An Amazing Story…

The roots of the company stretch back over 200
years to the beginning of the English china industry.

The company’s impressive history is dotted with the names of Queen Victoria, Louis Pasteur, and King Edward VII. From its humble origins on the banks of the Thames river, it grew to become the premier name in water filtration.

 

 

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John Doulton
On the eve of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, John Doulton was taken into partnership by the widow Martha Jones who had inherited from her late husband a pottery in Vauxhall Walk, Lambeth, by the side of the Thames river. Her foreman John Watts was included in the partnership and the new firm became Jones, Watts and Doulton Company. John Doulton founded his first pottery that same year, 1815, at Lambeth, England on the banks of the Thames river.

The main products of the original company were ceramic busts, figurines, canning jars and tableware. Influenced by the unrelenting progress of the Industrial Revolution, Doulton placed equal emphasis on industrial applications for ceramic technology. It was John Doulton’s son, Henry, however, who carried that tradition of the Lambeth pottery to its zenith.

Henry Doulton
As early as 1827, Henry Doulton developed ceramic filters for removing bacteria from drinking water.

 

“Offensive to the sight, disgusting to the imagination and
destructive to the health”This was how London drinking water, drawn from the Thames, was described in a pamphlet published in 1827. The Thames was heavily contaminated with raw sewage; cholera and typhoid epidemics were rampant. The first Doulton^® water filters were made using various earth and clay materials. By the time Queen Victoria came to the throne, Doulton was well established as a manufacturer of domestic and industrial products in a fine stoneware body that bore comparison with any in Europe.

Queen Victoria
In 1835, Queen Victoria recognized the present health dangers in her drinking water and commissioned Doulton to produce a water filter for the Royal household.

Doulton created a gravity fed stoneware filter that combined the technology of a ceramic filter with the artistry of a hand crafted pottery water container. By 1846, the Lambeth factory was in the vanguard of the revolution in sanitation technology and products which Chadwick, and the great reformers of the day, brought to metropolitan England. Without the hard work and foresight of Henry Doulton that revolution would have been delayed by decades.

Henry Doulton introduced the Doulton^® Manganous Carbon water filter in 1862, the same year that Louis Pasteur’s experiments with bacteria conclusively exploded the myth of spontaneous generation and proved that all microorganisms arise from other microorganisms.

Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur’s research into bacteria made it possible to focus the efforts of Doulton Filter’s Research and Development toward the creation of a porous ceramic capable of filtering out these tiny organisms. With Pasteur’s advancements in microbiology, Doulton’s Research and Development department, headed by Henry Doulton, created micro porous ceramic (diatomaceous earth) cartridges capable of removing bacteria with better than 99% efficiency.

 

Doulton Filters were rapidly adopted by the military, Crown Agents, hospitals, laboratories and domestic users throughout the world.In 1862, Doulton filters shown at the Kensington International Exhibition proudly wore the Royal arms of Queen Victoria.

King Edward VII
In 1882 Henry Doulton acquired a small factory in the Midlands, motherland of the Staffordshire potteries and the home of the Doulton Drinking Water Purifier. In 1901, King Edward VII knighted Henry Doulton and in 1902 King Edward VII conferred the double honor of the royal warrant and the specific – as opposed to the assumed – right to use the title “Royal” for his work on drinking water filtration.

This Royal Warrant authorized the company to use the word ROYAL in reference to its products. Along the way the honors were won at the great international exhibitions in Chicago and Paris and the range of products proliferated. Queen Victoria bestowed upon Doulton the right to embellish each of its units with the ROYAL CREST.

In 1906, Doulton introduced a filter that proved to be equal to the one Louis Pasteur had developed in France. It was rapidly adopted by hospitals, laboratories and for use in domestic water filtration throughout the world. The popularity and effectiveness of even the early 20th century designs has resulted in their continued use world wide. The range and efficiency of Doulton^® domestic water filters have been widely extended over the years to meet the demands of increasingly sophisticated uses.

 

Doulton^® ceramics are now in use in over 150 countries.British Berkefeld
In 1985 the British Berkefeld^® brand was acquired by Doulton Industrial Products, the manufacturer of Royal Doulton® water filters, a company whose name has been synonymous with high quality and reliability since the early years of the twentieth century.

Today the British Berkefeld^® name is the preferred choice for water purification products in world-wide locations where outbreaks of illness are associated with unreliable water supplies.

The Royal Doulton Visitor Center was opened in May 1996 within the heart of the Royal Doulton factory in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, the “Mother Town” of the Potteries. Visitors walk through original factory buildings dating back to the mid-nineteenth century, which have been beautifully refurbished as the Home of the Royal Doulton Figure.

In July 1998 the Visitor Center was named Visitor Attraction of the Year in its category by the Heart of England Tourist Board.
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            Prominent researcher apologizes for pushing fluoride

Barry Forbes
The Tribune, Mesa, AZ
Sunday, December 5, 1999

“Why’d you do it, Doc? Why’d you toss the fluoride folks overboard?” I had just tracked down Dr. Hardy Limeback, B.Sc., Ph.D in Biochemistry, D.D.S., head of the Department of Preventive Dentistry for the University of Toronto, and president of the Canadian Association for Dental Research.

(Whew.)

Dr. Limeback is Canada’s leading fluoride authority and, until recently, the country’s primary promoter of the controversial additive. In a surprising newsmaker interview this past April, Dr. Limeback announced a dramatic change of heart. “Children under three should never use fluoridated toothpaste,” he counseled. “Or drink fluoridated water.
And baby formula must never be made up using Toronto tap water. Never.”

Why, I wondered? What could have caused such a powerful paradigm shift?

“It’s been building up for a couple of years,” Limeback told me during a recent telephone interview. “But certainly the crowning blow was the realization that we have been dumping contaminated fluoride into water reservoirs for half a century. The vast majority of all fluoride additives come from Tampa Bay, Florida smokestack scrubbers. The additives are a toxic byproduct of the super-phosphate fertilizer industry.”

“Tragically,” he continued, “that means we’re not just dumping toxic fluoride into our drinking water. We’re also exposing innocent, unsuspecting people to deadly elements of lead, arsenic and radium, all of them carcinogenic. Because of the cumulative properties of toxins, the detrimental effects on human health are catastrophic.”

A recent study at the University of Toronto confirmed Dr. Limeback’s worst fears. “Residents of cities that fluoridate have double the fluoride in their hip bones vis-a-vis the balance of the population. Worse, we discovered that fluoride is actually altering the basic architecture of human bones.”

Skeletal fluorosis is a debilitating condition that occurs when fluoride accumulates in bones, making them extremely weak and brittle. The earliest symptoms? “Mottled and brittle teeth,” Dr. Limeback told me. “In Canada we are now  spending more money treating dental fluorosis than we do treating cavities. That includes my own practice.”

One of the most obvious living experiments today, Dr. Limeback believes, is a proof-positive comparison between any two Canadian cities. “Here in Toronto we’ve been fluoridating for 36 years. Yet Vancouver – which has never fluoridated – has a cavity rate lower than Toronto’s.”

And, he pointed out, cavity rates are low all across the industrialized world – including Europe, which is 98% fluoride free. Low because of improved standards of living, less refined sugar, regular dental checkups, flossing and frequent brushing. Now less than 2 cavities per child Canada-wide, he said.

“I don’t get it, Doc. Last month, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) ran a puff piece all across America saying the stuff was better than sliced bread. What’s the story?” “Unfortunately,” he replied, “the CDC is basing its position on data that  is 50 years old, and questionable at best. Absolutely no one has done research on fluorosilicates, which is the junk they’re dumping into the drinking water.” “On the other hand,” he added, “the evidence against systemic fluoride in-take continues to pour in.”

“But Doc, the dentists.”

“I have absolutely no training in toxicity,” he stated firmly. “Your well-intentioned dentist is simply following 50 years of misinformation from public health and the dental association. Me, too. Unfortunately, we  were wrong.”

Last week, Dr. Hardy Limeback addressed his faculty and students at the  University of Toronto, Department of Dentistry. In a poignant, memorable meeting, he apologized to those gathered before him. “Speaking as the head of preventive dentistry, I told them that I had unintentionally mislead my colleagues and my students. For the past 15  years, I had refused to study the toxicology information that is readily available to anyone. Poisoning our children was the furthest thing from my mind.”

“The truth,” he confessed to me, “was a bitter pill to swallow. But swallow it I did.”

South of the border, the paradigm shift has yet to dawn. After half a century of delusion, the CDC, American Dental Association and Public Health stubbornly and skillfully continue to manipulate public opinion in favor of fluoridation.

Meantime, study after study is delivering the death knell of the deadly toxin. Sure, fluoridation will be around for a long time yet, but ultimately its supporters need to ready the life rafts. The poisonous waters of doubt and confusion are bound to get choppier.
“Are lawsuits inevitable?” I asked the good doctor. “Remember tobacco,” was his short, succinct reply.

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 Probe urged into fluoride in water link to cancer

The Irish Examiner 09 Jan 2002

By Fionnuala Quinlan

THE Government has been urged to investigate the link between bone cancer and fluoridated drinking water after a study found 40% more people in the Republic contract the disease than in the North.

Research carried out at Boston University of School of Public Health, using data from the Irish National Cancer Registry and its northern equivalent, found 40% more people suffer from the rare bone cancer osteosarcoma in the Republic than the North, where water is not fluoridated.

Irish Dentists Opposing Fluoridation warn that the research is consistent with existing studies which have linked osteosarcoma to fluoridated drinking water.

Spokesman Dr Don MacCauley said that while the Irish study did not conclusively link the cancer to fluoridation, it underscored the need for urgent research into the health effects of adding 2,000 gallons of hydrofluosilic acid to drinking water in the Republic.

“The legislation, which permits fluoridation in this country requires the Minister of Health to carry out health studies into the effects of nearly 40 years of this mass-medication. This research has never been done,” Dr MacCauley said.

“Another fluoride health alert is screaming but when will the Minister of Health start listening? When will the minister fulfil his duty and carry out the health studies required by law?

“It is outrageous that there are still no plans for health studies.

“Instead, Minister Martin has delegated his responsibilities to a pro-fluoride sham of a forum, which cannot even get its act together to report on time,” Dr MacCauley said.

The report by the Government’s Forum on Fluoridation was due for publication at the end of October, but it has been postponed until later this month.

Fluoride has also been linked to cancer, irritable bowel syndrome, hip fractures and thyroid disorders, while an American study found fluoride exposure could produce lower IQ levels in children.

Ireland is the only country in Europe to insist that drinking water be fluoridated.

“In spite of all the evidence about the dangers of fluoride, Ireland has never carried out a survey. That is illegal,” Dr MacCauley said.

Director of the National Cancer Registry Dr Harry Comber said osteosarcoma was a relatively rare cancer of the bones which usually affected children and teenagers up to age of 20.

However, he cautioned against drawing firm conclusions from the osteosarcoma research in the Republic and the North because he said the disease was relatively rare and the populations on both sides of the Border were quite small.

A spokesman for the Department of Health was yesterday unavailable for comment.

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Once Again, the Kooks Are Vanquished

by Paul Carpenter

Gazette’s Introductory Note:  In January, 1999,  the City Council of Allentown, PA voted to fluoridate the city’s drinking water after  heated public controversy.  The following article by columnist Paul Carpenter appeared in the Allentown Morning Call in late January.

Doctors recommend Camels by a margin of 2 to 1.

Not only that, but the federal government enthusiastically supports the tobacco industry with enormous subsidies and official studies proving that smoking is good for you and that critics of the tobacco industry are a bunch of kooks.

I didn’t make that up. In my youth, as far as the American Medical Association and the government were concerned, there was something wrong with anyone who said smoking was harmful.

I was happily smoking up a storm at that time — Camels, you betcha — and some kook researchers came up with outrageous claims about a link with cancer and heart disease. I clearly remember the term that federal officials then used to describe those claims: “pseudo science.”

The tune has changed, of course. Eventually, the kooks’ claims about the virulence of smoking could not be ridiculed away. In the meantime, one wonders how many were killed by the poisons in tobacco smoke.

During Allentown’s fluoridation debate, I again heard the term “pseudo science,” this time to describe the claims of anti-fluoridation kooks.

As I noted Friday, the feds and the American Dental Association finally won their 40-year fight to get Allentown to join other righteous communities that add the industrial toxic waste known as fluorides to water.

Dentists recommend it by a margin of 2 to 1, you know. The ADA says it prevents cavities, and dentists will be glad to give up cavity-fixing profits out of the kindness of their hearts.

One of the things I mentioned in Friday’s article was a claim by one of the anti-fluoridation people who spoke during the public portion of Wednesday’s City Council meeting. (Following that portion, council approved fluoridation in a 5-2 vote.)

Rosemarie Doward said the ADA itself had admitted that dentists’ profits increase when their area is fluoridated. (I said that may be because a dentist gets $57 for fixing a cavity while raking in up to $700 per tooth for fixing fluorosis, a discoloration problem caused by fluoridation.)

That’s a kook’s claim if ever there was one, but I later tracked down the ADA publication upon which Doward based her statement.

The nice people at Lehigh Valley Hospital keep back copies of the Journal of the American Dental Association, and there it was on page 364 of Volume 84, February 1972.

The net income of dentists in fluoridated areas and “fluoride-deficient” areas were compared, JADA said, and the income in fluoridated areas is 17 percent higher. That crass admission was embarrassing back in 1972, obviously, and the ADA never again released such data.

Also Friday, I mentioned a California dentist, David Kennedy, who founded an anti-fluoridation group, Citizens for Safe Drinking Water.

I telephoned Kennedy in San Diego and he didn’t seem like a kook. His grandfather was a dentist, his father is a dentist and he is a dentist.

“I used to support fluoridation,” he said. “When the science became clear that it was not a benefit, I stopped supporting it.”

Kennedy said respected studies in America, Europe and elsewhere have revealed links to cancer, bone fractures and other problems, but are being ignored here. “From the very beginning, it (fluoridation) is a scam. It’s a way to dispose of a hazardous waste (by) claiming a benefit,” he said. “There is a profit motive for the ADA. The ADA is paid by companies that have a fluoridated product.”

Kennedy also noted that the only country in Europe that still has widespread fluoridation is Ireland. Take a wild guess which European country now has the worst dental health.

While you’re at it, consider that the fluoridation industry is pouring $50 million a year into campaigns to get California communities fluoridated. That’s because only 15-1/2 percent of Californians are forced to drink fluoridated water, compared with half of the people across the nation.

Take another wild guess about how California’s dental health, including cavities, compares with that of the nation as a whole.

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Study: showering boosts concentrations of potentially hazardous trihalomethanes

 

By DAVID WILLIAMSON
UNC News Services

May 2, 2002

CHAPEL HILL — Trihalomethanes — byproducts of interaction between chlorine used to disinfect water and organic matter found in raw water — increase significantly in the bloodstream after showering, a new study shows. Public health experts suspect the chemicals may boost the risk of cancer and contribute to reproductive problems such as miscarriage.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health, involved 50 women living in Georgia and Texas. It showed that showering shifted the distribution of trihalomethanes (THMs) in blood toward that found in the tap water in volunteers’ houses.

Another finding was that the distribution of trihalomethane species — there are four chlorinated and brominated forms — detected in the women’s blood reflected differences of type and concentration in their respective local tap water.

A report on the research appeared in April in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. Primary authors are Amy M. Miles, a former public health graduate student at UNC and now an environmental engineer at Research Triangle Institute, and Dr. Philip C. Singer, professor of environmental sciences and engineering at UNC.

“Chlorination of tap water was one of the most important improvements made in public health, and it saves countless lives each year by reducing risk from bacterial contamination,” Miles said. “Water-borne diseases used to be a major cause of death and illness, and they still are in some parts of the world without chlorination.”

Despite its obvious benefits, if chlorination creates its own lesser but significant risks, as many scientists believe, it needs to be studied further, she said. Many water treatment plants are switching to alternative disinfectants to reduce trihalomethane concentrations in drinking water.

The new study aimed to evaluate whether health workers could use drinking water concentrations of THM to predict concentrations in people’s blood, Miles said.

Researchers picked Corpus Christi, Texas, and Cobb County, Ga., to investigate, she said. That’s because water supplies in the former showed moderately high levels of chloroform, the most highly chlorinated THM, and, in the latter, lower total THM concentrations but a higher proportion of brominated species, which are believed to be potentially more hazardous.

Through blood sample analysis, researchers measured THMs in the blood of 25 women at each site before and soon after they showered and compared those levels to concentrations found in tap water at their houses.

“Concentrations of THMs were about 1,000 times lower in blood than in tap water, but after the showers, median levels in blood increased by a factor of four,” Miles said. “This showed THMs were getting into the blood as a result of water use. It could not address, however, whether the concentrations were harmful or were linked to any particular health problem.”

Future studies by Singer and colleagues will examine various trihalomethane exposures more closely, including those caused by inhaling the compounds from air inside houses, she said.

Report co-authors are Drs. David L. Ashley and Michele C. Lynberg of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Pauline Mendola of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Peter H. Langlois of the Texas Department of Health and J.R. Nuckols of Colorado State University.

Support for the research came from the American Water Works Association Research Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the EPA.

 

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Why the War Against Pot? 

by Hardly Waite, Gazette Senior Editor

Have you ever wondered why the United States spends vast piles of money and squanders immeasurable amounts of human talent and natural resources in the effort to combat a benign substance like marijuana?

Have you wondered why the US is now the only industrialized country to criminalize a substance that is obviously far less harmful than the majority of legally sold pharmaceuticals?

Kate Silver, writing in the Nov. 13, 2001 Las Vegas Weekly, has some answers.

In case you haven’t guessed, like everything else in the USA, it has to do with money. It has a lot to do with the end of the Cold War, Silver says.  When the Cold War ended, ” enormous needs for certain technology and personnel were eradicated. Once America declared its infamous War on Drugs, those needs were refilled.” It provided a new “enemy” and thus created a vast number of new government jobs and a major new source of technological endeavors to be managed by government bureaucrats. It turned the Cold War inward and allowed us to wage war on our own people at a tidy profit. Silver also points out that as a very nice side-effect,  “many powerful Political Action Committees donate money to campaigns to push their own agenda, keeping marijuana illegal.”

“Outside of a dog, a countertop water filter is man’s best friend.  Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to drink water.”–Groucho Marx.Model 77–“The World’s Greatest $77 Water Filter.”

The toll of this war is, of course, enormous in terms of  “jobs, relationships, money and time lost for the crime of smoking a joint.”  Marijuana arrests take a lot of manpower and a lot of time. “In 2000, police arrested 734,498 people for marijuana violations–the highest ever recorded by the FBI. Of those, 88 percent were for possession. The remaining 88,456 were charged with sale/manufacture.”

You probably have noticed that government officials long ago gave up trying to justify the War on Dope with anything resembling logic.  Pot has just been added to the ever-growing list of “enemies” we’re expected to fight without asking why.

Silver concludes: “Las Vegas Weekly contacted a police source in hopes of getting an argument against legalization, and providing a semblance of balance. Sadly enough, the only reasoning the source could give for pot being illegal is, well, because it’s illegal.”

 

Bee Bea Sharper on Drugs

Year of the passage of the Harrison Tax Act, which started the U. S. “War on Drugs”: 1914

Year in which the non-medical sale or possession of marijuana was made illegal in the U.S.: 1937.

Year of the Nixon Administration’s Comprehensive Drug Abuse and Control Act, which begins the current era of drug-related legislation: 1970.

According to Nixon, drug abuse was “America’s public enemy number: one.”

Amount spent on the Drug War by the Nixon Administration in 1969: $65,000,000.

Amount spent on the Drug War by the Clinton Administration in 1999: $17,700,000,000.

Percentage of high school seniors who in 1999 said they could find marijuana “fairly easily”: 88.9%

The total number of Americans behind bars in 1970: 200,000.

The total number of Americans serving time for non-violent drug offenses in 2000: 450,000.

Approximate percentage of federal inmates in 2000 who are drug offenders: 60%.

Fraction of these federal drug prisoners who are non-violent, first-time offenders: 1/2.

Amount the U.S. will spend  to keep drug law violators behind bars in the year 2000: $24,000.000.

Change in marijuana use among eighth graders during the height of Clinton’s 1991-1996 anti-marijuana crusade: up 300%.

Number of regular American illegal drug users in 2000: 12,000,000.

Cost of putting a single drug user in prison for five years: $500,000.

Number of drug offenders who could be treated with the money it costs to incarcerate a single non-violent drug offender for five years: more than 100.

Percentage of 12th graders who say it is harder under current drug laws to buy marijuana than to buy beer: 25%.

Number of “drug war orphans”–children with one or both parents serving time for a drug offense–in the year 2000: 1,000,000 plus.

According to FBI figures, number of Americans arrested for marijuana violations alone in 2000: 734,498. 

Likelihood  that “drug war orphans” will themselves end up on prison, as compared to other children: 5 times.

Percentage of the U. S. population that is African American: 12%.

Percentage of total  U. S. drug users who are African American: 13%.

Percentage of total U. S. citizens who are arrested for drug offenses that are African American: 35%.

Percentage of total U. S. citizens that are convicted of drug offenses that are African American: 55%.

Percentage of total U. S. citizens who are incarcerated for drug offenses that are African American: 74%.

Rate at which black men are sent to state prisons for drug offenses as compared with white men: 13 times.

Percentage of Americans who in a 2001 survey said they thought the war on drugs was a failure: 72%.

Average federal sentence for a drug offence in 1997: 78 months.

Average federal sentence for manslaughter in 1997: 30 months.

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, the number of Americans being drugged as treatment for depression in 1987: 1.7 million.

Number of Americans being drugged for treatment of depression in 1997: 6.2 million.

Of every 100 Americans, the number that are now being treated for clinical depression: 2.3.

Percentage of emergency room visits by older Americans that are caused by adverse reaction to legally prescribed drugs: 11%.

Percentage of Americans 65 and over who according to one study are taking at least one prescription drug: 90%.

Average number of prescription drugs being taken by Americans sixty-five and over: 4.

Number of Americans who die each year from taking legal prescription drugs, not not counting the many thousands who die of medical “accidents” and mistakes: 100,000.

Number who die each day: 270.

Number of Americans who die each day as compared with Americans who die in traffic accidents: Double.

Percentage of Americans who currently take at least one prescription drug: 65%.

Annual expenditure by Americans for prescription drugs: $250 billion.

Amount of “attention deficit drugs” taken by American children as compared with European children: 300%.

Amount spent by the pharmaceutical industry each year to “enlighten” physicians and help with their expenses: $ hundreds of millions.

CANCER RISK FROM INDUSTRIAL CHEMICAL RISES, STUDY FINDS By Ralph Vartabedian Reprinted here from Rachel’s Democracy and Health News #886.  Aug. 3, 2006. [Rachel’s introduction: Trichloroethylene, or TCE, is commonly found in drinking water, air, and soil. A new report from the National Research Council says evidence is growing that TCE causes cancer. What are the implications?] After a detailed study of the most widespread industrial contaminant in U.S. drinking water, the National Research Council will report today that evidence is growing stronger that the chemical causes cancer and other human health problems. The 379-page report clears a path for federal regulators to formally raise the risk assessment of trichloroethylene, known as TCE, a step that has been tied up by infighting between scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Defense Department. California has some of the nation’s worst TCE contamination, including vast tracts of groundwater in the San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys that are a drinking source for more than 1 million Southern Californians. The state’s 67 Superfund sites with TCE contamination are clustered in Los Angeles and Santa Clara counties. If the risk posed by TCE is significantly higher than previously thought, it could prompt lower limits for TCE in water, as well as stricter cleanups of hundreds of military bases and other polluted facilities. The contamination occurred because TCE, a chemical solvent, was widely dumped into the ground. Already, some EPA offices are forcing tougher cleanups based on evidence that the chemical poses a greater-than-expected cancer risk. The EPA attempted to issue a risk assessment in 2001 that found TCE to be two to 40 times more carcinogenic than previously thought, but that action was opposed by the Defense Department, the Energy Department and NASA. The Pentagon has 1,400 properties contaminated with TCE. The Bush administration sent the matter to the National Research Council for study, based on military assertions that the EPA had overblown the risks. But the new report does not support that criticism. “The committee found that the evidence on carcinogenic risk and other health hazards from exposure to trichloroethylene has strengthened since 2001,” the report said. The report urged federal agencies to complete their assessment of TCE risks as soon as possible “with currently available data,” meaning they should not wait for additional basic research, as suggested by the Defense Department. The report is to be formally released today by the National Research Council. An early copy was provided to The Times by the Natural Resources News Service, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that investigates environmental issues. The authors of the study also briefed members of Congress on Wednesday. “It is the strongest report on TCE that we have had,” said Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D-N.Y.), whose district includes hundreds of homes that have air filtration systems to eliminate TCE vapors from the ground. “The fact that we have this TCE-laden drinking water used by millions of people is abominable.” Hinchey and others in Congress are demanding stronger cleanup standards and lower limits for the chemical in drinking water. Currently, the EPA allows 5 parts per billion; that could be lowered to as little as 1 part per billion for drinking water if the risk assessment sidetracked in 2001 is adopted, according to an analysis by the Air Force. It would drive up cleanup costs by billions of dollars but potentially save thousands of lives, scientists say. The report’s authors told Congress on Wednesday that they did not think the EPA should throw out its 2001 draft risk assessment and start over. Instead, they hope the TCE analysis can be completed within six months to a year. Dr. Gina Solomon, an environmental health expert who served on a scientific advisory board that reviewed the original assessment, said the new report could have a profound effect on the issue. “That is a very strong statement, a ringing endorsement of the EPA’s 2001 draft risk assessment,” said Solomon, an associate clinical professor of medicine at UC San Francisco and a staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Solomon said the report also rejected a key position of the chemical industry and Pentagon environmental experts that TCE was not dangerous at low levels of exposure. Federal regulators should stick with the current scientific model that the cancer risk posed by TCE is proportional to the level of exposure, the National Research Council said. In its report, the council found the evidence of TCE risk was greatest for kidney cancer, but not as high for liver cancer. It did not study other diseases that could be connected, including leukemia. The report found merit in the Pentagon’s criticism of EPA methodology on epidemiology, which is the study of how disease is distributed in the population. It called for a new survey of prior research. The report from the National Research Council has been awaited by communities exposed to TCE across the country. “We can’t afford any more delays,” said Jerry Ensminger, a former Marine drill sergeant who served at Camp Lejuene, where drinking water supplies were tainted. His daughter died at age 9 in 1976 from leukemia, which Ensminger blamed on TCE exposure. Ensminger said he was heartened by the report’s conclusions, but remained concerned about whether the government would move quickly to deal with the chemical contamination. “I want to know why the Bush administration does not err on the side of life when it comes to the environment,” he said. Originally published in the Los Angeles Times, July 27, 2006 Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times

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The Greatest Civic Sin by Charley Reese Oct. 14, 2002 There is a certain poem by Rudyard Kipling. I can’t quote it exactly, but the relevant two lines are something like “When they ask why they died, tell them it was because their fathers lied.” Kipling’s son died on his 18th birthday in World War I. I believe the bitter little poem was directed at himself, for Kipling had been an imperial enthusiast and had used his influence to get his son a commission, despite his son being underage and medically disqualified. Kipling was never the same after. The illusions about patriotism and honor and glory vanished for him, as they did for millions who died in that stupid war. A lot of America’s sons have died because “their fathers lied.” The U.S. government lied through its teeth about the Tonkin Gulf resolution, an authorization for war based on a nonexistent attack, which Lyndon Johnson used as an excuse to pour American troops into Vietnam. Franklin Roosevelt lied when he campaigned and promised he would never send American boys to fight in a foreign war. Long before he said it, he and Winston Churchill were plotting to get America into the war. Woodrow Wilson had campaigned on the slogan “He kept us out of the war,” and then promptly got us into the war after the J.P. Morgan interests told him all of their loans would be jeopardized if the British were defeated. The World’s Greatest $77 Water Filter. I have come to believe that the greatest civic sin is to lie to the people. It ought to be considered the unforgivable sin. It undercuts the very basis of self-government. That concept, pioneered by America’s Founding Fathers, says that the people can make the right decisions in the long run provided they are given the facts. If they are lied to, they are denied the opportunity to make the right decisions. They are, rather than choosing their destiny, being manipulated by others for hidden reasons. That’s why I’ve become so anti-war, which is not the same thing as being a pacifist. I will support any war in the genuine defense of this country, but I have not seen an honest war in my lifetime or read of one since the War Between the States. Even World War II was based on lies. It’s true that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. It is also true that the Roosevelt administration maneuvered them into a position in which they had no choice but to attack the United States. The Japanese certainly did not wish to go to war with the United States if it could have been avoided. Even the Third Reich never had any interest in conquering the world as Americans were told repeatedly during the war. Both the “War to End All Wars” and the “War for Democracy” were based on lies. They were both wars involving a conflict of empires and would-be empires, which did not concern the United States. Peace and democracy had nothing to do with the wars. I served in the U.S. Army, 18 months on active duty and the rest in the Army Reserve. I’m glad, though, that I wised up in time to discourage my children from joining. The all-volunteer Army, which is really a mercenary Army, was adopted to make it easier for the United States to go to war. The sons and daughters of the powerful and influential, of course, don’t volunteer. Our soldiers are mostly minorities and lower-middle-class kids. They are wonderful Americans, but they are, as far as the American elite is concerned, expendable. They can be lied to. We have become a nation of liars. The politicians lie, journalists lie, corporate CEOs lie, and stockbrokers and other salesmen lie. Advertisers lie. Businesses lie. Preachers and priests and rabbis lie. And because of those lies, the young in our own and in other countries die or have their lives blighted by wounds, disease and poverty. As Thomas Jefferson said, if God is just, we’re in trouble.

 

War Is Just A Racket by Major General Smedley Butler Editor’s Note:  The following is an excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933 by legendary General Smedley Butler, U.S. Marine Corps.   “The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.” War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket. There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its “finger men” to point out enemies, its “muscle men” to destroy enemies, its “brain men” to plan war preparations, and a “Big Boss” Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism. It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service. I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.   More Smedley Butler.