[Southsider2k12]

http://www.thenewsdispatch.com/articles/20...c7445778961.txt

Big business vs. quality of life




Published: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 4:18 AM CST
Felicia Thomas
Lights and Shadows

The contamination issue Pines residents are facing is disturbing on many levels.

While I don’t claim to understand all the details, it certainly seems like another situation where questionable actions result in various groups reacting in non-productive ways: refusal to accept responsibility and do what’s right; stalling with legal maneuvers; making light of the damaging effects; arguing with established facts; pretending that clean-up costs carry more importance than health and life.

It’s interesting that an EPA official did not consider the matter an “alarming health risk.” Unless he lives in The Pines, I suppose not.

The practice of discounting risk to others through detached complacence from the comfort of one’s own safety net has become increasingly common. We see these attitudes regularly in our quest to keep dangerous chemicals and substances out of our lives. Sadly, “big business” and “quality of life” seem almost always to oppose one another.

Years ago, some warehouse was in trouble because their ground pepper contained levels of rat droppings that exceeded the FDA’s acceptable levels. What? There are acceptable levels of rat feces in ground pepper? That is when I started grinding my own peppercorns. It’s also when I began to understand the FDA did not necessarily have our best interests at heart.

Time and again, toothless laws give the impression of aiming to improve our health and safety.

Hydrogenated oils are a pathetic example. After much hype, food manufacturers were required to reveal its usage by including trans fats on labels. But what we hoped would be the moment of mutant fatty truth was a huge waste of time, energy and money. Turns out they get to include a little bit and still lie and say they didn’t.

Remember when people started understanding the dangers of MSG? Some food manufacturers decided consumers were easily duped or just plain stupid.

Rather than improve their products to make them more healthful, they started spelling out the word. We could then read the ingredient list containing “monosodium glutamate” and think, “Oh, good – no MSG. Must be ok.” Seriously? Even worse are foods that promote themselves as healthful, but are loaded with garbage.

Last week’s paper contained an article about dangerous cadmium in jewelry. We’ve also allowed lead products to flood back into our country even though its dangers were clearly established decades ago. Our pets have been sickened and killed by food tainted with plastic. But then, the perpetrators killed their own babies with plastic milk, so why would they care about our pets?

Why are substances widely known to be dangerous allowed freedom to permeate our world? And why are those responsible allowed to hide comfortably behind their well-constructed, government-sanctioned walls of safety?

God bless us all.

q

Felicia Thomas is a Michigan City resident. She can be contacted at set3705@comcast.net