I am an avid reader, but I can only read so many books a year. And sometimes, I am just too busy, or tired. I have kids now and that means less reading, for pleasure or personal research.
I hit the used bookstore this month, because we need to stock up on a few things, and we hit the library too, because I have the kids read a lot too. I consider reading a work-out for the brain.
At the used bookstore, I found Silent Spring.
I know some of you are gasping for air right now because you might have assumed, someone like me had read a book like that. But no. Rachel Carson was a little before my time. I knew of the book, I knew vaguely who she was, I have read other books that used Silent Spring as a source, but had not read the book itself. I suspect that many of her modern-day detractors would be forced to make the same confession if pressed. I am three-fourth's the way, through her book now.
It's been a mind-blowing experience for me. Because I have done a lot of personal research on pesticides and their use and overuse. I have watched story after story unfold in the press regarding human and animal poisoning. I had always just assumed [there's that word again] that I would read her book and that it would be a good source of history, but most likely not very relevant to what is happening today. After all the chemistry has changed, the culture has changed, etc.,
MAN! Was I wrong! Mushroom cloud appears above head, new parts of the brain are now up and running for business. Carson's book was first published in 1962. Her book is now 50 years old. One would think that we have changed for the better. However the current fights over Prop 37 in California, the epic struggle with Colony Collapse Disorder, and the range of human medical conditions that are directly linked back to Pesticide or Chemical Exposure, and other pollutants, make it very clear, that a small minority of people learned from her work, but that there are many more that need to be *Ordered to read her book.
It should be the heart of a required college course like Government 101, or English Comp, or American History. It should be a court ordered course like DUIs and Reckless Driving courses, for individuals and companies caught breaking the law, and endangering citizens.
Enter Mind blowing experience #2, A Spring Without Bees: How Colony Collapse Disorder Has Endangered Our Food Supply by Michael Shacker with a forward by Bill McKibben. This book was published in 2008.
I thought I couldn't find any book better written or more accessible than Rowan Jacobsen's Fruitless Fall. I WAS WRONG WRONG WRONG! If you want to know more about Colony Collapse Disorder, then you absolutely have to get this book. Check it out from the library, or buy a copy whatever. It is detailed, interesting and wow, I wish I had read this book back when it first appeared on the market!
Both the Carson and Shacker books are jam-packed with amazing history, and information that is incredibly pertinent to our problems with widespread pesticides and other pollutants we as humans deal with in our environment today!
Reading Rachel Carson's book has taught me so much. I am not even done with it yet, and my mind is buzzing with new information, new neural connections to all the material I have ever read or covered or experienced regarding pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, petroleum products in general. In the first chapter, even though she doesn't coin the phrase Mono-culture, Integrated Pest Management, or Perma-Culture, she discusses these concepts and makes it clear that the latter is by far, a healthier practice than the former. She even hints at GMO crops in a hopeful tone, but she has no clue how this will be used to destroy our genetic diversity, kill migrating species of birds and butterflies, while the companies responsible corrupt our entire Democratic Republic.
I think what amazes me most about the Carson book is that politically--NOTHING HAS CHANGED! Yes, her amazing brain child--this book was the seed that germinated into the Green Movement, so civilians changed. But the industries, and the government have not changed at all.
There were chapters wherein, just like today, the governments ignored their own data regarding the dangers of certain chemicals. Where the government ran roughshod over whole communities. Maybe you cannot recall, but ask the people sickened in the Gulf due to exposure to burning oil and corexit? This is one of the biggest examples I can think of that happened recently. The government ignored it's own literature, when it decided to apply corexit subsurface, to sink the oil. The government ignored it's own knowledge when it started burning oil in massive quantities, oil that was mixed with corexit and sea water. And like some of the hapless American Citizens in Carson's book, the citizens in the Gulf were caught outside unawares, during times whenplanes were spraying corexit over populated areas, as well as in the poisonous black rain that fell containing the altered, poisonous, burnt petroleum and corexit within it, sickening everyone it coated, killing plants, and animals as well. And like the stories in Silent Spring, our government is still allowing untested products to be used on our soil for a price of course. Cleanup crews were also affected.
While the dispersant serves to break down crude oil on the surface and thus makes the oil invisible from the air, it is highly toxic and bioaccumulates in the marine food chain. In humans it is a known carcinogen and its use was widely condemned after Exxon/Valdez and the horrifying health effects on the populations exposed to it there. As it evaporates and becomes airborne, the toxic compounds have moved on shore, creating health impacts that, although apparently large from the numbers of people affected, the full extent is unknown. BP and the US government have effectively been performing the largest chemical experiment in history on a civilian population without their knowledge or consent. HuffPo No Safe Harbor.
There were some differences, though, between 2010 and the sprayings of the 1950s.
Fracking related illnesses would be another example of man-made environmental toxins sickening Americans for profit. This is in addition to the use and abuse of Pesticides, and now, transgenic foods. Some might want me to treat these as totally separate subjects, but in reality, all of the problems emanate from the same companies, from the same industries, and are the product of a common mindset that places money for a few, over the quality of life for many. Quality of Life--meaning health, and property values. Because nothing says "I love you Neighbor" than ruining a person or family's health for generations, while destroying their equity in home and property and business ownership.
The mentality that hopes a large enough profit can be made, before the rest of us catch on and stop the madness.
And I have to say, whenever someone brings up that Colony Collapse Disorder has happened before--aka Fall Dwindle Disease, etc., Ms. Carson provides ample evidence that those cases were due to Pesticide poisoning as well. What happens to the creatures around us, happens to us as well.
Stuff like this: Basically our government spent thousands of dollars trying to "eradicate" the Japanese Beetle. They did so in a way, that poisoned entire communities with DDT, Dieldrin, and Aldrin. Some communities lost all their songbirds, many farmers lost livestock, commercial bee keepers lost so much they were able to successfully sue for damages, squirrels dropped dead. Even entire communities of cats died, because this nasty shit was spread with abandon, because the "geniuses" behind this "master plan" never bothered to think behind the immediate toll of their actions. They only buy into the ideas presented in this video.
Some people still do this. They believe that if they spray for bugs, that only the bad bugs are affected, and that the poison soon dissipates. It never occurs to them that more than the "target" insects on the label are killed, and that many poisons bioaccumulate in mammals and birds, and persist in the soil for a very long time. What made Rachel Carson's book so important is that, in a very accessible way, she connected the dots for individuals who are not chemists or biologists, so that they could understand the ramifications of mass, and repeated sprayings, not just on the environment, that [hu]mans imagine they have transcended, but also on humans themselves.
These community-wide sprayings over thousands, sometimes millions of acres killed a lot more than just a beetle or a moth or a mosquito population. This poisonous practice was the equivalent of using a sledge hammer to conduct brain surgery. The best part is, Ms Carson points out regarding an eradication program for the Japanese beetle in Illinois that:
Although funds for chemical control came in never-ending streams, the biologists of the illinois Natural History Survey who attempted to measure the damage to wildlife had to operate on a shoestring budget. Silent Spring, pp93
This was in 1954. The more things change, the more things stay the same.
Other jewels in this book:
Dieldrin, named for a German Chemist, Diels, is about 5 times as toxic as DDT when swallowed, but 40 times as toxic when absorbed through the skin in solution. It is notorious for striking quickly and with terrible effect at the nervous system, sending victims into convulsions. Persons thus poisoned recover so slowly so as to indicate chronic effects. As with other chlorinated hydrocarbons, these long-term effects include severe liver damage. Silent Spring pp25.
Another Chemical, Aldrin, as it breaks down, turns into Dieldrin. What she describes above can be read in most of the Material Safety Data sheets for any given Organo-phosphate Pesticide. The transport may be a little different, target organs can vary slightly, but the Chronic effects are all very similar.
However there is every indication of long storage in the human body, where deposits may lie dormant like a slumbering volcano, only to flare up in periods of physiological stress when the body draws upon it's fat reserves. ibid
Many bad chemicals are stored in adipose tissue [read fat]. The more fat you have, the more nasty junk you store in your body. This is especially bad news for women and children, who even when thin have a lot more fat in their bodies, in addition to those individuals who are simply overweight.
For me, who reads--inside my head--what she knew then, what we know now, it's a constant back and forth. Her coverage of contaminated cows milk at Dairies that were sprayed were chilling see pp 159-160.
But the question I really want to get to the bottom of--All the communities that were sprayed or powdered from above, willy nilly:
They sprayed the quater acre lots of suburbia, drenching a housewife making a desperate effort to cover her garden before the roaring plane reached her, and showering insecticide over children at play and commuters on the railway stations. Silent Spring pp158.
What we know now:
Dioxin Causes Disease and Reproductive Problems Across Generations, Study Finds. Dioxins are a major component of many chemical pollutants, including the older family of pesticides and herbicides, and Dioxins are also a product of combustion of oil, coal and gas--
the burning of plastics!
You can read more at "What are Dioxins? Why the Concern?"
And yes, we, including the company responsible for the military burn pits, have known about what produces dioxins, and what dioxins do to human health for years. Dioxins and PCBs were what poisoned so many Vietnam Vets as well. Dioxins and PCBs and other toxins were also the root of the pollution at Love Canal.
Writing in the journal PLoS ONE, biologist Michael Skinner and members of his lab say dioxin administered to pregnant rats resulted in a variety of reproductive problems and disease in subsequent generations. The first generation of rats had prostate disease, polycystic ovarian disease and fewer ovarian follicles, the structures that contain eggs. To the surprise of Skinner and his colleagues, the third generation had even more dramatic incidences of ovarian disease and, in males, kidney disease. Science Daily 2012
In the 1950s--that would have been my grandparents, in the 1960s, my parents. I now have to question if many of my unusual health problems aren't largely due to these destructive, toxic sprayings of DDT, Dieldrin, Aldrin, etc., in addition to Malathion, Parathion, and lots of other nasty things found on the Pesticide and Herbicide aisle at any given box store. How much further down the rabbit hole, could Rachel Carson have taken us, if she had known then, about Epigenetics. All 4 of my grandparents worked on farms or with crops, picking cotton, you name it. 3 of them have died, all showing signs of dementia, 2 with type II Diabetes. Although I have always wondered what part their agri-chemical exposures played in their health history, Rachel Carson and the newer egigenetic findings drive me to look even deeper and question more. Prior to the last couple of years, I would have assumed [there's that word again] that health issues caused by agri-chemicals would have been just cancer or kidney disease. I don't assume just those conditions anymore.
As we Segue into A Spring Without Bees, let's stop off at Mother Jones. T. Philpott wrote a piece: Some GMO Cheerleaders Also Deny Climate Change. This is relevant to the story on several levels. In addition to just being a truly interesting press story, there were some things that jumped out at me that seem very relevant to my post here.
When he's not pushing GMOs, Miller can be found defending the endocrine-disrupting, ubiquitous industrial chemical BPA against scientific critics, exposing "Rachel Carson's Deadly Fantasies," decrying "Obama's radical agenda," and making the case for why you should want "pink slime" in your hamburger. Mojo.
The He, is Dr Henry I Miller M.D. Stanford University.
It was the part about "exposing Rachel Carson's Deadly Fantasies..." that caught my eye. Rachel Carson explores the world of Systemic Pesticides. If you recognize that word, it's because the new family of Pesticides, call NeoNicotinoids are Systemic Pesticides, often used to "dress" seeds, that after germination, take the substance into their vascular systems and exude this poison from every part of the plant, even the pollen and nectar.
The world of systemic insecticides is a weird world, surpassing the imaginings of the brother's Grimm--perhaps most closely akin to the cartoon world of Charles Addams. It is world where the enchanted forest of the fairy tales has become a poisonous forest in which an insect that chews a leaf or sucks the sap of a plant is doomed. It is a world where a flea bites a dog, and dies, because the dog's blood has been made poisonous, where an insect may die of vapors emanating from a plant it has never touched, where a bee may carry poisonous nectar back to it's hive and presently produce poisonous honey. Silent Spring pp33.
What is there to debunk? How many people here, have, or know someone who has, put Advantix-K9 or Advantage, or Frontline on their pet?
It doesn't enter the blood, but it does work with the oil glands of the dog or cat. It is very close to what Carson predicted. Fantasy? In the business world, someone capable of predicting product development, so close, that many years out [1962] would be praised as a visionary, and not a fantasy driven alarmist.
A Spring Without Bees. Now the whole book is a real find. But like Carson's work, Shacker had some real jewels in here. Things I hadn't seen before, even after years of digging on the same subject. Even after taking up Bee Keeping myself.
First of all, when the Genome of the honey bee was completed, we learned that honey bees have a genetic pre-disposition for lower immunity, and they have fewer genes for detoxification of poisons as well. It is proposed that certain hygienic practices of honey bees make up for that in a pesticide free world. However:
Shacker shows that when examining the chemical actions of GAUCHO or imidacloprid,
If you were to look at their respective molecular diagrams, you would see that they are relatively simple compounds. Both are neurotoxins, with properties similar to nerve gas. The goal of these chemicals is to block vital parts of the insect nervous system and keep them from functioning causing a rapid death. IMD and all neonicotinoids work by inhibiting the acetylcholine receptors in the nervous system, which stops the transmission of signals across the synapses between neurons...Thanks to the mapping of the bee genome, we know that the nicotinic acetylecholine receptor in the honey bee's nervous system has eleven subunit members, more than either the fruit fly or mosquito. This means the honey bee has more of the particular type of receptor blocked by IMD than other insects, theoretically making it extremely susceptible to IMD and other neurotoxins. A Spring without Bees pp 53.
So many parts of this book were fascinating, even if it were something I was already aware of, because his perspective added depth. But there were little jewels in this book, things I hadn't seen yet, but should have. This should be common knowledge. Why haven't the MSM or Alt Press covered this aspect right here:
"It is interesting to note that the label on Bayer CropScience's product PREMISE 75--which is 75% IMD [Imidacloprid], 25% inert, and sold for termite control--boldy states, "PREMISE causes a range of effects in termites, they stop feeding and are unable to maintain their colony [Italics mine]. A Second effect, exclusive to PREMISE, is called PREMISE plus Nature. This product makes termites susceptible to infection by naturally occurring organisms. Either way, the termites die and your home is protected". A Spring Without Bees pp 54.
The label of this 75% Imidacloprid product brazenly states, it causes colony collapse disorder in Termites, and suppresses their immune system making them vulnerable to death from disease!
Hello! Are you awake now too? Does this sound alarmingly familiar? Shacker points out that Bayer and BASF have dug in on this issue, because it appears to be about a paradigm shift. That they are resisting the possibility that this particular industry is more harmful than anything, and should be made obsolete by integrated pest management and other Organic practices. [If Only!].
Compare to a quote from the Guardian UK on Colony Collapse Disorder:
…bees left the hive and flew away to die elsewhere, over about a week. Another was that the few bees left inside the hive were carrying "a tremendous number of pathogens" - virtually every known bee virus could be detected in the insects, she said, and some bees were carrying five or six viruses at a time, as well as fungal infections. Because of this it was assumed that the bees' immune systems were being suppressed in some way. Guardian UK.
Shacker's treatment of the French aspect of the Colony Collapse Disorder is worth the entire book itself. BAYER and their agents here in the US are relying on the fact that Most Americans do not speak or read another language. Because if we had been able to access French Research, I posit that the fight against NeoNicotinoids would have been a lot further along. What the French discovered in short was that treated sunflower seeds, back in the 90s, exuded higher concentrations of IMD than Industry studies initially indicated, and even when lowered, the presence of these poisons in the pollen and nectar were consistently deadly to bees, because it impacted their ability to learn, to forage, and to retain memory of learned instructions. When you add to that the suppressive aspects on the Bee's Immunity, you a deadly recipe for honey bees.
And the best part is, IMD is everywhere. It is on the leaves, it persists in the soil, it even contaminates corn syrup fed to bees by bee keepers, in addition to being exuded from treated plants and their weedy neighbors. The bees simply cannot escape.
Our Scientists are reproducing results of the French Material from the 1990s.
In France CCD coincided with Sunflower blooms. In the US, with Corn plantings.
What I noticed when I attempted to confirm the Premise label quote, was that no pictures of the product online were posted in such a way, that one could blow up the label to have a look--to actually read the label online. I read the official label at Bayer, and it appears to have been changed. But hints remained on sites promoting Termite Control and Pest Control.
First of all Imidacloprid is still the primary ingredient. The interest here is that the affect on termites, a distant relative of the hymenoptera order, and another eusocial insect--are indeed identical to the affects on honey bees.
One site states that the termites stop eating. Another states that exposed termites appear to be unaffected for a few days, before suddenly dying. "In the meantime, the exposed termites area able to spread the premise chemical to unexposed termites by physical contact when the feed or groom the other termites, resulting in a domino death effect which wipes out more of the colony."
That last quote would be chilling to any bee keeper. Honey bees groom each other and feed each other, remember this grooming or hygienic behavior is believed to be the reason that honey bees failed to evolve more genes to fight disease and toxins. This tells me that the bee bodies are coated, but perhaps also exuding it in secretions. Honey bees do carry nectar back to the hive in a special honey stomach, so that it can be deposited inside a portion of the honey comb, to be refined as honey.
Nurse bees groom the pollen off of the returning foragers too. Pollen that is later made into a special hive food called Bee Bread.
The labels claim repeatedly that this IMD mixture is undetectable by Termites. Is is also undetectable to honey bees? I would say so. Or at least until it builds up to alarming, lethal levels within the honey, pollen, and wax. By then the hive is dead or dying, and the one thing that Bee Keepers report--NO ROBBING by other bees, or even wax moths or beetles.
Because by then the toxins are detectable to any bug that wants to live.
The claims made about this product protecting a home or building for years is a testament as well to it's persistence in the soil. Oh the irony! Soil Persistence as a Selling Point!
My next thought is--any plants or flowers growing in soil of homes treated with Premise or Termidor or Dominion, will be taking Imidacloprid up into their roots and exuding those chemicals, this includes the pollen, nectar and guttation.
I will end this with another important point that Shacker makes. Bees have fewer genetic resources to adapt to toxins and diseases. But this lack is not shared by fleas, or mosquitoes, or beetles. It may in part explain why the bee population is so low in urban and suburban areas. We are using the same treatments on our lawns as on our corn, cotton and soy, in addition to loss of forage and habitat.
We are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We keep doing this over and over, as Silent Spring shows. It is as if America periodically undergoes a great forgetting and then has to learn all of it's harshest lessons all over again.
Silent Spring shows that dangerous chemicals used as pesticides and herbicides, affect more than just the target species, and poison us all while destroying entire ecosystems. A Spring Without Bees, explores one such unintended target--the world's Pollinators, especially the domesticated honey bee. Bees--pollinators in general, are the foundational species responsible for our terrestrial food web.
I will be finishing both books soon. I intend to share more relevant portions in subsequent diaries.
Tue Oct 23, 2012 at 7:18 AM PT: For your Consideration: Do you Inhale? Capitalism and Your Health.
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