We Shouldn't Dismiss People Who Deny Facts? Why The Hell NOT?

                                                         "I duz  not like facks! DOH!"

A recent irritating, short essay in TIME (Sept. 12-19, p. 26) insisted rational and fact-based people need to give all the zombies,  knuckle draggers, and ignorant buffoons among us a 'break' and not dismiss them.  So, for example, we must give a pass to those who "believe things that are factually incorrect". Say like those who believe that vaccines cause autism, or to one innominate,  self-proclaimed genius of Intertel who is 100 percent convinced that "scientific conspirators falsified their data on which they based their alarming findings."  Or -from the same genius: "these scientists manipulated the peer review process to keep valid research against global warming from being published."

But anyone who's  been involved in serious climate science research would know the latter two beliefs are pure balderdash and definitely merit no respect. Especially if they issue from people who are members of a high IQ group.  They ought to have known or found out that denier papers are rejected because they don't meet minimum publication standards, including: use of proper mathematical or statistical techniques to assess data, use of coherent and testable physical models and/or simulations and assessment of errors in each of the preceding. But it's easier for deniers simply to believe denier research papers are left out because the review process is "manipulated."

While ordinary people may be partly excused for their beliefs, a high IQ person cannot be similarly excused, and he or she merits the full hammer of criticism and opprobrium. He has effectively misused his high intelligence to 'go off the rails'  and not conducted sufficient self-checks on his claims. Nor used his intelligence - with sufficient energy - to do his own research to first seek to disprove his many superficially -based beliefs.

Why? Because by virtue of their very intelligence they ought to fucking know better!  They actually possess the necessary intellect to ferret out the truth and DO the research but are too god damned lazy to do it. They don't want to read 15 or 20 papers that thoroughly debunk their idiotic beliefs, they'd rather just go to climate denier websites, imbibe the misinformation and repeat it. Especially with the conspiracy aspect.

The authors of the TIME essay ('We Shouldn't Dismiss People Who Deny Facts') claim:

"If we really want to change how they think, we need to take an honest look at what's driving those beliefs. Because it's not ignorance, it's psychology."

Actually, in the case of the genius climate deniers (or their  soft soaping allies who aren't as denial -based but still think "the jury is out")  it's politics that's to blame. Specifically Libertarianism,  which most of them espouse, whether in Mensa or Intertel.  This leads them to collect — even invent — bad information to flesh out what they already believe to justify their economics theories.  Their aim isn't scientific pursuit but rather defending an economic system they believe will unravel if practical solutions to global warming became law.

My point? Their  interjection and invocation of politics means they can no longer be afforded special consideration, and this distinguishes them from say, the vaccine skeptics. The TIME authors, Sara and Jack Gorman, claim we are all subject to the same principles that "cause scientific denial".  They add:

"Research has shown that humans are distinctly uncomfortable with events or phenomena without clear causes - and when we don't  know something we tend to fill in the gaps ourselves. Take autism. Since we don't know why it occurs it becomes easy to misplace blame."

Fair enough, but autism is not global warming, for which we KNOW the cause is ever increasing CO2 concentrations that cause the atmosphere to retain more moisture and heat creating a thermal blanket that heats the Earth like a mammoth greenhouse. Indeed, the source of the greenhouse effect has been known for nearly 120 years, from the time of chemist Svante Arrhenius, e.g.

http://warming.sdsu.edu/

This issue also transpired in the debate Monday night when Trump tried to deny he had earlier called global warming a "hoax".  This, despite the fact an old tweet of his was dug up where in he babbled:
"the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese."

Why recite such crap? Because it served a political advantage. But sorry, you don't get any breaks nor are you spared criticism when you go that route. The same applies to Libertarians in Mensa and Intertel who have banged the denier drum until they're blue in the face. They do it precisely because they don't wish to acknowledge that - if true (which it is) - economic sacrifices will have to be made in the short and long term interest of future generations.  The upshot of their unquestioning belief in market economics leads them to craft a pseudo-scientific narrative ( in the guise of real science) to attack genuine climate science. To accomplish this trick they make use of  the data, papers of proven scientific whores and hacks, willing to sell their dubious skills for a few shekels to the highest capitalist bidders or think tanks e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/02/another-climate-scientist-fake-exposed.html

One of the best exposes of their methods and dynamics has come from Yale Law school prof and science communication researcher Dan Kahan.  He has concluded that their information processing is almost entirely determined by their deep-seated political values and cultural identities. Thus, a white libertarian member of  Intertel, for example, will see global warming science as just one more vehicle of  subversive force backed  by the "untermenschen"  to be used against his precious economic values and Eurocentric ideals. All of this is then attributed to "global warming alarmism", as an expeditious cover for his own abysmal laziness, ignorance and cynicism. At this point, his thinking is already so corrupted and contaminated it's almost impossible to break through on any rational or critical thinking level.

From Kahan's theory, these pseudo skeptics don't really have the time to evaluate every piece of evidence that comes before them (say ice cores containing CO2) so basically punt. Instead of rationally and objectively evaluating the evidence they side with the top bananas in their political group  - in this case folks like Charles Murray- and use their generic  economic arguments (i.e. against taxes as "theft" and "force")  to attack climate science or more precisely the climate science consensus that human induced warming is real, e.g.

http://sciencepolicy.agu.org/files/2013/07/AGU-Climate-Change-Position-Statement_August-2013.pdf

One of their most used shticks is to clump all federal science agencies (like NOAA, NASA, EPA  etc.) together and "in on the scam". This makes it easy so they don't have to use their brains or  time plowing through separate specialist climate papers. Why do that when you can kill five birds with one stone?

Driven by this short cut mental modality, they then seek out those oddball contrarians (like Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas, Richard Lindzen) who do sound off against the climate consensus, even though they are dead wrong and have been proven so.  The stage then emerges for the next phase: cherry picking only the data which conforms to their economic or political values. By now we have  a self-reinforcing mechanism: the more the Libbie genius gets exposed to the faux science that  supports his economic and political stance the more he continues to adopt that position and related ones further out. These include such far out, paranoid ideations that one's opponents "demand that Western Industrial Civilization commit cultural suicide by adopting the crippling constraints sought by the global warming conspirators."  in the words of Kort Patterson.

Meanwhile, by extension, misinformation in public life isn’t the exception, it’s the rule, according to a study published in Social Science Quarterly  which employed a “knowledge distortion index” and looked at two competing explanations for why this is so — one top-down, the other bottom-up.  The researchers used three Washington state initiatives from the 2006 general election cycle to examine the dynamics of what is going on in this particular sort of political environment.  The study, “How Voters Become Misinformed: An Investigation of the Emergence and Consequences of False Factual Beliefs,” found that “voters’ values and partisanship had the strongest associations with distorted beliefs, which then influenced voting choices. Self-reported levels of exposure to media and campaign messages "played a surprisingly limited role,” despite the presence of significantly mistaken “facts,” which were used to help construct the knowledge distortion index.
 

Lead author, Justin Reedy in one interview stated “Both of these theories recognize that citizens can develop distorted factual beliefs because of their political views, but they disagree about how those distortions might happen. Heuristics researchers generally think that citizens have limited attention for politics and try to process information quickly and efficiently.”

Again, this reverts to Kahan's theory of why intelligent climate deniers give short shrift to deep research that might change their minds - if they only got off their butts and put their high IQs to use for an activity other than denial. But because simple denial consumes less time (one can get denier "misinformation" quickly and efficiently from numerous websites) then their denier behavior is more likely to be reinforced. That means they will be less likely to expend time or effort on difficult independent  research that might change their mind.
 
The Gormans assert Iibid.):

"Rather than chastising people for focusing so heavily on stories, we should figure out why we are all so drawn to stories in the first place. Changing minds requires compassion and understanding, not disdain."

A sentiment with which I wholeheartedly concur. And that's why I often make allowances for those like the anti-vaxxers because they aren't privy to detailed biological science nor are they likely to understand autism if they did access research. So they must confabulate "stories" and these often support their false beliefs. However, I am not about to extend the same generosity to a Mensan or Ilian - especially one who cynically uses his intelligence to spread misinformation and misbegotten conspiracy theories about "global warming alarmists".

More Proof Americans Are Among The Biggest Dopes On The Planet

And, when I use the term "dopes" it doesn't necessarily mean only those with sub-par IQs. After all, the cartoon image shown actually refers to one "research engineer" - Evan Jon Wright - who is a Mensa member, and incredibly believes that if CO2 was absorbed by the oceans they'd have turned to soda pop!

But the range and level of ignorance extends far beyond that example, to even more basic nonsensical beliefs which helps to keep this country the laughing stock of the world.

Among some of the finds from a recent poll and survey:

1) Roughly 73 percent of Americans believe Jesus was born of a virgin, while only 61 percent believe the Earth’s temperature has been warming. Even worse, only 40 percent of the Americans who concede that climate change is happening will admit that it’s primarily due to man-made activity.

This simply boggles the mind given the only examples of virgin birth ever documented have been mainly confined to some species of reptiles, never mammals. Yet people willingly buy into that hogswill. And yet anthropogenic global warming which has been firmly documented, is dismissed by nearly two fifths of 'Muricans. Something is seriously wrong with American brains here or their education - maybe both!

2) 77 percent of Americans believe in angels.

Incredibly, an AP/GFK poll in 2011 found that more than three out of four Americans believed angels literally exist, but also found that more than four out of 10 of those who never attend religious services believe it.  A poll taken five years earlier found that 81 percent of Americans believe in angels, essentially meaning the number had gone unchanged.

Let us grasp here that angels are defined as supernatural beings which means they are invisible as well as immaterial. When asked for evidence of the existence of angels people often cite some unusual or exceptional remembrance or personal anecdote - but never hard direct evidence. 

3) 55 percent of Americans believe that the Founding Fathers established this country as a Christian nation in the Constitution.

This figure comes from a First Amendment Center survey taken in 2007. These Americans really need to read Thomas Jefferson’s rewriting of the New Testament, which he felt perfected Jesus Christ’s teachings by removing all theological and supernatural elements from his life story. They may also wish to read the Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11:

Article 11 of Treaty of Tripoli :

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries"

(http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli.html)

4) 1 in 4 Americans believe the sun revolves around the Earth.

This incredible finding comes from a National Science Foundation (NSF)  study conducted earlier last year. Oddly, or maybe not,  this statistic and the figure for non-acceptance of man-made climate change are, sadly, about the same—bear in mind that, whereas evolution and the Big Bang theory are relatively new to our collective consciousness, Copernicus and Galileo cracked our solar system’s biggest secret roughly five centuries ago. It would be no less ludicrous for one in four Americans to believe that the Earth is flat.  Again, this shows a major deficiency in Americans' science education, and explains why they do much worse than other nations on mathematics and physics tests administered over the years.

5 ) Only 60 percent of Americans believe in evolution.

According to a 2013 Pew Research poll, 33 percent of Americans believe that “humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.” Among those who believe in evolution, 32 percent believe that modern organisms evolved through natural selection, while 24 percent believe that evolution occurred through the direct intervention of God. By comparison, 97 percent of scientists believe in evolution.

Let us also understand that there is no such thing as "God -directed evolution". Asserting such in order to try to render faith compatible with science is like trying to square the circle. The key point is that evolution requires no outside, external agent in order to enable speciation, diversity. Natural selection and mutation are sufficient drivers for the process. 

6) 51 percent of Americans don’t trust the Big Bang theory.

This refers to the scientific theory explaining the origin of the universe, namely its original rapid and violent expansion. .According to an AP/GFK poll from earlier last year, slightly more than half of all Americans were either “not too confident” or “not at all confident” that the Big Bang happened. This same survey also found that only 27 percent believe the Earth to be 4.5 billion years old, which is the consensus figure among scientists.

The Big Bang finding is actually not that surprising given the basis of the theory inheres in thermal physics, kinematics and most Americans haven't even taken a course in basic high school physics. So their "lack of confidence" is actually a justified lack of confidence in their own knowledge of physics with the ability to apply principles to unfamiliar theories or conditions. 

7) Only 44 percent of Americans are confident that vaccines don’t cause autism.

According to a University of Chicago study taken last year, 20 percent of Americans believe “vaccines cause autism and other psychological disorders,” while another 36 percent weren’t sure enough to agree or disagree with that statement.  If Americans knew more, of course, they'd be aware that autism is more plausibly traced to toxins in the environment, such as present in pesticides - than in any vaccine component. (The main suspect in vaccines, thimerosal, is no longer present. 

8) 48 percent of Americans think the Civil War was about states’ rights, while only 38 percent of Americans believe it was over slavery.

While the 2011 Pew Research survey that yielded this statistic might lead you to believe that there is legitimate debate over the cause of the Civil War, there really isn’t: Over 90 percent of historians with graduate degrees accept that it was prompted by opposition to the election of Abraham Lincoln on the grounds that he would prohibit the expansion of slavery into the Western territories. Although the Southern states argued that they had a legal right to secede because of their sovereignty as states in a federal union, it was their opposition to Lincoln’s policies on slavery that incited them to leave the Union.

Apart from that there really is no such thing as 'States' rights".  States have prerogatives, not rights, because states exist as governmental entities not as persons-individuals. Prof. Garry Wills (‘A Necessary Evil: A History Of American Distrust of Government’, Simon & Schuster, 1999) further reinforces this point in his chapter ‘Constitutional Myths’(p. 108). He notes that citizens alone possess rights, which neither the states nor the federal government share. Both the latter retain powers and prerogatives, but not rights. Hence, the subtext is that rights can only accrue to human individuals.  As he puts it (ibid.)

“The states have no natural rights. Their powers are artificial, not natural – they are things made by contract.”

Can we possibly reduce the level of American dopiness?  One would like to believe so, but so long as a fractured, fragmented media exists - what many have called "media Balkanization"- it is not likely to happen. The chronically ignorant will still gravitate to those media outlets that merely confirm their already skewed, unfounded beliefs and unless we return to the Fairness Doctrine (eliminated during the Reagan era) there is no chance of a corrective. They will remain ensconced in those bastardized niches and the rest of us - in the fact-based realm - will have to contend with them and do our best to educate them when and where possible.

This divergence might be tolerable except that the entrenched ignorance and misconceptions (such as #8 above) also translates into voting. This means the more ignorance -based voters we have the worse this country will become . This was only recently manifested in the atrocious finding that 59% of Americans support some form of torture and a large bunch actually believed they were defending freedom by going to see (or buy online) the god-awful muck 'The Interview'.

Thomas Jefferson once noted in his Notes on Virginia that the "people are the only safe depositories" of governance, truth and rectitude, but this is contingent on the "improvement of their minds."  If that mental improvement and acuity isn't evident in a populace  then their government is likely to degenerate and become corrupted since the people (as supposed guardians) have become so inept and uneducated as to leave their governance to the  power-hungry "rulers" alone.  Yet this is what appears to be happening in this country. Polls taken, such as after the series of Snowden data releases, and now after the CIA torture report, indicate that too many Americans have become sheep and ceased to be wary citizens. They have thereby left the fight to the rest of us who are 'on' 24/7 and perceive how the country is declining at a horrific rate. 

No one said citizenship was easy, or automatic. But, that just means one has to be aware that this honorable calling has - in the last 30 or so years- been driven to the sidelines by the "consumer". But consumers are not citizens, they are more akin to cattle - as noted by Erik Larson in his terrific book, The Naked Consumer.  Larson noted how consumer monitors in stores regularly referred to shoppers as "grazing like cattle"(p. 167).

One thing is clear: If you are like cattle, dumb, numb and not long for the meat grinder - you can't be doing your duty as a citizen. You are more an exploitable, brainwashable puppet. Sadly, the more such puppets are germinated the more rapid will be our nation's decline.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jaime-oneill/60302/american-schnooks-the-people-who-can-be-fooled-again-and-again-and-still-again-not-to-mention-a-time-o

Why Does Tom Colicchio & Food Policy Action Oppose the GM Food Labeling Ban?

John Phillips: Bio-geneticist and nutrition specialist, has found new links between GMO foods and Alzheimer's, liver  & kidney cancers and autism.

Despite Nutrition specialist and biochemist John Phillips linking GMO foods to increased kidney and liver cancers, Alzheimer's disease as well as autism, it appears political pressure in this country is on to keep food consumers in the dark on what they're eating.   This is via a House bill entitled, The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act.   Opposing this perfidy is a petition created by food guru Tom Colicchio and Food Policy Action which seeks to convince Congress not to ban GMO labels and has attracted 231,000 signatures in just over a week. 

Meanwhile, on the side of fortuitous state -level sanity, Vermont lawmakers have just passed legislation that requires all food made with genetically modified organisms or GMOs to be labeled. This marks the first law of its kind in the Neoliberal-dominated U.S. - but it must now get approval from VT. Governor Shumlin though this should not be a problem as he's consistently supported labeling.

Vermont's state House of Representatives approved the bill on Wednesday by a vote of 114- 30 and the State Senate passed it last week by a vote of 28-2.  The law goes into effect July 1, 2016 and will apply to any foods even partially manufactured with genetic engineering. Those tomatoes derived from mouse genes? Yes, they will now have to be properly labeled as "GMO".  Vermont isn't alone here. Despite a range of opinions on the potential threats (or non-threats) posed by the production and consumption of genetically modified foods, most consumers (and several states) already agree to support identifying GMO food as such.

Vermont lawmakers as well as their pro-labeling cohort in other states, therefore, are doing the will of their citizens, as opposed to bending to the Neoliberal food Nazis who want no one to know what the hell they're eating. I suppose they believe that if enough cancers etc, erupt then they can surreptitiously decrease the population and avoid large "entitlement" costs. What the hell else could it be? If these damned foods are so grand, and there's "no difference" from organic or regular sources, why the need to conceal the information?  In every other sphere (caloric content, saturated fats, sugars etc.) food labeling is regarded as an inviolate right of the consumer to know what he's eating. Why not here?

Utterly opposed to this, we have the "Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act", introduced April 9 in the House. The label itself is absurd since as Mr. Phillips has shown, GMO foods are not "safe" and the mandate of the "act" is to prevent labeling!  And we need it! As John explains via recent email:

 "Among other toxins and other health-disrupting contaminants, GMO foods contain glyphosate, a horrifically destructive chemical that saps nutrients from foods and quite literally makes them toxic to consume."

Glyphosate, let us note, is not something that can be washed off or taken out of the food by cooking or purification – it’s integrated into the plant on a fundamental level.   Monsanto- the maker-  was also a manufacturer of the pesticide DDT, which now has been conclusively linked to the development of Alzheimer’s, as well as many other degenerative diseases in humans.

Experts like Mr. Phillips now believe that glyphosate is even worse than DDT. It decimates beneficial bacteria in the gut, disrupts immune function, and has been correlated with shocking precision to the rise in autism and other cognitive diseases and conditions.  The moral of the story is that you should stop eating GMO foods at all costs.   The problem is that our Neoliberal bought and sold reps want you to be kept in perpetual ignorance and think the GMO foods are just fine and all is hunky dorey.   Thus, they seek to block these GMO labels on the grounds that they will pose an "undue burden" on producers.   But never mind the undue burden of health care costs - including for cancer treatments, autism and Alzheimer's patient care imposed on you the ordinary citizen. See, in the Neoliberal frame you are expendable! (A painful lesson the Ukrainians will soon learn to their dismay if they are pulled into the Neoliberal orbit. )

Frankly, it's odd that our government, which professes to be so concerned about exploding debt  yet refuses to allow GMO foods to be labeled. This despite the fact that if 25 % of all Americans are affected by Alzheimer's in 20 years we are looking at a $15 trillion health spending calamity.  And then add on to that all the GMO -food consumers who will soon need kidney and liver transplants - adding to lists already tens of thousands long. Doesn't it make more sense, then, to allow GMO labeling so people can choose not to consume these damaging foods - than not to do so and enable massive Alzheimer's disease increases that will sap the Treasury dry? 

Reasonable people would think so - but see, a Neoliberal coercive market isn't reasonable, because it inevitably places corporate profits (like those for Monsanto) over the welfare of people. If GMO labels are then required they will lose market share because most sensible people will naturally opt for non-GMO foods which don't carry autism, cancer or Alzheimer's risks.  (The trope that labeling itself will drive costs up is blatant balderdash as a number of studies in California have indicated. In fact, the increase per food item is barely 3 cents. It isn't the labeling costs per se the anti-Labelers are worried about, but the costs to them of consumers using their feet to walk elsewhere to buy their produce, etc.)

Meanwhile, Vermont and its lawmakers are putting aside a "war chest" with at least $1.5 million to help the state protect its people as the anti-labeling Neoliberal  predators file lawsuits. Citizens will also be able to contribute voluntarily to the fund and settlements won in other court cases can be added to it by the state attorney general The Burlington Free Press reported.

Two other states, Maine and Connecticut, are the only others to have passed GMO labeling laws though they only go into effect if surrounding states pass similar laws. Vermont's law, by contrast, is a stand alone. Meanwhile, on the international scene GMO labeling is required in 64 countries including the European Union.  Why are we in the U.S. expendable? Because our politicos are bought and paid for whores and they want us to be guinea pigs for this massive food experiment.

Tom Colicchio and Food Policy Action recognize this and merit our signatures on their petition to fight the absurd banning of GMO food labeling.


See also:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/potential-health-hazards-of-genetically-engMaine cineered-foods/8148

How Safe Is Thimerosal As Used in Vaccines?

In his book The Trillion Dollar Conspiracy (which I admit I haven't read, only synopses and reviews) , author Jim Marrs makes the claim that a vast cabal of global financiers and corporatists, hidden 'New World Order' elites and monied greedheads is effectively poisoning all of us by enabling assorted toxic detritus to flow deliberately into our foods, water, and even meds. The ostensible purpose is to compromise our health to such an extent we emerge as little better than walking zombies ....unable to even perceive how they're stealing the world around us, far less defend ourselves. While Marrs makes what seems to be a compelling case, he ultimately falls on his own hubris by somehow linking this matrix to the designs of "leftists, Socialists" and even Obama. In the end, like so many, he falls into the trap of failing to parse distinctions between Socialism, National Socialism (e.g. of the Nazis) and Liberalism. This is one major reason I never bothered to read the book, since I can't stomach such conflations, nor historical ineptitude (despite the fact Marrs did a very respectable job in his Kennedy assassination book, Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy)

One of Marrs' claims does seem to hold true, from my own investigations, and that is the collusion of assorted government agencies in writing off threats to health via toxic chemicals, and even allowing many of these to be used for our own health "benefits". The classic example is the use of fluoride in municipal water systems all across the country, ostensibly to "fight tooth decay".

Some years back, while perusing The Project Censored Yearbook (1999, p. 74) I encountered a piece by Joel Griffiths and Chris Byron entitled: 'Fluoride, Teeth, and the Atomic Bomb.' This well-documented essay kind of shattered my illusions, one could say, especially regarding trusting the pronouncements of government on anything. This is not to say I am "anti-government" - only that I am a government skeptic. I am not convinced in all instances that it will do the right thing, if by doing so it inveighs against their own interests and agendas. Look no further here than their 50 -year long formal claim that the Kennedy Assassination is a closed book and "Lee Oswald done it". Yeah, right! And human virgins can have babies too!

So my experience with the Kennedy assassination alone, leading me to write the book, The JFK Assassination: The Final Analysis, at once puts me in the government skeptic camp, though I might have been less hardened on it- at least in terms of general citizen welfare, before I discovered the Project Censored Yearbook article on fluoride.

Anyway, in that article the authors note that the original safety arguments for fluoride were "developed by scientists working with the Manhattan Project" - as a ruse to counter possible litigation for atomic workers (since fluoride came off as a byproduct). This despite the fact the original atomic bomb scientists had confirmed that fluoride was "one of the most toxic substances known".

They also added that if litigation was to be suppressed, PR had to be confected to blunt any alarm by the public. To that end, government misinformation campaigns began in earnest in the 1950s (around the same time as "duck and cover" gibberish emerged) to deflect the public's toxicity concerns by referring to flouride's "benefits in fighting tooth decay". This brainwashing has since been sounded so often and convincingly that it's become part and parcel of that vast constellation of accepted national verities, and embedded in public consciousness to the extent that only anti-science whackos, rabid anti-tech neo-Luddites or John Birchers dispute it! (So don't ever openly admit to your dentist that you are "anti-fluoride"!)

The success of the PR campaign, meanwhile, paved the way for the concerted work of many thousands of other atomic workers - who were told the radiation from the plutonium they had to work with (e.g. for triggers used on nuclear warheads) was "harmless" and who as a result, haven't been able to collect a red cent though they are dying like flies from some 22 varieties of cancer. See more at: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1632228,00.html

Meanwhile, on the "health" front, propaganda was pumped non-stop to the effect that "fluoridation re-minerals tooth enamel" while denying any negatives. This was used to claim that it was essential to fight dental caries (cavities) now widespread in youngsters, by putting fluoride in drinking water. But it wasn't just any fluoride but an industrial waste byproduct called "hydrofluorosilic acid" which has been linked to:

- bone cancer in male children was between two and seven times greater than for non-fluoridated areas

- pre-natal deaths 15% higher than in neighboring non-fluoridated areas.

-impairment of immune system function

- skeletal fluorosis, from chronic exposure, including: severe joint and bone pain, sensations of burning, pricking in the limbs, muscle weakness, chronic fatigue, gastrointestinal disorders

- lowering of IQs, in children exposed to fluoride over prolonged time, and animal studies disclose shrinkage of brains of rats exposed to the equivalent of 8 glasses of water per day (See, e.g. Brain Research, Vol. 784, pp. 284-298)

As I noted in a blog from three years ago, the $50 question has been why the CDC not come out and warned us of these risks? I gave at least two plausible reasons: 1) CDC as an arm of government that has actively pursued propaganda (as for the atomic workers, and more recently giving short shrift to toxic chemicals in terms of carcinogenic effects- see 'The Secret History of the War on Cancer') is unlikely to overturn more than 50 years of carefully crafted spin on fluoride. And (2), to do so would invite thousands of suits or actions by communities already using it- and vast extra cost to the government!

But fluoride is merely the tip of the iceberg. We're all swimming in a veritable sea of toxic industrial chemicals - for which recent studies have now shown that more than 20,000 have been kept concealed from us in terms of their effects. See, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/10/america-toxic-1.html

It is quite obvious, as it has been for the fluoride (and as it was for the atomic workers poisoned by radiation) that it is a sacrifice foisted on citizens to preserve industrial capacity in areas related to war expansion, or intense industry. Preservation of that capacity also means not having to pay out enormous sums for cleanups, or cancers, or terrible iillnesses that arise on account of contact with toxins or radioactive materials. Meanwhile, people get told over and over that "too much fat" is causing their cancers - whether of lungs, bladders, prostate gland or breasts. 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! (See 'The Secret History of the War on Cancer', by Devra Davis, Chapters 1-4).

The issue of thimerosal, such as used as a mercury -based preservative, seems to be similar in some respects but not all. For one thing, not all citizens need to get vaccines every year, for another thimerosal has been effectively phased out for such use since around 2001, according to the CDC:

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/thimerosal.htm

Note specifically the section therein under: Is Thimerosal Used in Other Vaccines?

"Since 2001, no new vaccine licensed by FDA for use in children has contained thimerosal as a preservative, and all vaccines routinely recommended by CDC for children younger than 6 years of age have been thimerosal–free, or contain only trace amounts of thimerosal, except for multi–dose formulations of influenza vaccine"

Of course, this may be little consolation for the millions of parents who unknowlingly subjected their toddlers to thimerosal - generally from 1980 through 2000, and have expressed fears of an autism connection. To be sure, such speculation has been repeatedly smacked down by the medical -industrial complex and their drug-supported "journals" - as has the notion that environmental carcinogens cause hundreds of times more cancers than foods. However, background research doesn't appear to support such a stance, which in that regard, resembles the one that fluoride was perfectly okay.

Robert Kennedy, Jr. for example, in his article, Deadly Immunity (Rolling Stone, June, 2005)observes that Eli Lilly, the first pharmaceutical company to use thimerosal, "knew from the start its products could cause death or even damage in animals and humans". Kennedy goes on to write that in 1935, Pittman-Moore (another vaccine manufacturer at the time) "warned Eli Lilly that half the dogs Pittman injected with thimerosal -based vaccines became sick, leading researchers to declare the preservative 'unsatisfactory as a serum for use on dogs'."

Kennedy then goes on to write how, during World War II, the "Defense Department used the preservative in vaccines on soldiers" but reuqired Lilly to label it "poison". Kennedy then cites a 1967 study reported in Applied Microbiology, which "found thimerosal killed mice when added to vaccines". Kennedy avers that "four years later, Lilly's own studies discerned that thimerosal was 'toxic to tissue cells' in concentrations as low as 1 part per million, 100 times weaker than the concentration in a typical vaccine".

Despite this, according to Kennedy, "the company continued to promote thimerosal as 'nontoxic' and also incorporated it into disinfectants".

Kennedy follows up by writing that (ibid.):

"In 1982, the FDA proposed a ban on over the counter products that contained thimerosal and in 1991 the agency considered banning it from animal vaccines. But tragically, the same year the CDC recommended infants be injected with a new series of mercury -laced vaccines continaing thimerosal"

How much mercury was typically in these vaccines? Author Loretta Schwarz-Nobel in her book, Poisoned Nation (p. 88) cites a San Jose, Calif. medical examiner who took the time to document the concentrations for assorted infantile vaccines:

- Hepatitis B: 12 mcg of mercury or 30x the safe level

- DTaP and Hib: 50 mcg of mercury or 50 x safe level

-Hep B and Polio: 62.5 mcg of mercury, or 78x the safe level

Each of these examples was described as "bolus dose".

According to the author (ibid.)

"When the issue was finally studied it turned out that mercury in the form of thimerosal was fifty times more toxic to susceptible infants than mercury from the consumption of fish was to young children."

Schwarz-Nobel, based on medical experts consulted for her book, conjectures that the reason for this disparity is that (p. 89): "there is no blood-brain barrier in infants so that mercury accumulates in brain cells and nerves."

She then cites Dr. Tim O'Shea, who in his own book, The Sanctity of Human Blood, quotes Dr. Amy Holmes, a biochemist, who states that while "most mercury clears from the blood very soon, mercury in thimerosal is stored in the gut, liver and brain and becomes tightly bound to the cells. Once inside those cells...the mercury is converted back to its inorganic form...it can then either do immediate cell damage or become latent and cause the onset of autism, brain disorders or digetive chaos years later."

Sobering, but the question remains, why do it? The first answer that comes to mind, as in the case of crap like hydrofluorosilic acid (for fluoridate water supplies) and high fructose corn syrup (now in most of our foods) is MONEY! Rather than lose profits from production spinoffs or efficiencies (again based on evil Pareto distribution economics) the crap is used to preserve profits, so fed back to us. If we get cancers, or diabetes or whatever, who gives a shit? Evidently not the powers charged with protecting our interests, as opposed to the corporate vermin.

And author Schwarz-Nobel doesn't disappoint, writing (top of page 88):

"The reason was money. Thimerosal allowed drug companies to package vaccines in multiple doses and that was more important to them than the health risks".

Ah yes, profits over people, where have we seen that before?

All I can say is that if the trope that "The Business of America is Business" is really true, then we are all well and truly fucked, and Jim Marrs may at least be half onto something in his New World Order conspiracy speculations. At the very least, when the global financiers and their banker friends, and corporations (as "persons" with "rights' - to hear Mitt Romney) take over at last, when Greece falls as well as the rest of Europe with the U.S. next, the choice of name for the parasites that effected it won't really matter.