Erin Brockovich: Just an Example of the 1% of the 1%ers in Hollywood's Hypocrisy

[GHook93]

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 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 couldn’t have caused any of them."

Fumento found that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 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 Fumento’s 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 couldn’t 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, it’s 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 EPA’s 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, that’s 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 Brockovich’s 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 Hinkley’s 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 wouldn’t 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 Brockovich’s small firm had brought in an Iowa-class battleship in the form of Thomas V. Girardi, a specialist in toxic pollution suits who makes everybody’s short list of the most powerful attorneys in the United States.

Then ABC’s 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."

It’s 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 Brockovich’s 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 that’s 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.

 

[GHook93]

Silk Wood and China Syndrome were two movies credited with halting the nuclear power expansion in the US! While countries like France expanded nuclear power and took advantage of it's potential, the US halted it out of PR fears causes by these two movies. Both were based on illogical what-ifs, loose science and falsified facts!

It's Hollywoods war on certain segments of US society!

 

[Mr. H.]

Anti-fracing fantasy. That's the damn truth. Entire states (Illinois included) are being denied real and immediate economic growth because people eat that shit up hook line and sinker.

 

[GHook93]

Matt Damon's Anti-Fracking Movie Financed by Oil-Rich Arab Nation | The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation

The fictious film that Matt Damon produced was financed by dirty Arab OIL BLOOD MONEY! Natural gas is their main competition, so naturally these scumbags would enlist a hollywood mental midget to make a propaganda film to assassinate there competition!

Just another example of Hollywood's war on America!

 

[Borillar]

Silk Wood and China Syndrome were two movies credited with halting the nuclear power expansion in the US! While countries like France expanded nuclear power and took advantage of it's potential, the US halted it out of PR fears causes by these two movies. Both were based on illogical what-ifs, loose science and falsified facts!

It's Hollywoods war on certain segments of US society!

Yeah, fears of nuclear disasters are totally unfounded. Chernobyl, Three mile Island, and Fukushima are all just figments of our imaginations.

 

[Political Junky]

Yea, industry should know no restrictions.

 

[Mr. H.]

Yea, industry should know no restrictions.

The public should be educated about industry.

 

[GHook93]

Silk Wood and China Syndrome were two movies credited with halting the nuclear power expansion in the US! While countries like France expanded nuclear power and took advantage of it's potential, the US halted it out of PR fears causes by these two movies. Both were based on illogical what-ifs, loose science and falsified facts!

It's Hollywoods war on certain segments of US society!

Yeah, fears of nuclear disasters are totally unfounded. Chernobyl, Three mile Island, and Fukushima are all just figments of our imaginations.

Chernobyl is PROOF that COMMUNISM and SOCIALISM lead to disaster. Chernobyl was so poorly put together, because of the laziness that communism produces that a disaster was inevitable.

LOL, Three Mile Island was an over-reaction and then liberal media blow up of a non-story!
Not ONE person died, not one person got sick, everyone from the "evacuated" area went back to their homes withou delay, no water was contaimnated and NOTHING HAPPENED other than a manufactured hysteria!

Go through the power-point below and you will see.

http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/accidents/tmipowerpoint.pdf

Three Mile Island: Myth and Fact / The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com
Commentary, much of it alarmist, took over from reporting. Unfortunately, amid the polarized atmosphere, and with only one designated spokesman at TMI, much expert knowledge never was heard. The key questions of future risks from curtailing or giving up on nuclear power were hardly raised at all.

Four weeks later, NRC officials, testifying before Congress said, ``We goofed. There was no danger of any hydrogen explosion.'' Typical newspaper coverage was a 2-inch item on page 17.

Even though state and local officials carried out their responsibilities quite effectively, the NRC felt that it would be prudent to have an emergency planning rule. The 10-mile emergency planning zone (never an ``evacuation zone'') was rather arbitrarily chosen, based on some worst-case accident calculations and the idea that 10 miles was big enough to involve all interested local communities along with county and state officials.

States, communities, and utilities joined to plan and practice for emergencies. Not until the mid-'80s did governors Mario Cuomo in New York and Michael Dukakis in Massachusetts refuse to participate in planning. They found it politically attractive to tie up the licensing of Shoreham and Seabrook. (Several other governors toyed with the idea, and then backed off.)

The costs of the two plants have risen dramatically as interest payments pile up. New Hampshire Public Service Company is bankrupt. Shoreham is to be sold for $1 so New York can keep its much-needed electricity from ever being generated

Name the disaster or even incidents with a US power plant since Three Mile Island (which happened in 1979)! There has been even ONE incident or even ONE DEATH. We have 65 plants, but all were built PRIOR to 1979, since the Environazis won't allow any new ones. We get 20% of our power from nuclear, while France gets 80% of it's power form nuclear.

The halting of building any new nuclear power plants for over 3 decades is a huge boneheaded injustice!

 

[GHook93]

Yea, industry should know no restrictions.

You fools are so stupid! SO STUPID, but great red herring! No one, including myself, has ever stated there should be no business regulations. Leftist are such extremist that they believe if you say less, smaller and smarter regulations you want all regulations eliminated! Such a weak argument worthy of a neg!

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

Obamas, Hollywood stars, elite, liberal rich are the one percenters that occupy wallstreeters were duped by. Poor things.

 

[rightwinger]

How can anything called "The Love Canal" be bad for you?

 

[initforme]

perhaps if the company could have simply kept every last tiny speck of chemical out of the environment they wouldnt have had the problem they EARNED FOR THEMSELVES... Keep the chemicals perfectly contained and if you cant then pay $333 million. I have no problem with the lawsuit.

 

[initforme]

please find a reputable source besides the wall sleeze journal

 

[GHook93]

please find a reputable source besides the wall sleeze journal

What you prefer the Huffingglue Post WSJ is the most widely distributed newspaper in the country. Neg for overt stupidity!

 

[KissMy]

These losers should just STFU & die already! Stop infringing on the rights of Big Government & Big Business to make as much money off their families corpses as possible. They should keep their mouth shut, sell their homes to the next sucker & move away from the contamination. Complaining is only harming their properties resale value.

 

[Sunsettommy]

How can anything called "The Love Canal" be bad for you?

Do YOU know why Love Canal because a big deal in the first place?

 

[initforme]

I for one was glad to see brockovich win. If the company is so inept that they have ANY difficulty at all controlling every last drop of chemical then shut down and I will cheer.