18 December 20
Right Now We Don’t Have a Prayer of Finishing
Based on where we are at this point in the month and the pace at which the donations are coming in, we have no chance of meeting our budget for December.
It is absolutely critical that we find a way to get the flow of contributions moving.
In earnest.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
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18 December 20
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Tensions on the Rise Between Pfizer and the Trump White House
Riley Griffin and Josh Wingrove, Bloomberg
Excerpt: "Pfizer Inc. pushed back on claims it is experiencing problems producing its Covid-19 vaccine, as the company and the federal government continued to try to reach a deal that would eventually double the number of doses available for the U.S.'s vast immunization effort."
Moncef Slaoui, the chief scientific adviser to Operation Warp Speed, said in an interview on Thursday that the U.S. is close to a deal for another 100 million doses of the vaccine Pfizer developed in partnership with BioNTech SE. Through the agreement, Pfizer would deliver the additional supply in the second quarter of 2021, Slaoui said.
In July, Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. vaccine-development program, agreed to buy 100 million doses of the two-dose regimen; the $1.95 billion contract came with an option to buy 500 million more doses. However, Pfizer and federal officials have been at odds after reports that the government declined a subsequent offer to buy more doses, and that Pfizer would need to fulfill commitments to other countries before it could get more stock to the U.S.
The wrangling during the first week of the vaccine’s rollout came as other supply questions emerged. Some governors complained this week that their allocations of the vaccine are less than what they expected. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said his state had a shortfall he blamed on what he said were production issues at Pfizer. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar made similar claims in a briefing Wednesday.
Pfizer, however, said that it has not experienced production issues. In a statement Thursday, the company said it shipped all 2.9 million doses of the vaccine the U.S. had allotted so far, and has millions more doses in warehouses ready to send. Those include doses being held for a required second shot, as well as a new batch set for delivery over the coming week.
“Pfizer is not having any production issues with our Covid-19 vaccine, and no shipments containing the vaccine are on hold or delayed,” the company said, adding that government officials had visited its facilities and been updated on its production planning.
In recent days, there has been growing frustration in the Trump administration with the company. A senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the vaccine program said Pfizer is negotiating in public despite having delivery problems and not meeting the initial volumes that the U.S. had expected.
More Support
Pfizer didn’t take money from Operation Warp Speed for the research and development of its Covid-19 vaccine or to build out manufacturing capacity, but Slaoui said in the latest round of discussions the company was asking for the government’s help. He said Pfizer has asked the U.S. to exercise the Defense Production Act in order to get additional equipment and materials, such as tube filters and chemicals, so it can scale up quickly and deliver the additional doses in the second quarter of 2021.
Pfizer’s chief executive officer said during a CNBC interview this week that they were asking for the Defense Production Act to be used to address “critical supply limitations.”
“What’s happening now is Pfizer is realizing they need more support,” Slaoui said. “The DPA always comes with conditions, and that’s really the whole conversation that’s happening.”
Slaoui described the talks as constructive and nearing an end. The U.S. will help Pfizer get priority access to additional materials, he said. Additional supply for the two-dose regimen would cost the U.S. the same amount as the initial agreement, according to Slaoui, at $19.50 per dose.
Representatives for Pfizer didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Persistent Confusion
Though Pfizer said it is having no issues producing or delivering its vaccine, confusion over how many doses will be available has built up in recent days.
The U.S.’s original order for 100 million doses initially called for 20 million a month beginning in November. But shipments only began arriving in December, and Pfizer isn’t giving the U.S. its November allotment right away, according to the senior administration official. Instead of doubling December’s shipment to catch up, Pfizer is spreading the 20 million that was due in November over the first four months of 2021, the official said.
Pfizer has so far allocated about 10.4 million doses to the U.S., the official said. From the first tranche of 6.4 million, 500,000 doses were set aside as a reserve and 2.9 million were shipped out this week. The remaining 2.9 million will be sent in three weeks as the second dose of the vaccine’s two-shot regimen. The U.S. will begin delivering a second allocation of 4 million doses next week, again sending out half while holding back half for second doses.
The rapid-fire distribution of millions of doses has challenged planners in the states, who have asked for more time between rounds to determine where to send them. Additionally, the U.S. won’t promise states shipments until the supply has been confirmed by Pfizer. That stretches the timeline, with the allocation process spanning Tuesday to Friday, distribution grinding forward over the weekend and deliveries beginning the following Monday, the official said.
Public Scrutiny
The U.S. expects at least 7.4 million doses are being held on its behalf by Pfizer. That stockpile will build as second doses accumulate, until those start being shipped in January, 21 days after the initial dose was given.
The U.S. does not have full visibility into Pfizer’s process, according to the official. The U.S. expects another allotment from Pfizer on Tuesday, which it will ship to states the following week, once states determine where to send it.
Slaoui said Covid-19 vaccine makers are currently under the microscope, with unusual public scrutiny on the daily output of a very complex manufacturing process.
The Warp Speed official said he is confident that the U.S. will be able to distribute 40 million vaccine doses between the Pfizer-BioNTech shot and one from Moderna Inc. before the end of the year. If daily distribution “ebbs and flows,” that’s a normal part of the process, he said.
Azar is likely to be vaccinated next week, a person familiar with the matter said. He and other top HHS officials would prefer to get the Moderna vaccine rather than the Pfizer one partly because of the dispute between Pfizer and the administration, one official said. They also want to highlight Moderna in part because it, unlike Pfizer, was also a full participant in Operation Warp Speed.
Rep. Deb Haaland would be the country's first Native American Cabinet secretary. She opposed many Trump environmental rollbacks on public lands and considers climate change 'the challenge of our lifetime.' (photo: Juan Labreche/AP)
In Historic Move, Biden to Pick Native American Rep. Haaland as Interior Secretary
Nathan Rott, NPR
Rott writes: "In a historic first, President-elect Joe Biden will nominate Rep. Deb Haaland to lead the Department of the Interior, his transition team announced Thursday evening."
If confirmed by the Senate, Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, would be the country's first Native American Cabinet secretary. Fittingly, she'd do so as head of the agency responsible for not only managing the nation's public lands but also honoring its treaties with the Indigenous people from whom those lands were taken.
In a statement, the Biden-Harris transition team called Haaland a "barrier-breaking public servant who has spent her career fighting for families, including in Tribal Nations, rural communities, and communities of color," who will be "ready on day one to protect our environment and fight for a clean energy future."
In a tweet, Haaland acknowledged the unique "voice" she'll bring. "Growing up in my mother's Pueblo household made me fierce," she wrote. "I'll be fierce for all of us, our planet, and all of our protected land."
"She understands at a very real level — at a generational level, in her case going back 30 generations — what it is to care for American lands," says Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities.
Haaland's nomination is a win for tribal governments, environmental groups and some progressive lawmakers who had been lobbying for the New Mexico lawmaker to lead the Department of the Interior. Her fellow House Natural Resources Committee member and rumored Interior candidate, Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., wrote a letter to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus recommending Haaland for the post.
"It is well past time that an Indigenous person brings history full circle at the Department of Interior," he wrote.
It's not the first time Haaland has made history. In 2018, she became one of the first two Native women in Congress, alongside Rep. Sharice Davids of Kansas.
The Interior Department upholds the federal government's responsibilities to the country's 574 federally recognized Indian tribes and Alaska Native villages. Its roughly 70,000-person staff also oversees one-fifth of all the land in the U.S. as well as 1.7 billion acres of the country's coasts. It manages national parks, wildlife refuges and other public lands, protecting biologically and culturally important sites while also shepherding natural resource development.
The Biden administration is expected to take a much different approach to natural resources than its predecessor, which championed oil and gas development above all else on federal lands. Biden has promised to shift the U.S. away from climate-warming fossil fuels toward renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.
In an interview before her nomination, Haaland told NPR that would be her priority, too.
"Climate change is the challenge of our lifetime, and it's imperative that we invest in an equitable, renewable energy economy," she said.
A shift in priorities at Interior could have major implications for global climate change and the United States' outsized contribution to it. About one-quarter of all U.S. carbon emissions come from fossil fuels extracted on public lands, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. That includes emissions from drilling, transporting and refining those fossil fuels before they're burned.
Haaland's experience as a lawmaker in fossil fuel-dependent New Mexico, and as the former head of the state's Democratic Party, leaves her well-positioned to navigate that transition, environmental advocates say. The state has one of the most aggressive climate plans in the country.
"You have to understand the complexity of public lands management," says Demis Foster, executive director of Conservation Voters New Mexico. "And I can't imagine a better representation of that than here in New Mexico. We have a vast network of public lands. We have extraordinary biodiversity, and we have a very unique cultural heritage."
State lawmakers also have to balance that, she says, with the "extraordinary force and influence of extractive industry."
The New Mexico Oil & Gas Association called on Haaland to take a "balanced approach."
"Responsible energy development on federal lands is a vital part of our state's economy," the group said in a statement. "The policies enacted by the next Interior Secretary," it said, "will determine how much or little our state is able to support critical needs like public schools, healthcare, and first responders."
Mike Sommers, chief executive of the American Petroleum Institute, said in a statement that oil and gas resources "will be critical to rebuilding our economy and maintaining America's status as a global energy leader."
Haaland has echoed Biden in saying that a transition to renewable energy is a job creator, which makes it a no-brainer during the economic uncertainty spurred by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
She's also sponsored a House bill that would set a national goal of protecting 30% of U.S. lands and oceans by 2030, a plan the Biden administration has adopted and made a priority for his environmental agenda.
"That would protect our wildlife and boost the restoration economy," Haaland said, and "undo some of the damage that this Trump administration has done to our environment."
The Biden administration has promised to undo a number of environmental rollbacks undertaken over the past four years, and Interior will play a key role.
President Trump leaned on the agency to help push his broader "energy dominance" agenda. The agency's current leader, Secretary David Bernhardt, is a former oil and energy lobbyist. His predecessor, Ryan Zinke, a former congressman from Montana, resigned amid numerous ethics investigations.
Under their leadership, national monuments were cleaved, opening up millions of acres of formally protected land to development. Millions of acres more — onshore and offshore — were made available for oil and gas leasing. Regulations were rolled back on methane emissions and imperiled species protections, among others.
Haaland was a vocal critic of many of those moves. As chair of a House Natural Resources subcommittee that oversees Interior, she has led hearings on everything from the Trump administration's handling of national park reopenings during the coronavirus pandemic to its treaty-obligated communications with tribal governments for projects that affect their lands.
"Tribal consultation is basically nonexistent during this Trump administration," Haaland said. "President-elect Biden has promised to consult with tribes, which I think will help immensely with some of the environmental issues that he wants to address."
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that Indigenous people are disproportionately vulnerable to climate change in the United States. Alaska Native villagers and a Native American community in south Louisiana are among the first climate refugees in the country. Both are being relocated due to rising seas.
Indigenous people are also disproportionately affected by environmental pollution, says Kandi White, the Native energy and climate campaign director at the Indigenous Environmental Network.
"Fossil fuel development, uranium development, clear-cutting of forests — all these things that have been happening on tribal lands were exacerbated under the [Trump] administration and need to be looked at," she says.
As a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation in North Dakota, White says, she's seen the effects of fracking and other development firsthand.
She thinks it will be impactful to have a Native American woman such as Haaland, who understands the complex government-to-government relationship between Indigenous people and the U.S., leading the Department of the Interior.
"She gets it," White says.
Border wall. (photo: Getty)
Trump Moved Cyber Security Budget to Pay for His Wall Before Major Hacking Assault
Stuti Mishra, The Independent
Mishra writes: "A former FBI deputy has alleged that President Trump has been diverting money from cybersecurity resources to build a wall at a time when the 'nation is under attack.'"
‘We have a president diverting money, billions of it, to build a wall,’ says former FBI deputy
Speaking to MSNBC on Thursday about a report published in Politico that revealed that hackers accessed systems at the National Nuclear Security Administration, Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI deputy director for counterintelligence, said that the reason such attacks are occurring is that the budget for cybersecurity under the Trump administration had been squeezed in order to prioritise other things.
“Make no mistake, our nation is under attack and it appears to be ongoing,” said Mr Figliuzzi. “How does something like this happen of this magnitude? Where 300,000 clients of a private company are potentially impacted including the most sensitive agencies in our government, it is because the Russias were able to find a single point of failure in our supply chain.”
“Meaning this product that comes from SolarWinds is a network management product used by too many, quite frankly, of all government agencies and too many of our top telecommunications companies. Ten of which were compromised as far as we know — so far. So, it is a larger issue, Nicolle, of supply chain management.”
He also said that it’s more than merely an intelligence failure but rather “it’s a national defense failure.”
“This is the defence of our nation and systems and failure to oversee our supply chain in a form of allowing one company to service so many of our government agencies,” he said.
“The Russians found that weakness and exploited it and we’re still learning the extent of the damage and Natasha reported that hour now our nuclear components have been impacted and one of the words that jumped out there the reporting is damaged.”
On Thursday, Politico reported that the Energy Department and National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the US nuclear weapons stockpile, found out that hackers accessed their networks as part of an extensive espionage operation that has affected at least half a dozen federal agencies.
Mr Figliuzzi explaining why he thinks the cybersecurity resources lack sufficient funds said: “We have a president diverting money, billions of it, to build a wall, changing personnel at the top of the Pentagon and we’ve not heard word one about the plan or strategy to respond to this ongoing attack.”
He says such attacks are happening more often because “there is no one in charge from the Oval Office down throughout the intelligence community.”
“It’s just like 9/11 we're going to need congressional oversight and increase to figure out what in Heaven's name has happened who is in charge where did the failures occur and we need oversight and coordination like never before.
He also warned that troubles are waiting for the president-elect who will have to take cyberattacks more seriously. “This is Warfare and Battlefield, and it means that Joe Biden on day one is going to be fighting another kind of virus the Cyber kind.”
Federal officers stand guard amid protests in Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday. (photo: Nathan Howard/Getty)
DHS Leaders Pressed Whistleblower to Exaggerate Role of Left Groups in Urban Protests, Lawyer Says
Mark Hosenball, Reuters
Hosenball writes: "A former acting chief of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's intelligence office has told Congress that DHS leaders pressed him to overstate illegal border crossings from Mexico and overplay the role of far left groups in violence during anti-government protests last summer, his lawyer said."
In testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, former intelligence chief Brian Murphy accused department leadership of urging him to "blame Far Left groups in an exaggerated fashion" for violence during summer protests in Portland, Oregon, according to lawyer Mark Zaid.
In closed-door committee hearings last Friday and Monday, Murphy acknowledged that Far Left protesters were responsible for some of the violence, Zaid said.
In a Sept. 8 whistleblower complaint, Murphy accused President Donald Trump’s acting DHS chief, Chad Wolf, of having told him to hold back on circulating assessments of the threat of Russian interference in the approaching Nov. 3 election in part because it “made the President look bad.” Wolf also asked Murphy to play down U.S. white supremacist activity, the complaint said.
Zaid said the committee questioned Murphy about allegations in his complaint that DHS officials pressured him to support greatly exaggerated claims about the number of people entering from Mexico suspected of plotting attacks on the United States.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen delivered congressional testimony which amounted to a "deliberate submission of false material information," according to an initially anonymous whistleblower complaint Murphy submitted to DHS' inspector general.
An Intelligence Committee spokeswoman said the panel welcomed Murphy's testimony and that the panel would share the results of its investigation with the public.
The spokeswoman added: "We expect the Department of Homeland Security to make available additional witnesses and fully comply with its legal obligation to produce documents in response to the Committee’s subpoena."
DHS had no immediate comment.
Zaid said he understood that the committee had already heard from 12 other witnesses regarding Murphy's allegations.
DHS performance review documents seen by Reuters show that for the year October 2019-September 2020, Murphy was given a high performance rating of 485 out of a possible 500 points by a DHS supervisor.
A protest in July against the resumption of federal executions near the U.S. penitentiary and execution chamber in Terre Haute, Indiana. (photo: Tannen Maury/EPA)
Rep. Cori Bush | Joe Biden Says He Opposes the Death Penalty. He Can Help End It With the Stroke of a Pen
Cori Bush, TIME
Bush writes: "Fifty-two. That's how many people await execution - people who are being legally tortured by a federal government and a broken criminal-legal system that shouldn't have the power to force death on any human being."
There is no place for the death penalty in a just, humane society.
On December 10, at 9:27 p.m., Brandon Bernard became one of the latest casualties of this state-sanctioned murder. Like many of you, I waited to see if the Supreme Court of the United States or President Trump would intervene to prevent yet another needless tragedy. They did not. Because the cruelty of this system is the very point.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Under the Constitution, Presidents have the extraordinary power to shorten sentences and erase convictions altogether. It’s this same authority that Joe Biden should use when he becomes President on January 20. With the stroke of a pen, he can grant clemency to all who are on federal death row, reducing their sentences or pardoning them altogether.
For 17 years, federal executions were halted by previous administrations. For 17 years, not one life was taken. But for 17 years, families of those on death row fearfully waited for the moment that has come. In July 2019, the Trump Administration suddenly ended the moratorium on executions—rushing to take 13 lives before leaving office.
Joe Biden cannot leave the lives of those on death row in the hands of future presidents. If he truly opposes the death penalty, he must do everything in his power to stop it for good. Granting clemency to all on federal death row is his most effective tool.
The fact of the matter is that these death sentences aren’t about justice. They’re about who has institutional power and who doesn’t. In January, I will begin representing Missouri’s 1st District, and that’s the kind of power my community has been historically denied. Our neighborhoods are too often subjected to structural violence at the hands of the government: police violence, immigration violence, prison violence, the death penalty and poverty. Black and brown people in communities like mine, when arrested are more likely to be convicted and receive harsher sentences than our white counterparts. A justice system that actually hands out justice isn’t as cruel, violent and racially biased as the one we’ve got.
But it doesn’t just happen in St. Louis. This happens nationwide. Black and brown people are overrepresented on death row and in the larger prison system. This is all despite a 2014 study by the National Academy of Sciences that revealed 1 out of every 25 people on death row is innocent. Credible allegations have been made of jurors’ racial bias in administering death sentences, and more than 170 people have been exonerated after being wrongly convicted and sentenced to death, but the government continues to wield its capability to murder in the name of justice.
In Brandon’s case, five of the jurors called for the Trump Administration to spare his life. The former federal prosecutor involved in the case wrote an op-ed about why she didn’t think he deserved to be put to death. Advocates, lawmakers, celebrities and the public pleaded and called on Trump to do the right thing. Still, it was not enough.
This decision of life or death does not solely depend on the President. An act of Congress could abolish the federal death penalty once and for all, and my sister in service, Representative Ayanna Pressley, has introduced a bill that would do just that. When I get to Congress next month, I will be proud to cosponsor it. Until that legislation becomes law, it is on the executive branch to end state-sanctioned murder.
Ending the death penalty is about justice. It’s about mercy. It’s about putting a stop to this nation’s dark history of lynching and slavery. It’s about making it clear that our government should not have the power to end a life. We must build a fair criminal-legal system on a foundation of mercy, due process and equity. We must break the cycles of death, devastation and trauma that have broken Black and brown communities like mine.
President-elect Biden must move beyond just opposing the death penalty. He must end it.
An immigrant detainee waits in an ICE holding area in 2019. (photo: Ted S. Warren/AP
DHS Inspectors Found ICE Detainees Who Were Kept in Solitary Confinement for 300 Days
Hamed Aleaziz, BuzzFeed
Aleaziz writes: "Inspectors also found that nearly a dozen immigrants detainees were kept in solitary confinement for more than two months."
early a dozen immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement were kept in solitary confinement for more than two months, including two people who were isolated for more than 300 days, according to a draft Department of Homeland Security Inspector General’s report obtained by BuzzFeed News.
The draft, which highlighted a February inspection of the Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico, California, also documented how food at the facility had expired and gone moldy.
ICE has come under fire in recent years for issues related to medical care provided at its detention centers. In some facilities, ICE provides medical care directly; in others, a few employees assist contractors; and in many cases, the agency oversees care provided by a contractor.
In September, the House Oversight Committee found that ICE detainees died after receiving inadequate medical care and that jail workers “falsified records to cover up” issues. That same month, a separate committee report issued by the House Homeland Security Committee found that ICE detainees are often given deficient medical care and that detention centers use segregation as a threat against immigrants.
The draft report obtained by BuzzFeed News documents how officials at the detention facility in Calexico were using solitary confinement as a long term “solution” for immigrants in “protective custody,” or those who need special supervision or housing due to risks to their safety.
Detainees can request protective custody at any time. ICE also allows detainees to be placed in solitary confinement, called “administrative segregation” for those isolated for nonpunitive reasons, if their presence would pose a threat to the lives of other detainees or themselves.
“During our inspection, we identified serious violations regarding the administrative segregation of detainees at [Imperial Regional Detention Facility],” the report states. “Specifically, IRDF was using administrative segregation as a long-term solution for detainees in protective custody and overly restricted detainees by not offering privileges similar to those offered to detainees in general housing units.”
In addition to finding 11 immigrants had been kept in solitary confinement for more than 60 days and two others for more than 300 days, inspectors said there had been no documented review to evaluate the continued solitary confinement and the immigrants were not afforded recreation time for an hour a day, as required. The inspectors also said the detainees received inadequate medical checks.
“Our examination of segregation records showed the facility inaccurately reported to ICE that detainees were receiving recreation time when, in fact, they were not,” the inspectors wrote. “Moreover, detainees in administrative segregation were restricted to their individual cells for approximately 22 to 23 hours a day without access to the same group activities or opportunities as those in the general population.”
ICE officials maintain that there are regular reviews of detainees who are kept in solitary confinement and that they are offered recreational time.
Elsewhere, the report found other problems, including with the way the facility was storing food.
The inspectors reported finding expired frozen tortillas, turkey bologna, and moldy zucchini in the food preparation and storage area. The facility’s officials said that they had not marked frozen food and produce packages with expiration dates.
“Such practices can lead to detainee illness from ingesting spoiled meat or rotten produce,” the inspectors wrote.
Greg Archambeault, a lead ICE official in the region, pointed out that the report said detainees had been classified appropriately at the facility. Classifications sort detainees out between low- and high-risk populations and are kept within specific groups based on their backgrounds.
“We are firmly committed to prioritizing the health, safety, and welfare of all of those in our care and custody,” he said. “We have reviewed OIGs recommendations and attribute meeting compliance standards regarding detainee classification at IRDF to the dedication of the officers at the facility. We concur with the OIGs additional recommendations and have taken corrective action where appropriate to ensure our continued compliance with PBNDS [Performance Based National Detention Standards].”
The DHS inspector general’s office said it “declines to comment on our work before it is finalized and published.”
Issa Arnita, a spokesperson for Management and Training Corporation, the company that runs the Calexico facility, said they disagree with items in the report, which they noted had not been finalized.
“We disagree with the initial claims made in the ‘draft’ IG report. We have thoroughly reviewed the claims and provided a detailed response to the IG to correct the information reported in the draft report. We have not yet heard back from the IG regarding our responses,” Arnita said in a statement. “In general, we can say that Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) has established a detailed policy for the use of special housing as outlined in the Performance Based National Detention Standards. We strictly follow this policy. We work directly with ICE to determine if an individual must be placed in special housing — and in all cases, it is to protect the safety of detainees.”
Arnita added that immigrants in special housing units “have daily access to outdoor recreation. In fact, the facility recently expanded the capacity of the recreation area designated for those in the special housing unit to accommodate more people.”
Arnita also said that detainees were never served expired food and that medical staff were conducting daily visits.
“In some cases, the visits were done early in the day and were not documented properly. We have addressed and resolved this issue as medical visits are now done later in the morning and documented immediately,” he said.
The latest report is not the first time ICE’s use of solitary confinement has been criticized.
In 2019, the Project on Government Oversight obtained a DHS review through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that found that ICE had kept a separate group of detainees with mental illness in solitary confinement. That same year, NBC News found that the agency had kept thousands of detainees in solitary confinement for rule violations and cases involving “the mentally ill, the disabled or others who were sent to solitary largely for what ICE described as safety reasons.”
'This man-made poison, called PFOA, brought us the magic of Teflon, the convenience of non-stick, and an array of stain and water-resistant products that revolutionized our homes and our lives forever.' (photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA
The Poison Found in Everyone, Even Unborn Babies - and Who Is Responsible for It
Rob Bilott, Guardian UK
Bilott writes: "Chemicals called PFAS and PFOS - known as forever chemicals - are in the blood of virtually every person on the planet. And they will only accumulate."
magine that a small group of people coordinated the intentional manufacture and release of a lethal poison – and imagine they knew this poison had special properties that meant, once released into the world, it would be inevitable that it would make its way into the blood of virtually every person on the planet, even babies in their mother’s womb, and stay there, like a ticking time bomb.
Well, that “ticking time bomb” waiting to explode into serious, even fatal, disease is not a fictional device from some doomsday thriller; it is real, it is inside virtually all of us, right now. Tick, tick, tick.
And we know exactly who is responsible. For a long time, powerful corporate interests succeeded in keeping this heinous, brazen, and ongoing public health threat hidden from regulators, from scientists, and from the public. But it is now a matter of public record that these people knew the potential for harm and grave threat to human life, and continued anyway.
The only reason the world knows anything about this today is because, in 1998, Earl Tennant, a courageous farmer from West Virginia, came to me demanding answers. His cattle were dying in droves and he was certain the trouble stemmed from the white foaming crud defiling his creek where his cattle drank. Something was efficiently killing off not only his cattle but also the deer and other wildlife. Earl wanted answers and I wanted to help him. Neither of us could have fathomed just how bad or how deep this really went.
Getting the answers required over two decades of litigation, continuing to this day. But like the cattle and other animals on his farm, Earl would not survive long enough to get all his answers. The dark secrets deliberately withheld from Earl about his creek and his dying cows, went far beyond his property line. The poison flowing into Earl’s creek was also leaching into the drinking water of 70,000 of his neighbors, but no one was being told a thing. And this was just the tip of the iceberg. In secret, the poison had in fact streamed all across the country, and into the bloodstreams of virtually every American.
This man-made poison, called PFOA, brought us the magic of Teflon, the convenience of non-stick, and an array of stain and water-resistant products that revolutionized our homes and our lives forever. Internally, top company scientists had been studying its toxicity for decades. And there had been alarm bells after alarm bells: cancer in lab animals; cancer in exposed workers; birth deformities in offspring of exposed lab animals – even, unconscionably, in babies of exposed workers. The unique properties of PFOA, and its close chemical cousin, PFOS (used in an equally dizzying assortment of products, from Scotchgard to certain firefighting foams) make them incredibly persistent: they last for an unusually long time in our bloodstreams, where they accumulate. And they last virtually forever in our environment. That’s why they are dubbed “forever chemicals”.
And the effects of this poison coursing through our veins can be devastating and wide-ranging. Scientists have confirmed links between PFOA exposure and a variety of serious diseases, including kidney cancer, testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, and pregnancy-induced hypertension. And more recent studies are now raising concerns that some of these forever chemicals may negatively impact our endocrine system, our fertility, and our immune system – and possibly even the efficacy of vaccines. Frightening news, indeed, when we are all trying to fight off a worldwide pandemic and need our vaccines to be as effective as possible.
It took years for me to pull on the threads that would eventually unspool all the secrets. Frankly, I was shaken to the core by what was exposed, yet I understood why the stakes were sky high for those seeking to hide the truth. Why it was a fight to the death to keep a lid on their secrets – and equally high stakes for those who had jumped into their deep pockets. Still, the truth won out.
So now, as we struggle to live through a once-in-a-century pandemic, there is, in fact, another global public health threat bearing down upon all of us, though few know of it or realize its risk. And this threat, unlike Covid-19, is of a scope and scale without precedent in human history.
Those who have learned about this other, still obscure health threat (the poisoning, not the virus) and who comprehend the urgency, all ask me the same question: how is it that almost all of us have this poison in our blood, and it is still not a world-wide story – and how is it possible that the companies who did this are not being held responsible? This is a question I cannot answer.
Why is a nation and a world so outraged by lead in the water of Flint taking this one lying down? This is poisoning not only the drinking water in one American city, but countless cities all over the world – and the ground water, surface waters, soils, and vegetation. It’s a poison that can last forever in our environment and is now circulating in the blood of almost every human and living creature on the planet, for this generation and generations to come. Unless we act. Quickly, and decisively.
We have seen through Covid-19 that wartime-style mobilization, huge in scope and scale, can be mounted against a mortal threat to the population. We have seen with our own eyes that this is possible. We must come together to shine our best science and leadership to learn and address the full extent of the threat to us and the damage to our environment and health posed by forever chemicals. And stop it – now.
Who should foot the bill for all of it? The companies who have been reaping billions in profits each year, for decades, from making and unleashing this lethal poison into the world, all the while knowing the grave health threat it posed to us and our children – but chose not to tell us.
Let us hold them accountable. These companies need to own up to what they have done and make it right. We must demand it. And we have the power and moral responsibility to make sure it happens, because our very lives depend on it, and for the sake of the entire planet – and everyone’s future.
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