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Lois Gibbs Visits Bloomington"We have a right not to be poisoned"from the Bloomington Voice There is an experiment being played out in our society, and we are all participants. Popularly suspected, the consequences of decades of releasing hazardous chemicals into our environment may soon unfold in a variety of adverse health effects: cancers, reproductive and endocrine malfunction, birth defects and immune system damage. Implicated in a wide range of illnesses, dioxins, a class of sister chemicals of PCBs, have been acknowledged for the first time by the EPA as an immediate hazard to the general population. Potent carcinogens, dioxins biomagnify up the food chain, becoming ever more concentrated in tissues until birds, mammals and humans become the final recipients. Bioaccumulation of these compounds means that dioxins that we take in through our diet stay with us throughout our lives, growing steadily in concentration and hazard as we grow older. We also know, as described in the EPA's 1994 reassessment of dioxin, that most American's dioxin levels are at or near the level that has been found to yield detrimental effects. And dioxins continue to accumulate in the oceans, air and soil. This is the message in Lois Gibbs acclaimed new book Dying from Dioxin: A Citizen's Guide to Reclaiming Our Health and Rebuilding Democracy, and is the focal point of two talks and a book signing this week in Bloomington. Her efforts are aimed at alerting communities of the immediacy of the threat of dioxin expo- sure, and providing the means by which citizens may respond to the threat and take action. In 1978 Lois Gibbs and her neighbors found out that some 20,000 tons of toxic chemicals were buried beneath their homes, and that this hidden toxic dump, knowingly sold to the city of Love Canal by Hooker Chemical several years earlier, was poisoning them. The community organized, elected Gibbs as President of the newly formed Love Canal Homeowners Association, and worked to win the evacuation of 800 affected fami- lies. Her persistence also resulted in the enaction of Superfund legislation, which for the first time addressed the need of cleaning up the worst toxic waste sites in the country. She went on to form the Citizen's Clearinghouse on Hazardous Waste (CCHW), an organization which provides information and assistance to community groups and individuals nationwide. Her work is internationally renowned, having been given the Goldman Environmental Prize for grassroots efforts to preserve and enhance the environment in 1996. There is no doubt that our land, air and water would be in far worse shape had it not been for the thousands of activists and grassroots groups such as CCHW that forced the EPA and other government agencies to examine the evidence and enforce laws. But despite the inroads made by activists on public policy, threats to our health, in the form of environmental toxins continue to increase. Dying from Dioxin provides readers with a detailed strategy to combat dioxin poisoning, and is a call for a new groundswell of citizen activism to reclaim their role in govern- ment. Gibbs explains that "to begin this process of change, we have to create a national debate, community by communi- ty, on the nature of our government and our society. We have to explore how people became powerless as the corporations became powerful. We have to discuss why our government protects the right to pol- lute more than it protects our health. We have to figure out how to speak honestly and act collectively to rebuild our democ- racy". Dying from Dioxin is a guide to the sci" ence and the politics of dioxin. The first part of the book deals with the science; how dioxins are formed (by burning organic matter with chlorine), how preva- lent they have become, how they find their way into people and animals, their near indestructibility once released and their role in producing illness. The point is clear, dioxin contamination has created an environmental and health emergency. According to the EPA's reassessment, dioxin-related cancer risk in the U.S. is some 100 to 1,000 times greater than the"acceptable" risk of one in one million. The reassessment establishes that dioxin is now believed to be the most hazardous carcinogen for the general population. A recently explored and more subtle threat to human health is dioxins link to infertiity, immune system dysfunction and endocrine and developmental disorders, all owing to their chemical mimicry of hormones. Thus, even in infinitesimally minute quantities dioxins adversely affect our well-being by disrupting the body's ability to regulate itself and attack disease and cancers. Hormone mimics, such as dioxins and PCBs, have been implicated in the plummeting numbers of marine mammals and sea birds, and in the observed world-wide decline in human sperm counts. While part one provides a primer on dioxin, and its effects, the second half of Gibbs' book discusses the means by which people can limit or eliminate dioxin prouction. This involves the description of direct and indirect strategies, and underlying organizing principles designed to complete the task. We can begin by changing our diet, to eliminate the fats where toxins are carried, and we can find alteratives to products that contribute to dioxin production. But because of the ubiquitus nature of these poisons we can't simply act on the consumption end. These efforts are complementary to searching out those sources of the problem, raising community awareness, and working to directly eliminate the creation of these chemicals. Eventually, Gibbs envisions a broad network of community groups that are interlinked, interdependent, and actively responding to the problem. And because every person in the country is at risk, the potential for citizen participation is equally great. This effort will eventually take a complete reevaluation of what governnent regulation should involve. The burden of proof for chemicals should be placed on showing that a chemical is safe, not harmful. This will in turn require a fresh look at the need for civic involvement, at a time when corporations have largely defined the role of government, and have distorted our democratic institutions to serve their needs. We need to imagine a country where we the people regain sovereign. Historian Carol von Strum offers a rebuttal to industry's assertion of risk assessment with the concept of informed consent. Gibbs explains that this requires nothing more than the age old common law principle of assault and battery. "You do not need a Ph.D. to say no to dioxin exposure. You simply need to say 'No' and challenge an industry's or CEO's right to expose you without your con- sent....You are taxpaying, voting American people who have a right not to be poisoned." Bloomington's experience with PCB contamination makes Gibb's assertion particularly salient here. The subject is also made timely with a statement several weeks ago by Representative Hostettler to allow Westinghouse to escape all liability for its waste, and legislation he sponsored during his tenure to reimburse companies for their expenses in Superfund site cleanup. Clearly, citizens must remain vig- ilant. At a time when the 104th Congress has attempted an unprecedented rollback of environmental, health and safety laws in direct opposition to community wellbeing, we must respond by taking the initiative to restore democratic participation, and reassert the imperative for justice. Lois Gibbs provides us with the tools and materials to make that happen. |
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