evil trickery. historic "opening" may be a Trojan Horse

["Jon Campbell" <jon@cqs.com>]

  Hello, folks,
  
  Yesterday I wrote to all of you that I thought
  the USDA ban on dioxin-laced chickens
  may be a historic opening for us to raise the
  dioxin issue nationally.
   I still think that is
  true, but there may be something else going
  on
   that deserves our attention.
  
  What I thought about last night were
  Peter Montague's words in REHW 553:
  in essence, that the role of government
  regulators
   was to *institutionalize* and
  guarantee
   that the polluters' business
  activity continues unabated, while creating
  the facade of environmental protection.
  
  That very activity may be the central
  theme of the USDA/FDA/EPA ban on
  the dioxin-laced chickens. eggs, and
  maybe catfish. For what have they done?
  While appearing to protect the public
  from harm (by banning obviously tainted
  chickens and eggs) they are attempting
  to INSTITUTIONALIZE 1 PPT DIOXIN
  AS AN ACCEPTABLE LEVEL OF
  CONTAMINATION IN FOOD!!!
  
  What a wonderful way for them to get the
  beef, pork, and dairy industries (and, by
  implication, the chemical, plastics, and
  incinerator industries) off the hook! If you
  look at Schecter's dioxin-in-food table
  on page 80 of "Dying From Dioxin",
  you can see that virtually every meat
  listed is below 1 ppt except hamburger.
  
  So you can imagine that once 1 ppt
  becomes an "acceptable" level of
  contamination, the FDA will haggle
  with the beef industry and the acceptable
  level of contamination so as to allow most
  beef.
  
  Thus it falls on us to let the public know
  that we must NOT instutionalize any level
  of contamination of our food, and
  CERTAINLY not 1 ppt dioxin, which is
  the status quo level which is making people
  sick now, much sicker in the future, and
  ruining people's lives.
  
  In summary, I do think that this still is
  an historic opening to put the dioxin issue
  into the public eye. But we must not let
  the regulatory agencies lull the public
  into thinking that their actions protect
  anyone except the polluters and
  the polluted-food industries.
  
  Regards,
  Jon Campbell