Posted on 05/04/2005 10:51:12 AM PDT by WayneLusvardi
10News.com gets a minus ten on perchlorate story
Written by Wayne Lusvardi
"A journalist's knowledge is thirty miles wide, but only one inch deep." Alexandra Kitty, Don't Believe It! How Lies Become News (2005)
The San Diego Channel 10 News story "Is Rocket Fuel Tainting Our Water?" (April 29) http://www.10news.com/investigations/4433415/detail.html, about the purported dangers of perchlorate in drinking water, must have set a record for the number of errors per 100 words. Ten errors that come to mind are:
1. Perchlorate is not "rocket fuel;" it is a natural oxygenate originally found in the form of a salt in soil and rock formations that is embedded with large amounts of oxygen (the perchlorate molecule is 4 atoms of oxygen and one atom of chlorine).
2. News10.com reports that it "uncovered records," which reveal that U.S. defense contractors dumped massive amounts of rocket fuel into our drinking water. Such "uncovered records" were hidden in plain sight - on Nexis Lexus.
3. There is no obvious linkage between the closed Kerr McGee manufacturing or munitions facility in Henderson, Nevada, which is the source of a tiny 6 parts per billion of perchlorate in Colorado River water, and water from 350 groundwater wells in Southern California which comes from local rainfall.
4. Perchlorate does not cause "growths" on thyroid glands, cancerous or otherwise. About 20% of adults have benign (harmless) thyroid nodules.
5. Perchlorate has been known since 1952 to dramatically reduce thyroid hormone production at doses of 100 milligrams per day to treat hyperthyroidism. This would be the equivalent dosage of drinking 714,000 parts of perchlorate per billion parts of water for a person of average body weight. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) safety level for perchlorate in drinking water is an infinitesimal one part per billion. According to Steven Milloy of JunkScience.com a serving of spinach inhibits iodine absorption in the thyroid gland 300 times more than the one part per billion of perchlorate someone might consume in two quarts of groundwater.
6. Perchlorate has not been found in lettuce in "elevated" levels because neither scientists nor government regulators know what a normal level is yet. A study of mothers, infants and children in Chile, where perchlorate occurs naturally, do not indicate higher mental retardation or other developmental problems than other populations.
7. In addition to produce irrigated by Colorado River water, perchlorate has been found in summer lettuce in places like New Jersey and Michigan where neither perchlorate nor solid rocket fuel or munitions are or were manufactured.
8. "How much is too much perchlorate?" asks Channel 10 investigative news reporter Thom Jensen? To answer this important question Jensen interviews a local "clean water activist" and gadfly in San Diego; an EPA Superfund project manager whose job would be in jeopardy if government adopted the new perchlorate safety standard recommended by the National Academy of Sciences or the even the more relaxed standard recommended by a prestigious panel of scientists at the University of California at Irvine; and an environmental engineering professor at the University of Las Vegas whose academic fiefdom is largely dependent on perchlorate being designated as a health problem.
9. Thyroid disease is reported to be the "second cause of death" among a small band of Indians by the tribe's media power broker. Where did this incredible statistic come from and why didn't the 10News.com reporter check it out?
10. Contrary to 10News.com, there is no Department of Defense (DOD) endorsed legislation pending that would give a blanket exemption from environmental liability to it or its contractors. DOD has only proposed legislation that exempts it from clean-up responsibility on active military ranges.
In the Olympics, official scorers give a score from 1 to 10, with ten being best, to athletic contestants in gymnastics, ice skating, and other competitive sports. In journalism, 10News.com scored a minus ten on the perchlorate story, a score not even possible in athletics.
There is a saying among newspaper and television reporters: "a journalist's knowledge is thirty miles wide, but only one inch deep." Perchlorate is found in scattered underground water supplies, mainly in Southern California. It is regulated in California at 6 parts per billion in drinking water, but requires a more in-depth understanding than that found in the mainstream media to characterize its true threat to human health.
Meanwhile, many friends and loved-ones of the readers of this column are suffering with cancer and are having their life savings wipe-out with expensive operations and chemotherapy treatments while we spend mega-billions on perchlorate cleanups that have unproven health benefits. As science and alternative media is catching up each passing day with the bogus science and irresponsible journalism surrounding the perchlorate issue, it appears more and more that perchlorate may not be a health or environmental scandal but a moral scandal of putting billions of dollars of our resources on the wrong health priority.
Well okay, I won't let my family eat anymore lettuce, but it's the alar on the apples that really bothers me.
Can you tell me how to be sure I won't get any in my apple pie?
Thanks in advance.
Mom.
We need to keep it out of the schools.
Terrible stuff.
Couple years ago, my stepson nearly died from DHMO inhalation. I, myself, had a nasty touch and go with the stuff as a child.
Ban the stuff!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.