Educating the WSJ's Kimberley Strassel On Why A Scientific integrity Official Is Needed At The EPA

WSJ's goofy columnist Kimberley Strassel believes she knows about the 'Deep State' but doesn't have a clue.

It's been somewhat hilarious over the past few months watching the Right's troglodytes do verbal backflips trying to avoid the Russia-Trump story. Instead they've confected nonsense conspiracy theories of how Obama buried hidden associates throughout the government - still waiting to be ferreted out-to give poor little Donald Trump a hard time. Make his presidency insufferable and illegitimate with no thought of how he's doing it all to himself with every move he makes. (The next one, another whopper of an unforced error, likely to be trying to block James Comey's testimony on Thursday, before the Senate Intelligence Committee.)

As far as the REAL deep state, those who are serious and really wish to write about it can do no better than reference Mike Lofgren  who described it in a compelling essay published at BillMoyers.com:  "a predatory consensus of money and political ideology that serves only its own endless growth and functions in pristine autonomy from any sort of democratic process."

In which case, Trump and his cabal in collusion with the Russkies fit the bill perfectly.  Look, for example, at Kushner's hobnobbing with the vipers of the notorious, money -laundering VEB bank.  See also: 

https://boingboing.net/2017/02/28/new-secretary-of-commerce-wil.html


Why? Look at Trump's global business interests - including in Saudi Arabia - and how he is enriching himself to the tune of millions while in office. In the meantime, no checks on his actions because the Repukes control all branches of gov't.

And what, pray tell, do conservatives call the "deep state"?  According to Strassel in her WSJ column from five days ago:

"The administrative state. The entrenched government elite. Lois Lerner. The federal bureaucracy....the cadre of federal employees accountable to no one, actively working from within to thwart Donald Trump."

But I think she has it backward. The administrative state, in fact, is that "cadre" of federal employees committed to protecting the rest of us from renegade corporate exploiters.  These are the elements of the federal "bureaucracy" that ensure your milk is free of fecal matter, your burgers  are free of E Coli., your drinking water of perchlorates and lead, and your canned tuna free of botulism. Also that medical devices are properly manufactured and sterilized to acceptable standards (FDA regs), i.e. so when you get your colonoscopy the colonoscope didn't just come directly from insertion into another patient..

In other words, Strassel is attacking the effective working government that has the general welfare as a primary role.  The sector that's charged with citizen protections, but which the Right calls "regulations" and has a jones on to eliminate all of them. 

See e.g.

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/george-lakoff/71462/the-public-s-viewpoint-regulations-are-protections

But what's interesting is the agency Strassel singles out for special opprobrium: the EPA. Specifically, she targets Francesa Grifo "long time activist at the far left Union of Concerned Scientists".  Of course, to the knuckle draggers of the Right, anyone who supports genuine science - and that includes climate science - is of "the far left".   Anyway, Strassel complains about Grifo writing a report (accurate as it turns out) that "EPA scientists were under siege by Republican political appointees and industry lobbyists who had manipulated science on everything from mercury pollution to groundwater contamination to climate science".

As a long time member of UCS I read the same report and saw absolutely nothing amiss in what Ms. Grifo exposed.  It's been known by many of us for a long time that Republican political hacks have worked in collusion with chemical industry lobbyists to lower standards on everything from atrazine used in weedicides to bisphenol A,  to phthalates and perflurorooctanoic (PFOA) acid.

Risk benefit analyses- many done in Canada, show that even a billionth of a gram of bisphenol A can engender toxic effects, such as causing human cells to mutate toward a cancerous form (See: 'The Body Toxic', by Nina Baker, 2008, pp. 148-49).   The U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976 was supposed to limit the mass infiltration of chemicals, but it hasn't worked. Why not? Probably because before its implementation  a "blanket approval" was conferred  on some sixty two thousand chemicals used in commerce. As Nina Baker observes (p. 49):

"No questions were asked. No hazard data were required. It's not surprising therefore that 99% (by volume) of chemicals used today are older substances that were grandfathered in under the toxics act, according to Inform, a New York based research organization."

Meanwhile, citizens in Fountain , CO have been dealing with the spill of PFOA into Fountain Creek, decimating crops and wreaking economic havoc. The chemical lobbyists and their Repub associates simply wanted to argue it's all in residents' minds.

As for climate change, Strassel is evidently oblivious to the fact its ravages have been on display in everything from super storms, to floods to droughts and killer heat waves in India.  Oh, and lest we forget, in the melting glaciers around the world from Alaska to Switzerland. 

It seems abundantly clear to me, therefore, that what Strassel is really bitching about is spending taxpayer money on all those agency -government concerns that deliver citizen protections, as well as timely alerts and warnings  (issued by the CDC)   about the potential emergence of a new pandemic.  Instead, she wants to turn Francesca Grifo and her Scientific Integrity Committee into "bogeymen" for the conserve flacks to beat up on.  Indeed, in classic hysterical style, Strassel blabs:

"As Scientific Integrity Official, Ms. Grifo would have the awesome power to root out all these meddlesome science deniers. A 2013 Science magazine story reported she would lead an entire Scientific Integrity Committee, write an annual report documenting science “incidents” at the agency, and even “investigate” science problems—alongside no less than the agency’s inspector general."

But, of course, that "awesome power" is justified including that her position - not being a political appointment - comes with "civil service protections". This is just as well given we need someone, some authority dedicated to genuine science in the agency to ride herd over Scott Pruitt. Hence, contrary to Strassel's bloviations, Grifo would be within her purview to investigate Pruitt's assertion that "CO2 is not the prime driver of global warming". Of course it is, to the tempo of CO2 concentrations increasing by 2 ppm per year, increasing the radiative heating effect by 2 W/ m² per year.

Strassel, in her hysterical screed, is actually looking askance at the extent of authority of "an unelected, unappointed activist" - which btw, is exactly why Ms. Grifo's role is so critical.:  She provides a check on a half-educated  twit out to destroy the agency to which he was appointed! See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2017/03/scott-pruitt-shows-hes-arsonist-for.html


So yes, Ms. Grifo can indeed decide this arsonist is "too unscientific to run his own agency". Hell, Pruitt's  too unqualified to even run a flea circus! Just as Sen. Jim Inhofe (OK) was too unqualified to be heading a Science Committee. 

But the most histrionic expulsion of verbiage showing Strassel truly doesn't get it - or doesn't want to - is the following:

"This is a government employee using taxpayer funds to plot ways to sabotage the Trump administration."

Well, to put it into perspective, if there was an official charged with halting an arsonist irresponsibly put in control of the Fire Dept. I'd damned sure want him or her to find way to sabotage that arsonist! In the case of Ms. Grifo, it is in all our best interests she is in the position she is to keep Pruitt honest and committed to the EPA as opposed to sabotaging it. In other words, we see HIM as the saboteur, not her.

So Strassel actually endorses the sabotage of the EPA and other agencies, as opposed to acting in our interests and welfare.

Strassel ends her hit piece on Grifo and "the deep state" (sic) by suggesting the Scientific Integrity Office be cut outright, adding: "the sooner department heads take action against the deep state the sooner this administration can drain the swamp".

Translation: The sooner we can cut responsible heads of agencies and employees,  i.e. those charged with using agencies to protect citizens health and welfare  - the sooner the swamp can be re-filled.

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/p-m-carpenter/73228/climate-change-isnt-the-hoax-trump-is

The New W.H.O. Meat & Cancer Study - Another Pile of Medical Malarkey

The new cancer warnings on Monday from the World Health Organization (W.H.O.)  about eating red meats and processed meats make me laugh. The latest medical pinheads want us to believe that eating a hot dog a day has the same risk as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day or being exposed to asbestos. They claim eating one hot dog a day can "increase the colon cancer risk". '

Know what the extent of increased  risk is? It goes from 5% over a lifetime (for non meat eater, e,g, Vegan) to 6 percent. BIG DEAL!  By the same token, the smokers increase their cancer risk by 17. 2 percent compared to 1.3 percent for non-smokers. So WHO is fooling WHO? DO these medical misfits really believe people will give up their hot dogs on that account? They must be smoking much more powerful stuff than available here in Colorado.

What exactly is the reasoning?

Well, processed meats like hot dogs and bologna have been salted, cured (with sodium nitrite) or smoked to enhance flavor and improve preservation. Medical health gurus have long worried that this processing leads to the formation of potentially carcinogenic chemicals like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in these products. (Funny how they worry so much less about the abundance of toxic chemicals in our air, soil and water from fracking, such as benzene, xylene, toluene etc. as well as atrazine from weedicides.)

The concern with red meats — beef, pork and lamb — has more to do with the cooking, not the processing. Grilling, barbecuing and pan-frying meat creates potential carcinogens, including heterocyclic aromatic amines. But again, these pale beside the toxic chemicals already inundating our environment, such as perchlorate, glyphosate, atrazine and bisphenol-A and about which there is little concern shown at all

The report finds a link between consumption of processed meats and colorectal cancer (and perhaps other cancers). But here's the zinger:  it also acknowledged that the link between red meat and cancer has not been proved. According to the ancillary body, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, in a handout accompanying its report.:

“Eating red meat has not yet been established as a cause of cancer,”

In other words, it's just another medical alarm story like so many before, and which people had already become accustomed to tuning out.

Let's get into the numbers again, for perspective: W.H.O. estimated that 50 grams daily of processed meat or 100 grams daily of red meat might increase the risk of colorectal cancer by 18 percent and 17 percent, in that order, over the absolute risk — if indeed red meat were related to cancer at all, which the report also acknowledged is not known.

What does that mean? It means that as noted above, the lifetime risk goes from 5% to 6% so that the increased risk "over the absolute risk" is computed:

(6% - 5%)/ 6  = 1/6  - 16.667 %  ~  17%

Again, negligible! I prefer to think of it more realistically as the risk going from 5 in 100 for those who don't eat red or processed meats, to 6 in 100 to those who do. The use of the "17 percent" increase is merely a stat intended to alarm ordinary folk and throw them off. It reminds me of the old statin research done by PhrMA which purported to show the benefit of taking statins which allegedly reduced risk of heart attacks by 33 percent.

This  was first reported by FORBES in 2008 wherein outcomes from a control and statin-taking group were compared per capita for heart attacks. In the control (placebo) group there occurred 2 heart attacks per capita, and in the statin-takers there occurred 1 heart attack per 100. The results were then touted as "Statins reduce risk of heart attacks by 33%".

Thus:

(2 - 1)/3 x 100% = 1/3 x 100% = 33%

But anyone can play games with numbers like that, and misdirect people's attention. Indeed, in the case of the data reviewed by the W.H.O. we now know it was drawn from population studies, and many experts question whether these risk estimates can be applied to individuals who may have other risks for colorectal cancer. (Especially from toxic chemicals which can also find their way into the foods we consume).

My primary complaint, which is shared by author Devra Davis in her excellent monograph,  'Secret History of the War on Cancer' - is the medical industrial complex is trying to scare us off common foods that most people eat while turning a blind eye to the truly malignant carcinogenic risks of pesticides, weedicides etc. But as she notes there is a method to the madness; It foists the major responsibility for cancer to the ordinary person and away from the mammoth chemical industry. It protects their profits while holding US accountable for our cancers, say if we eat a hot dog or bologna sandwich or two each day instead of lentils and arugula.

In her book,  Davis accurately documents that people get told over and over (by the likes of the American Cancer Society and their physician enablers, apologists) that "too much fat" is causing their cancers - whether of lungs, bladders, prostate gland or breasts - and hence they bear greatest responsibility. ( Never mind the evidence from more than 80 years of cumulative data which discloses it's chemicals in the environment that contribute more than fifty times as much.)

But this sort of dishonest PR show is now common in the US of A.

The trouble is that most of us no longer buy into it. We have the evidence that there are far more pervasive risks to our health than eating a hot dog or bratwurst a day!

If the powers that be - whatever their source -  want to really protect citizens from carcinogens, they will first attend to the REAL culprits, e.g. everything from PFOA(perflurorooctanoic acid ) -based chemicals and additives, that causes monstrous birth or sexual defects in young kids to phthalates (pronounced THAL-ates), such as bisphenol A (now banned in Canada and most of Europe ) to atrazine and acetochlor in herbicides (for a rogue list of all of the most dastardly chemicals poisoning us, see: 'The Body Toxic', by Nina Baker, 2008)

Until these medical meatheads do that I will go on eating my brats, hot dogs and salami - knowing that their increased risk of cancer,  relative to what's already in the environment via toxic chemicals,  is roughly analogous to the risk of getting more drunk by adding a thimble full of beer to a keg already downed.