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January 28, 1999---
PARKINSON'S
Parkinson's disease strikes 60,000 people each year in the U.S. More than a million Americans are living with the disease at any one time.[1] More people suffer from Parkinson's than from multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease) combined.
Parkinson's is a progressive brain disorder that is almost always fatal, but the suffering can go on for years. The disease usually strikes people over age 60, but a few people get it before they reach 40.
Parkinson's begins when a certain class of brain cells begins to die, cells that produce a chemical called dopamine, which your body needs. Dopamine serves as a chemical messenger helping to control muscle activities. Loss of dopamine leads to the pro- gressive loss of muscular control, giving rise to a variety of symptoms: stiffness, tremor, slow movement, difficulty with balance, difficulty walking, a stooped-over, shuffling gait. As the disease progresses, the patient may develop difficulty speaking, symptoms of senility (dementia) similar to Alz- heimer's, and severe depression.
In recent years, an effective medication, levodopa (known as L-dopa), has relieved many of the symptoms of Parkinson's for many patients, at least for a period of time. In addition, transplanting dopamine-producing brain cells from dead fetuses into the brains of Parkinson's sufferers has delayed the progression of the disease in some cases. Nevertheless, Parkinson's remains a common but poorly-understood terminal disease.
The causes of Parkinson's disease have been debated for 150 years, with no resolution.
A breakthrough occurred in the early 1980s when a group of young people developed the symptoms of Parkinson's disease after taking an illegal drug called MPTP, which is similar to the narcotic pain killer meperidine (which is sold under the trade name Demerol).[2] MPTP is also similar in chemical structure to several pesticides and herbicides.
Subsequently, symptoms of Parkinson's were induced in monkeys by feeding them MPTP.[3] This led the medical community to begin thinking of Parkinson's as a disease caused by chemical exposures. Early studies began to show a pattern: many people with Parkinson's have a history of exposure to pesticides, especially insecticides and herbicides.[4-7]
However in the early 1990s, Parkinson's was linked to a gene in a few Italian and Greek families,[8] and this sent researchers down the genetic trail in search of the cause of Parkinson's. Genetic causes of disease are very fashionable at the moment and it is easier to find research funds to study genes than it is to find research funds to study the effects of pesticides.
This week the likelihood of a genetic cause for most Parkinson's disease was effectively ruled out by the publication of a study of nearly 20,000 twins.[9] The study cohort, made up of white male twins who served in World War II, was developed by the National Academy of Sciences 35 years ago. Most of the members of the study cohort are now in their mid-60s, so they have reached the age when Parkinson's begins to appear. Of the 20,000 twins studied, 193 individuals were confirmed to have Parkinson's. The study showed that identical twins do not get Parkinson's any more often than two unrelated individuals. If the disease had a genetic origin, then identical twins, who share every gene, would both be expected to get the disease. This does not happen, the new study shows.
The researchers reported that, "No genetic component is evident when the disease begins after age 50 years. However, genetic factors appear to be important when [Parkinson's] disease begins at or before age 50." Thus fewer then 10% of Parkinson's cases -- only those that begin relatively early in life -- have a genetic component.
That leaves environmental chemicals as the culprit for the vast majority of Parkinson's, according to the researchers who conducted the twin study. In announcing their results, they specifically pointed out that the search for causes of Parkinson's should now re-focus on environmental chemicals such as pesticides and herbicides.[10]
The twin study should provide comfort to family members of Parkinson's victims who have been fearful about their own future based on their genetic relationship to the victim.
However, the new study provides cause for concern among farmers, pesticide applicators, and people who live in farming communities where regular exposure to pesticides is unavoidable. Since the late 1980s, a steady stream of studies from around the world has shown again and again that a common thread among victims of Parkinson's is a history of exposure to insecticides and herbicides.[4-7,11-15] Most recently a study showed that exposure to industrial solvents is linked to Parkinson's.[16]
THE NEED FOR CIVIC ACTION
by Gary Cohen[17] and Nancy Evans[18]
Many years have passed since the drinking water wells in Woburn, Massachusetts were contaminated.
In one sense, the tragedy stands as a singular event in the history of our nation. In an average middle class town, seven children died from leukemia due to toxic chemicals in their drinking water. Lives forever lost. A community forever scarred. A story captured in Jonathan Harr's powerful book, CIVIL ACTION,[19] and now released as a major Hollywood movie.
In another sense, however, Woburn has become a familiar script that reads something like this: Multi-billion dollar company poisons community. People get sick and die. Corporation denies the problem as long as possible, using its money to outlast desperate families seeking justice. When loss of the court case looks likely, corporation settles for an undisclosed sum in exchange for silence and a waiver of future liability.
This script has been repeated over the years in Love Canal, Bhopal, and in the bodies of DES daughters. Corporation names differ, but the outcomes are similar. Human lives are just the cost of doing business. The world goes on. After the damage is done, corporations crank up their public relations machines to project an image in which they bring "good things to life." Eventually the horror fades, replaced by images of horrors from other places.
But what gets lost in the public's consciousness is the ubiquity of the chemical assault in communities across the country. There are hundreds of Woburns in the United States, where communities living next to chemical companies, paper mills, computer manufacturers, military bases, medical waste incinerators, and toxic dumps suffer an array of health problems related to their toxic exposures. When residents seek some kind of justice from these exposures, they are stymied by a compromised regulatory system that regularly protects corporate interests rather than public health. Contrary to conservatives' mantra, the problem is not too much government. The problem is government too much serving the needs of industry.
The public health crisis extends well beyond individual communities and their polluting corporate neighbors. The reality is no place escapes this toxic nightmare. These facts highlight the problem:
* There are fish consumption bans in 40 states due to mercury contamination. In its latest report to Congress, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warned that 1.6 million children and women are at risk of mercury poisoning from even modest consumption of fish.
* High levels of dioxin in breast milk mean that newborns get 80 times their lifetime "safe" dose of dioxin during their first six months of life. In June, 1998, CONSUMER REPORTS published test results that showed all the major baby food brands had alarming levels of dioxin in meat-based products.[20] Dioxin is an identified human carcinogen, known to disrupt the hormonal system of the growing child.[21]
* According to a National Academy of Sciences report, 70 pesticides that cause cancer in animals are allowed in commercial foods, as are 20 other chemicals considered probable human carcinogens.[22] Other pesticides permitted in food are known to interfere with the nervous system, the immune system or the reproduction system.[23]
Children are the most vulnerable to this toxic assault since their rapidly developing systems are more sensitive to these chemicals.[22,23] Cancer now kills more children under fourteen than any other disease.
We all live in Woburn. As a society, we are conducting an uncontrolled chemical experiment on our children and future generations. While the chemical industry continues to tout the safety of its products, every child born in this country harbors a host of toxic chemicals in his/her body. This is a profound violation of basic human rights and the sanctity of life.
We don't need more Woburns to convince us we have a problem with toxic chemicals and a regulatory and justice system that offers neither effective regulation nor justice. We simply need the political will to directly challenge the polluting companies and the government agencies that protect them. Without such civic action, Woburn will be a never-ending story.
LIABILITY FOR GLOBAL WARMING?
For the past decade a small group of physicists, funded partly by oil and coal companies, has been denying that the earth is being warmed by humans burning oil, coal and gasoline. In the face of overwhelming evidence, they have insisted that global warming may not be happening at all.
For evidence they have relied chiefly on satellite measurements of the temperature of the lower atmosphere, measurements that have revealed a pattern of cooling, not warming, during the past 20 years.
In 1998 Dr. Frank Wentz of Remote Sensing Systems in Santa Rosa, California, reported that those satellite measurements contain a systematic error. Everyone involved had neglected to correct for the fact that the satellites were slowly falling to earth, at about one kilometer per year. With the systematic bias corrected, the data no longer indicate that the atmosphere is cooling.
Now that the main scientific evidence against global warming has disappeared, it will be interesting to see what arguments the energy corporations come up with in 1999 to continue to evade legal liability for global warming.[1]
There is much to evade: 1998 was by far the warmest year recorded during the past 600 years (by thermometers, tree rings and ice cores) -- nearly one degree Fahrenheit warmer than the second-warmest year, which was 1997. The extreme warmth of 1998 was accompanied by the following signs of "climate chaos" (as reported by the British NEW SCIENTIST magazine): record-setting forest fires in Florida, Indonesia, Brazil, Russia, and southern Europe; bush fires in northern Australia; floods and accompanying mudslides in California and coastal Peru and Ecuador (where 50,000 were left homeless); major flooding in east Africa; Hurricane Mitch, which killed more than 20,000 people in Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador and devastated the economies of central America; drought in New Guinea; intense drought and famine in southern Sudan; drought in central America that left the Panama Canal too shallow for many ships to pass through; failed coffee crops in Indonesia and in Ethiopia; failed sugar and rice crops in Thailand; failed cocoa and rubber crops in Malaysia; cotton crop failure in Uganda; and warm ocean currents that reduced the Peruvian fish catch by 45%.[2]
The NEW SCIENTIST reports that "human disease is emerging as one of the most sensitive, and distressing, indicators, of climate change." (See REHW #466, #467, #528.) As temperatures rise, mosquitoes that carry disease are moving into new territory. Dengue fever -- also called "break bone fever" because it is so painful -- is spreading throughout the Americas and has reached Texas. In Kenya, the worst floods in years unleashed an epidemic of water-borne cholera; and in Kenya's capital city, Nairobi (headquarters of the United Nations Environment Program), mosquitoes are now transmitting malaria to humans.
We favor the idea, floated early last year, to stop naming hurricanes after individual humans and start naming them after oil companies. In place of hurricane Alice or hurricane Hugo, we would have hurricane Mobil and hurricane Exxon. A headline like "Exxon Kills 10,000, Leaves 50,000 Homeless" would have a certain salutary ring of truth to it.
THE RAW POWER OF THE CORPORATION
During 1998, Americans were treated to a demonstration of the raw power of the corporation. Corporations prefer never to flex their political muscle in public, but sometimes it can't be helped.
During 1998, some 30 million pages of secret tobacco-industry documents became public, revealing the following:
** According to an internal memo dated 1987, R.J. Reynolds designed a fatter cigarette, intending to addict new customers as young as age 13.
** Another internal document revealed that Philip Morris investigated the smoking habits of children as young as 12, hoping to addict as many of them as possible.
** Brown and Williamson, owned by the British American Tobacco Company, once considered a plan to produce cigarettes with a "cola-like taste."
** NEW SCIENTIST uncovered a plan by Philip Morris to hire scientists as consultants to start a new scientific society to provide a forum favorable to the tobacco industry's views. (The Tobacco Institute was already functioning in that capacity, but its name clearly linked it to the industry it served; evidently the tobacco corporations felt the need for a new scientific society with a more independent appearance.)
** The St. Paul PIONEER PRESS revealed that the Tobacco Institute had paid scientists to submit letters and articles to journals, to cast doubt on studies linking second-hand smoke to disease. Scientists willing to participate received $2000 to $5000 per letter and $10,000 per article. The articles and letters were edited by tobacco industry lawyers prior to publication.
** It was shown conclusively during 1998 that, for years, the tobacco companies have routinely manipulated the nicotine levels in tobacco leaves to give smokers a bigger "hit,"[3] to keep them addicted.
** It was also revealed that numerous tobacco corporation executives had lied openly and repeatedly to the media, the public, and while testifying under oath to Congress. None of them was impeached or even asked to apologize.
On the contrary: during 1998, the tobacco companies summoned the attorneys general of 26 states to meet with them, negotiated with them for five months in total secrecy (all public health specialists were excluded from the negotiations), announced a deal on November 14, 1998, and on that date gave the attorneys general of all the states one week to take it or leave it.[4] The tobacco companies promised to pay $206 billion to the states over a 25 year period. Within the required 7 days, the states all sniveled into line and took Big Tobacco's money.
Let's see what a payment of $206 billion might mean for the big 4 tobacco companies, RJR Nabisco, Philip Morris, Lorillard, and British American Tobacco (owner of Brown and Williamson Tobacco). Together the four firms presently enjoy combined sales of roughly $38 billion per year.[5] Here is a "worst case" from the viewpoint of the tobacco corporations. Suppose they have 25 bad years and their earnings grow at just 5% above the rate of inflation (which, historically, has been 3.1% per year[6]). Over the next 25 years, they would earn a total of $3085 billion, of which they will donate $206 billion, or 6.6%, to the states. Naturally the states will be worried that they won't get their money (Maryland alone stands to get $4 billion), so they will be reluctant to interfere with the business practices of the tobacco companies during the 25-year period.
Of course the tobacco companies intend to increase their earnings substantially faster than 5% above the rate of inflation. For example, after the $206 billion settlement became public, Philip Morris said it expected next year's earnings to exceed this year's by 9.5%. Wall Street analysts have announced their consensus that Big Tobacco is a good investment: buy and hold, they say. Big Tobacco is a good investment because tobacco corporations have a carefully-thought-out plan to addict several billion people in the Third World during the next 25 years. That's where the states' $206 billion will come from.
The BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL estimates that tobacco today is killing four million people each year, half in the rich nations and half in the Third World. (In the U.S. today, 33% of all deaths of people between the ages of 35 and 69 are attributable to tobacco.[7]) By the year 2030, tobacco is expected to be killing 10 million people each year, 70% of them in the Third World. As time goes on, the killing fields will expand substantially. In China alone, 100 million young men alive today will die at the hands of a tobacco company, according to the BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL.[8]
So 7% of sales -- or perhaps far less, if Third World business develops as planned -- is the total penalty the tobacco corporations will pay for intentionally addicting hundreds of millions of children and young adults to a product that kills nearly 50% of everyone who uses it as directed.
In sum: with abundant evidence of criminal conduct and criminal intentions on the public record for all to see, the combined power of half the attorneys general of these United States could not bring Big Tobacco to justice. Instead, Big Tobacco bought them off, all of them.
Now THAT is a convincing demonstration of raw corporate power.
LIFE IS SWEET
A study published in 1998 revealed that men who eat candy in moderation live longer than those who don't.[9] Candy is defined as sugar confections or chocolate. Subjects of the study were 7841 men who entered Harvard University between 1916 and 1950 and who responded to a health survey in 1988.
Those who ate candy differed in several respects from those who didn't. Those who didn't eat candy were older, leaner, and more likely to smoke tobacco compared to those who did. Those who didn't eat candy ate more red meat, ate fewer vegetables or green salad, and were more likely to take vitamin or mineral supplements, compared to those who ate candy.
After adjusting for age and cigarette smoking, those who ate candy lived an average of nearly a year (0.92 years) longer than those who didn't.
However, those who ate candy in moderation lived even longer than those who ate a lot of it. ("A lot" was defined as "three or more times each week.") Moderation in all things...
Authors of the study speculate that it may be chocolate that is providing life-prolonging benefits to candy eaters. Previous studies have shown that chocolate reduces the danger of heart attack. (See REHW #527.) They compare chocolate to red wine, which is also believed to reduce heart disease, when used in moderation.[10]
Chocolate is also known to act as an antioxidant (tieing up "free radical" oxygen molecules).[11] Antioxidants are believed to reduce the dangers of both heart disease and cancer.
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