David Heath, writing for the Center for Public Integrity, tells the fascinating tale of how politicians have colluded with corporations to allow high levels of arsenic to remain in our food, beverages, and drinking water.
The EPA has been prepared to say since 2008, based on its review of independent science, that arsenic is 17 times more potent as a carcinogen than the agency now reports. Women are especially vulnerable. Agency scientists calculated that if 100,000 women consumed the legal limit of arsenic every day, 730 of them would eventually get bladder or lung cancer from it.
So if arsenic is a much more potent carcinogen than previously thought, particularly for women, how come nothing is being done to remove it from our food and drink? Are those Republicans I smell?
In August 2010, 15 Republicans in the House and Senate made that very argument in a letter to then-EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson:
“We are informed that there are nearly 300 studies in the scientific literature on arsenic published since 2007 that were not included in the agency’s evaluation. We find that troubling and are concerned that this could allow critics to conclude that the agency is ‘cherry-picking’ data to support its conclusions."
After reading the letter, Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at Consumers Union who has followed the arsenic review closely, said, “This is a really dishonest couple of sentences ... That’s because the [EPA] document was written in early 2008, and the only reason the public is seeing it [in 2010] is because OMB sat on it.”
“It’s not cherry-picking the data. When the document was written, those studies hadn’t been published yet,” he said.
And the stench of elephant ass just grew from there. Here is how these Republicans scuttled EPA action on arsenic. First, they accuse the agency of fraud for not including studies published after their 2008 report. Cherry-picking data is intellectual fraud, but the EPA picked no cherry. Standard Nixon-Rove bullshit. The clever next step was to demand an all new scientific review, this time by the National Academy of Science. There is an excellent chance this new review is going to produce very similar conclusions to the EPA report, but it buys industries that dump arsenic into the environment (e.g., mining, herbicides, pesticides) precious time to further undermine the regulatory process.
The point person in this little gambit is Mike Simpson, a good patriot and free thinker from the great state of Idaho. This congress critter was involved in every step of this drama and then bragged about it.
In a brief interview outside his Capitol Hill office, Simpson accepted credit for instructing the EPA to stop work on its arsenic assessment.
“I’m worried about drinking water and small communities trying to meet standards that they can’t meet,” he said. “So we want the Academy of Science to look at how they come up with their science.”
Simpson said he didn’t know that his actions kept a weed killer containing arsenic on the market. He denied that the pesticide companies lobbied him for the delay.
But lobbyist Grizzle offered a different account.
Simpson is, of course, truth challenged. He knew damn well the delay would benefit the herbicide company. He is, however, hardly an evil genius. Attempting to delay and discredit the EPA by demanding an independent scientific review for any environmental toxin up for regulation has been in the industry playbook for years. Diaper Dave Vitter ran the same long con for formaldehyde back in 2009.
And get this. Two companies that produce arsenic-based herbicides even managed to get scientists on their payroll to speak as expert witnesses to the National Academy of Science review panel. They just conveniently forgot to disclose their financial ties to the herbicide producers. This led to an embarrassed admission by the Academy that they did not know of the conflict of interest. Oooopsie.
As for Simpson, he is standard issue ethically bankrupt lord of the Republic. His district is home to a bunch of factory farms. His legislative accomplishments:
A powerful advocate for Idaho’s conservative values and priorities, Mike serves on the influential House Appropriations Committee where he has authored billions of dollars in cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget. Also, he led the successful fight to delist the gray wolf from the endangered species list and return it to state management.
Translation: Mike Simpson fought hard to protect keep arsenic in drinking water and food and to let Idaho ranchers shoot wolves. Huzzah. He-man tough guy.
Mike Simpson’s proven conservative record has earned national recognition: an A+ rating from the NRA, a 100 percent lifetime rating from National Right to Life and annual recognition from the American Conservative Union. Additionally, throughout his career Mike has been a strong advocate of small business owners receiving a 100 percent rating from the National Federation of Independent Business and a 92 percent rating from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
He opposes abortion (out of deep, deep reverence for life) but he wants to let agri-businesses, chemical producers, mining companies, and utilities continue to pump arsenic compounds into the air, water, and soil. So what if they are potent toxins and carcinogens? USA! USA! USA!
. . . We interrupt this program for an update from the cancer cluster village in China.
Mines and chemical plants mushroomed in the realgar-rich area around Heshan from the 1950s until 2011 when they were shut down due to the pollution they caused, but dust and runoff from arsenic plagues Heshan to this day, destroying crops and poisoning people.
In 2010, 157 villagers from Heshan, with a population of about 1,500, had died of cancer caused by arsenic poisoning in the previous two decades, and another 190 had developed cancer due to arsenic poisoning, the villagers wrote in a letter to the local government, seen by Reuters, seeking compensation and aid.
More than 200 people tested positive for arsenic poisoning in a nearby city hospital last year, Wen said.
It would probably be considered bad form to suggest that Mike Simpson studied corporate chemical warfare in China.