anyone?

The Safe Chemicals Act would require chemical producers to prove safety, targeting toxic chemicals which migrate into our products, foods, earth, air and drinking water. The CLEAR Act would, among other things, force gas companies to reveal the toxic chemicals used in a process called “fracking,” that has contaminated water nationwide, following an exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act, orchestrated by Dick Cheney. As we speak, supporters of a ban on gas drilling in New York State are urging State legislators to bring a moratorium to the floor for a vote.

It’s hard to see, taste, or smell these hidden chemicals so it’s easy to play Health Ostrich. But many people experience their health impact. Even the 2010 President’s Cancer Panel, consisting of Bush appointees, concluded that these chemicals are a major unaddressed causal factor in cancer. Yet we lack research, sound toxicological models, public health driven safety policies, and treatments to address them.

“In our research and policy framework, we’re not applying what we know about cellular biology,” says Denison. The ongoing and cumulative effects of the toxins alters cellular pathways that cascade down to affect many functional areas of the body.

The reality is that we and our children are Health Guinea Pigs, participants in an ongoing experiment in to the health consequences of unregulated, untested and unavoidable toxic exposures.

Will making green purchases help? Slightly, but not significantly.

“You can’t solve this problem on an individual basis,” says Denison. “Our use of chemicals, is so ubiquitous and extensive — there’s no “away” you can go to — to avoid having toxic and persistent chemicals in your body. Case in point: High levels of flame retardants show up in arctic residents, even though they don’t come near any products that contain them.”

Current laws give a higher priority to protecting so-called trade secrets than they do public health, thus allowing chemical producers and oil and gas companies to conceal the chemicals they use, even when these chemicals confer serious health risks.

“The overbroad secrecy provisions in current law threaten public health,” says Kenneth Cook, President of the Environmental Working Group (EWG). Because companies are allowed to conceal chemical data, “Researchers and the public simply do not know how many of those chemicals are present in our bodies and in newborns,” says Cook. “The more we look for them, the more we find them. Toxic chemicals are found in the placentas of newborns. Industrial chemicals that cross the placenta to contaminate a developing child should be placed at the top of EPA’s to-do list. Few factors translate to greater risk to health.”

And when newborns begin life already pre-poisoned, it’s obvious that personal choice can readily be trumped by health risks we allow as a society.

That’s why our good intentions won’t be enough to pass laws that affect our health and our children’s. But clicking a link, or making a phone call to your Senator today — right now — just might help. Here are a few calls you can make this week to become more involved as a Health Activist.

To empower the EPA to require industry to prove chemical safety, follow links at the Environmental Defense Fund.

Or at Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families.

And the Environmental Working Group.

Act to clean up the Gulf, and close the Halliburton loophole, and require gas companies to reveal the nearly 600 hundred toxic chemicals they use nationwide.

Update:The New York Senate passed a temporary moratorium on drilling through May 15, 2011 with a vote of 48- ayes, 9- nays. Thanks to all the grassrooters who dedicated themselves to protect New York’s water.
For ongoing health and environmental actions, news, and science, sign up for my free weekly ezine at www.healthjournalistblog.com You can listen to my radio interview with Safer Chemical’s Andy Igrejas here.

Click the Play button to listen.

Click the Play button to listen.

Click the Play button to listen.

Click the Play button to listen.

Surprise! Our new pal is as concerned as we are about safety in chemicals, and even in oil and gas drilling. Well, maybe not as concerned. But concerned.

The ACC wants to assure us “that information and dialogue have the power to create change: in our industry, in our communities, and in our world. Our member companies are investing in the future through community outreach projects.”

Dialogue and change are important? So glad you feel that way. Want to talk? Music to our ears.

So let’s talk whether or not our new BFF is on the same page with us.

According to the 11 million people in the Safer Chemicals Coalition, we need “Public safety information for all chemicals, and prompt action to phase out the most dangerous chemicals.”

Our BFF wants to delay action while only studying a handful chemicals already proven dangerous, rather than all 80,000 others.

Gosh, do we have less in common than we thought?

Well, let’s see where we all stand on options for chemical safety testing:

Should we test the exposures as we actually experience them in real life?

Should we study one chemical at a time with no reference to actual exposure levels and combinations as they show up in people? The ACC wants it that way. Too bad no one lives in a lab.

Can we still save our friendship? Let’s see.

Next, we’re concerned that BPA is a reproductive health risk. We want to protect our kids.

When California proposed its new BPA ban, did our new BFF support it? No, they spent $5 million trying to defeat the new BPA ban.

Hey BFF, Is this what you mean by “community outreach?” What a pal!

“For the last year the chemical industry has expressed support for reform and taken bows for being forward thinking,” said Andy Igrejas, the director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. “Yet they have relentlessly attacked reform efforts in Congress. We hope to expose that contradiction and urge Congress to get tough on toxic chemicals now.”

Now it turns out that the ACC wants us to meet its BFF– the gas and oil industry. Their poor friend is not very popular at the moment. They can’t think why.

Since this is our new BFF’s BFF, let’s listen when the ACC stands up for its buddy. “With proper oversight, the (oil and gas) industry should be given the opportunity to continue doing its important job,” says the ACC President in a recent post in the Hill’s Congress blog. “With the chemical industry already facing high costs for energy, intense foreign competition, and razor-thin margins, we need domestic, competitively-priced oil and gas more than ever.”

Talk about close friends! What a bond. Let’s all hold hands.

Wait a minute. “Competitively priced.” Haven’t I heard that before? Doesn’t that mean something like despite billions in profits, we can’t afford safety?

Where does our new BFF’s BFF really stand?

Well since the Gulf disaster, which neither the oil industry nor government can remediate, do our new friends want to go back and do their homework on adequate safety measures? Not exactly. They oppose any ban on drilling to do that.

Well, let’s take the practice of hydraulic fracturing gas drilling, which injects into the earth billions of gallons of water mixed with 595 toxic chemicals. Hey, chemicals. No wonder the ACC is a stand-up buddy for oil and gas drillers.

Natural Gas, called NG by its pals, is hot, new, and trendy, and insists it’s oh-so safe and green, despite explosions, spills, groundwater contamination, and air pollution. Since our quote unquote natural new pal was exempted by Dick Cheney from the Clean Water Drinking Act, did NG volunteer to adhere to it? No.

Did NG volunteer to make chemical information available? No.
Will NG hold back from forcing its friendship on New York until environmental studies and good regulation can assure safety practices to protect New York City’s unfiltered water supply? No.

Hate to spoil this new friendship, but… With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Watch this clip that shows what your wannabe BFF says behind your back:

It looks like NG’s fave shade of green is military drab, as in march in and take over. Hopefully, in upcoming elections, Americans will be less naive about “friendly” legislators tempted by deep pocket offers and economic promises from our former BFF’s and their clique.

Do you know who your real friends are? What kind of friend are you? Do you stand up to be counted with friends who stand up for you? Or are you too busy with your own stuff?

Hope you don’t mind this gentle reminder. Cause isn’t that what friendship’s all about?

Ask your Congressman to support strong provisions in the New Safe Chemicals bill in Congress right now.

Just in from Josh Fox, director of Gasland, Yesterday the Delaware River Basin Commission, which has the duty of protecting water used in PA, NJ, and NY, granted permits for frackers to take public river water, and dig wells in the river basin basin area. WRITE THEM NOW to object. clarke.rupert@drbc.state.nj.us and carol.collier@drbc.state.nj.us and pamela.bush@drbc.state.nj.us

Protect Gulf clean up workers from toxic chemicals.

Save Gulf wildlife

Demand safety before drilling to protect New York’;s water supply.

Follow me on FB, Twitter, @AlisonRoseLevy, and my green health action and information blog at: www.healthjournalistblog.com

The peaceful Delaware River-- now the most endangered river in America

Since it was first used in arid regions of the Southwest, it’s impact in rainy, hilly regions, has never been thoroughly studied for environmental impact, but gas drillers (along with rural farmers signing away their rights hoping to win the gas lottery) are urging New York State legislators to bypass planned EPA studies and green light the gas bonanza.

Breaking News:
PA Environmental Protection announcement: Cows in Pennsylvania quarantined after drinking contaminated frack water, which leaked into in a field, killing grass there.

Today and tomorrow comes the fateful decision. Will legislators bring up the proposed two year ban for a vote, or allow it die in committee before their six month recess? Will they agree to a one year “compromise” ban so that they can reshuffle the legislative deck in next November’s elections? Are downstream city dwellers immune from fracking chemicals in their water supplies? Let’s find out!

What’s Your Water Quotient: Take the Gas Drilling Quiz

1. Who makes fracking fluid? (Halliburton or Celestial Seasonings?)
2. Who exempted fracking fluid from Safe Drinking Water regulation (Dick Cheney or the Little Mermaid)
3.How much fracking fluid stays in ground after drilling? (85% or a few drops of holy water)
4. What’s in fracking fluid? (Nearly 600 hundred proprietary toxic chemicals or the same ingredients in your mouthwash)
4. Geology of upstate NY drilling locale near watershed? Multiple choice:
a. Rivers that flow downstate to NY, NJ, and Philly
b. Rainy zone on hurricane path with seasonal flooding and little flood control near upstate watershed
c. Water confined within red Sharpie lines drawn on map by politicians
5. What’s protecting NYC watershed from drilling?
a.”Promise” by Chesapeake Gas
b. “Promise” of case by case impact studies by NYS Dept of Enviro Conservation– yes, they’re the ones who promised drillers to fast track gassing by December
6. Guess who’ll contribute big time to November election of State legislators? Fill in the blank__________________
7. Guess which state may turn red with big infusion gas money? __________________
8. Guess which downstate residents may get a big surprise when poor upstate residents sell land and waterways in gas lottery?_______________________
9. Fracking will affect the water supplies or how many people? (17 million or 1,000 upstate residents of rural communities)
10. What about upstate organic, local, and sustainable agriculture? (Decimated, or Not to worry, we’ll grow vegetables and fruits hydroponically on a rooftop in Greenpoint, using water trucked in from Canada)

Sum total: Guess anyone in New York, New Jersey, or Philadelphia, better call legislators this week if they like drinking water.

Take action:http://www.catskillcitizens.org

Take action: http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/alerts/view/6

Related articles: Mark Ruffalo talks to Alternet: http://tinyurl.com/2g6lrv5

Chemicals left in ground: http://tinyurl.com/ygdoqo2

Halliburton Loophole: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison-rose-levy/gasland-will-new-york-be_b_617072.html

Sign up at www.healthjournalistblog.com for green health insight, action, and radio shows

W.B. Yeats in his 1919 poem The Second Coming, painted a picture that seems all too accurate today:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Now is the time for passionate intensity among those of conviction.

In the first call of three available here, the Evolutionary Leaders, who include wisdom teachers and authors, like Deepak Chopra, Jean Houston, Marianne Williamson, Michael Beckwith, Don Beck, Lynne McTaggart, Debbie Ford, Brian Swimmne, and Rustum Roy made clear that in their view, we are briskly approaching a planetary tipping point. At a tipping point, the choices we make are critical.

We need:

• The best scientific and technological ingenuity

• The human/social capacities, of group organization, communication, ecological and emotional intelligence

• The spiritual strengths of equanimity, mindfulness, and caring for all of life

Can seekers become as skilled at action as long-standing warrior-style activists? Can a spiritually integrated approach serve to resolve stalemates, mediate between opposing agendas, and guide people in transforming self-serving attitudes that block or resist timely action? Can an organized spiritual collective galvanize and empower people who don’t act because they don’t believe they can make a difference?

As fisticuffs, claims, and counter-claims erupt on the visible surface of political life, deep within each one of us lives a secret cry, silent as the screamer in Edvard Munch’s famous painting, begging to be heard, beckoning us to our calling: to find a voice, a way, a commitment to act and contribute for the sake of our common good and survival. As the call rises to the surface, it transforms into the fragile hope to serve, a quavering conviction that perhaps we can make a difference.

In the Call to Sacred Action, Lynne McTaggart strengthened that hope and conviction by inviting all participants to visualize the Gulf, restored over several years by creative technology and caring. In the eight point plan, intention and prayer complement rather than substitute for concrete action, which clearly is vitally necessary. The Evolutionary leaders offer the heartening reminder that precisely because the stakes are so high, so is the potential for breakthrough if we seize the opportunity.

The question is: how?

(1) Deepak Chopra is evolving an eight point plan which covers these basics:

(2) Support, contribute, volunteer, and learn about reliable organizations and groups working on environmental solutions

(3) Make greener choices in our daily lives

(4) Invest in companies offering long-term ecological and energy solutions

(5) Support education that helps people see the connection of all life

(6) In his talk in the Gulf Call to Sacred Action, Chopra reminded participants that:

“The earth is our physical body. The atmosphere is our breath.The rivers, lakes, and oceans are our circulation. Let us not let the Earth become uninhabitable. Change begins with consciousness that directs us into action. Let’s go down the road of action, following the invigorating, energizing, call to action that this current catastrophe has inspired.”

Sign up to participate in the next Gulf Call on July 6th here.

To join the Collective Creativity dialogue and read the Eight Actions, sign up here.

I’ll interview Evolutionary Leaders on on-line radio in the coming weeks. Sign up at www.healthjournalist.com to hear them and take action.