I remember watching Julia Roberts pay Erin Brockovich and said the brave woman took down those bastard evil corporate devils. Yep that is what most people thought and still think, yet it was a fabrication, built on lies and bullshit! It's was Hollywood propaganda by people who say they fight for the little guy but are really the 1% of the 1%ers!
This is the same shit with the fudge Inconvenient Truth and the BS agenda that made Gore one of the richest men in the world or the UAE oil funded anti-fracking fantasy created by professional numbnutz Matt Damon!
I digress:
The Wall Street Journal exposes the fraud that is Erin Brockovich!
This is the same shit with the fudge Inconvenient Truth and the BS agenda that made Gore one of the richest men in the world or the UAE oil funded anti-fracking fantasy created by professional numbnutz Matt Damon!
I digress:
The Truth About Erin Brockovich
As he reported in the Wall Street Journal last week, "no one agent could possibly have caused more than a handful of the symptoms described, and Chromium 6 in the water almost certainly couldnt have caused any of them."
Fumento found that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys own risk information concluded that "no data were located in the available literature that suggested that (Chromium 6) is carcinogenic by the oral route of exposure." The substance has been shown to cause cancer only through inhalation of large doses over many years. High-dose tests in rodents and dogs failed to demonstrate ill effects.
Moreover, Fumento discovered, recent research on Chromium 6 exposure at the Hinkley plant showed that "not only was there no excess of cancer when compared to the general California population, but that the overall PG&E worker death rate was significantly much lower than those of other Californians. Are we to believe that something causing no harm at the plant itself is nonetheless wreaking havoc on those living nearby?"
In response, the real Brockovich and her high-powered attorney friends point to thousands of pages of poignant testimonials from Hinkley townspeople. "These people are rightfully outraged. And the rest of us should be, too," Brockovich wrote in a letter to the Wall Street Journal." (The complete exchange, including links to Fumentos scientific sources - Brockovich and company provided no such citations in their rebuttal can be found at Michael Fumento.com.
Individual anecdotes always make good witness statements and emotional dramas. They are not, however, scientific proof. Miscarriages are common. Everyone gets rashes and nosebleeds. And just look at the hard data on birth defects: On an average day in the United States, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, 10,860 babies are born. Of those, 412 are born with birth defects, and 20 die as the result of a birth defect. Between 80,000 to 120,000 babies out of roughly 4 million born annually have at least one major malformation. The causes of about 60 percent of all birth defects are unknown.
The Wall Street Journal exposes the fraud that is Erin Brockovich!
Bestselling author Michael Fumento reports: "The Dark Side of Erin Brockovich."
The problem is that no one agent could possibly have caused more than a handful of the symptoms described and chromium-6 in the water almost certainly couldnt have caused any of them.
Chromium-6, derived from ubiquitous chromite ore, is considered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other regulators as a human carcinogen within certain limits. Its connection is only to two types of cancer, that of the lung and of the septum (the piece that separates your nostrils). Further, as one might guess from these two cancers, its only a carcinogen when inhaled. Even then, research indicates it takes massive doses over many years and according to William J. Blot, head of the International Epidemiology Institute in Rockville, Md., "It appears the problem has been associated with production of the compounds, not the actual use."
Wonder Bra Woman: Julia Roberts
According to the EPAs Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), updated in September 1998, "No data were located in the available literature that suggested that [chromium-6] is carcinogenic by the oral route of exposure." Since most of us drink rather than snort water, this would appear to be a significant distinction.
Cancer aside, exhaustive, repeated studies of communities living adjacent to landfills with huge concentrations of chromium-6, including that detectable in residents urine, have found no ill health effects. A report out of Glasgow, Scotland, in January indicated exposed residents showed "no increased risk of congenital abnormalities (birth defects), lung cancer, or a range of other diseases."
Earlier, a panel evaluating exposed residents near a New Jersey landfill "estimated that the plausible incremental cancer risk to individuals at residential sites would be substantially less than one in 1,000,000." In a town like Hinkley, with fewer than 1,000 residents, thats less than a tenth of one percent of a tumour. In a town like Hinkley with fewer than a 1,000 residents, the odds are astronomical that even one chromium-6 cancer would show up.
Coincidentally, a study by Blot and others just published in The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine evaluated almost 52,000 workers who worked at three PG&E plants over a quarter of a century. One was the Hinkley plant, another is near Kettleman, Calif., where Miss Brockovichs firm is also rounding up plaintiffs. The researchers found that not only was there no excess of cancer when compared to the general California population, but that the overall PG&E worker death rate was significantly much lower than those of other Californians.
Are we to believe that something causing no harm at the plant itself is nonetheless wreaking havoc on those living nearby?
Meanwhile, rodents dosed at 25 parts per million (ppm) and dogs dosed at 11.2 ppm showed no ill effects, though the amount in Hinkleys water never got higher than 0.58 ppm, a level Miss Roberts character tries to make sound shockingly high. As to miscarriages or birth defects, "The reproductive assessment indicated that [chromium-6] administered enough to cause their feces to look shinier than the bumper of a 57 Chevy 15-400 ppm in the diet is not a reproductive toxicant in either sex" of test mice and rats, according to the EPA.
Yet just to play it safe, the evil corporate empire of PG&E in 1987 began buying up homes all around its plant, and supplying free drinking and even swimming pool water to those who wouldnt sell. There was no cover-up, according to Hisam Baqai, a supervising engineer with the California Regional Quality Control Board in nearby Victorville.
"In 1987, after PG Hinkley made us aware of this problem, we had full disclosure," he told me, "including meetings and written notices. One way or another everybody in Hinkley must have known about this."
Unfortunately, much of the medical evidence came in after PG&E settled. Further, Miss Brockovichs small firm had brought in an Iowa-class battleship in the form of Thomas V. Girardi, a specialist in toxic pollution suits who makes everybodys short list of the most powerful attorneys in the United States.
Then ABCs Primetime Live aired a show on the controversy, eschewing medicine and science in favour of heart-wrenching quotes from unidentified residents as, "Whole families are dying of cancer." Girardi made several appearances. ABC also baldly prevaricated that, "According to the U.S. Public Health Service, at certain levels chromium-6 can cause diseases of virtually every organ in the body."
Its hardly a wonder that PG&E tossed in the towel at $333-million when slick lawyers and truly suffering (if not from chromium-6) witnesses could have cost them much more at arbitration.
Now Miss Brockovichs gang are representing other clients against the corporation, both at Hinkley and another location. But the original plaintiffs might have been shocked if they had believed that what would prevail would be Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
The truth is their lawyers snatched more than $133.6-million in fees (40% of the total), while Wonderbra Woman personally received a post-settlement bonus of $2-million. Add in at least one previous bonus and her salary and thats not a bad haul for two years work. How wonderful to do so well by doing good!
Unfortunately, to do so she had to convince a town that it was poisoned for decades and will inevitably continue to suffer the effects indefinitely.
But apparently it was considered a small price to make them pay. And it did make for a really enjoyable film.