EPA, pesticides, and public health

Radio interview, 5 October 2018
I talk about my experience at the EPA, focusing on what I learned about the politics and dangers of pesticides and the regulatory system in America:

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Pesticides Are Making Children Aggressive

Spraying fungicides on tobacco in a greenhouse in Jalapa, Nicaragua. Photo: courtesy Peter Essick. Pesticides cause a multitude of adverse effects on humans. However, they are especially harmful to children . They may have something to do with the mass-shootings in schools all over America because some of them are neurotoxins. This means they affect and damage the central nervous system and the brain – of all animals, including humans. Warren Porter , professor emeritus of zoology at the University of Wisconsin, conducted experiments with ground water – water drawn from the ground of farms with typical levels of pesticides and fertilizers. He chose farm water contaminated with the insecticide aldicarb, the herbicide atrazine, and nitrogen fertilizer. He tested that mixture on white mice and deer mice. The concentrations of the fertilizer with each of the pesticides (aldicarb and atrazine) in the ground water were of the order of magnitude the Environmental Protection A...

Παγκόσμια Αγροτική Χημική Ηγεμονία

Ράντισμα μυκητοκτόνου σε φυτά καπνού, Νικαράγουα. Φωτογραφία: Peter Essick. Δρ. Εὐάγγελος Βαλλιανᾶτος Η ισχύς της χημικής βιομηχανίας στις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες σχεδόν εξαφάνισε το Υπουργείο Προστασίας Περιβάλλοντος ( US Environmental Protection Agency , EPA ). Η πολιτικοποιημένη περιβαλλοντική κυβερνητική υπηρεσία διαχειρίζεται νόμους και κανονισμούς που προδιαγράφουν τι μπορεί να κάνει. Ωστόσο, στην πράξη, πολιτικοί διορισμένοι από τον πρόεδρο της Αμερικής αποφασίζουν τι κάνει το EPA . Σχετικά με αυτή την πολιτική πραγματικότητα, και γνωρίζοντας τις βαθιές ρίζες της επιρροής της βιομηχανίας στο Κογκρέσο και τον Λευκό Οίκο, το EPA κάνει το έργο του απρόθυμα τις περισσότερες φορές. Στην περίπτωση των επικίνδυνων χημικών ουσιών , ιδιαιτέρως τώρα με την κυβέρνηση Τράμπ, το EPA φοβάται να κάνει το ελάχιστο ...

Searching for Aristotle in Lesbos

Map of Lesbos by Giacomo Franco, 1597. Courtesy Wikipedia. Like most Greek islands, Lesbos has been lost in the obscurity of global wars, politics, and the insignificance of modern Greece. Greece without sovereignty Since 2009, the country’s debt to European and American banks has dragged Greece to the Third World. The lenders demanded Greece abdicates its sovereignty to them. Greek politicians obliged and Greece has become the first European country to submit to the humiliations of being a dependency of Brussels. To the eternal shame of “civilized” Europe, anonymous bureaucrats from the troika – a cabal of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission – have been running the country. Rubble and war refugees in the Middle East Lesbos would have maintained its silence had it not been for the American invasion and destruction of Iraq in 2003. This American war gave birth to Moslem civil wars. The civil wars in ...

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