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July 1, 2008
Our Stolen Evidence...Against the Pesticide/Dioxin Cartel
By John Jonik
The supposedly wholesome anti tobacco crusade is not what it seems. For just one thing, just about every disease known to be caused by pesticides and dioxin are now blamed on "smoking"...though no plant, even tobacco, is capable of causing such a plague. This is a theft of evidence against the industrial chemical industries. It is a global scale evasion of PR disasters and liabilities, and criminal charges.
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Barely a day goes by without news of some research that finds that smoke from just one specific plant, tobacco, causes symptoms and diseases that have already been known to be caused or aggravated by pesticides or dioxins. Barely a day passes that the evidence against pesticides and dioxins is not removed from that fat file to be dropped into the case against tobacco and smoking.
Studies by University of California San Diego, and Harvard, found that nicotine traces in toenail clippings provide "predictors"- of heart problems. The big hint-hint of the articles was that nicotine, and "smoking"-, was a threat, perhaps a link, perhaps a cause, of heart disease. This provides yet another justification to create tobacco prohibition. Those who'd challenge that risk being accused of the top heresy---supporting "big tobacco"-.
But the articles, and UCSD overviews of the research, did not inform about the test subject's use or non-use of patented synthetic pharmaceutical nicotine delivery devices--- patches, inhalers, gums and the like. How much of that sank to subjects' toes? Nothing suggested or said that foods such as potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, and chocolate, which contain nicotine (though less than in tobacco), were considered as another source of the toenail nicotine.
Though expert researchers must know of the plethora of pesticide residues that contaminate most cigarettes (tobacco being about the fifth most pesticide intensive crop), and of the dioxin in the smoke from chlorine pesticides and chlorine-bleached cigarette paper, those details were neither mentioned as relevant, nor dismissed as irrelevant, to heart disease.
There is no end of available information about pesticides and dioxin causing heart disease, among many other illnesses. The nicotine found in toenails was not so much a "predicter"- of heart disease, but a big clue that the test subjects had been exposed, unknowingly, to residues of any number of tobacco pesticides, and to the dioxin and other harmful non-tobacco cigarette constituents in the smoke from the chlorinated residues and paper.
What kind of cigarettes the subjects smoked, be it plain tobacco, grow-your-own, or the chlorine/pesticide-contaminated commercial kind, remains their little secret.
If they didn't know about the coronary effects of the industrial stuff that officials still approve of in cigarettes, then the researchers are patently incompetent. More likely, they worked only to aid and abet the pesticide and chlorine industries' (including cigarette makers) evasion of proper scrutiny, PR disasters, liabilities, and significant penalties. The best way to protect the cig cartel is to pretend to be against it, by doing nothing effective---by doing as little as possible---by keeping the blame exclusively on that sinful, unpatented, public-domain tobacco and as far from the cigarette manufacturing process as possible. Hence, being "anti tobacco"- hugely benefits the cigarette cartel, including their investors and insurers.
The researchers could have looked for traces of pesticides, chlorine, and dioxin in those toenails to link that to heart disease statistics. Nicotine has no links to heart disease. Natural plants, including tobacco, cannot produce dioxins.
It's not likely that the study team has a scheme to market nicotine-enriched toenail clippings to low-income folks who can't afford cig taxes and price hikes on regular products, but no law prohibits toenail clippings, or any untested or even dangerous non-tobacco substance, in cigarettes; and no law requires specific warnings about, or listings of any of it. Ask your smoking product vendor what's in the smokes. Any toenails? Any pesticide residues? Any radiation from phosphate fertilizers? Any fire-causing burn accelerants? Any tobacco?
This study could have been useful in the struggle against pesticides, chlorine, and dioxin by providing a new way to test patients for exposures. Unfortunately, it added more ammo to the liability-evading, distracting, corporate-sponsored, mass-scapegoating of tobacco and smokers for crimes done by private chemical industries, be that in typical cigarettes or elsewhere. They are stealing our evidence against chemical manufacturers and users, and our evidence against their complicit allies in government offices. Such researchers act as Company Doctors, telling coal miners with black lung disease that they just have bad colds. If the miner happens to be a smoker, well, case closed. It's not the mine operator's fault.
Not long ago, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania found that mothers who smoke increase the risk that their babies will have deformities, specifically webbed toes and fingers in this case. That is, the damage to the babies was the mothers' fault, and the fault, again, of that conveniently evil target, unpatented, public-domain tobacco. But, it is famous, especially from the Viet Nam horrors of Agent Orange, that dioxin, by-product of industrial chlorine, causes fetal damage and baby deformities, everything from facial distortions to webbed fingers and toes, and beyond.
The researchers didn't report even thinking of the words "chlorine"-, "pesticides"-, "dioxin"-, or "Agent Orange"-, let alone the names of manufacturers like Dow, Monsanto and DuPont. Researchers, again, neither mentioned those integral aspects, nor dismissed them as irrelevant. Why open that Pandora's can of worms?
The cruelty of blaming mothers for harming their own babies in this way is compounded by the threats that are rising in some quarters to actually remove children from parents who "smoke"-.
No mother knew or was told about, or warned about, or protected from, the industrial contaminants in their smoking products that are known to cause fetal damages. Indeed the mothers thought and were told, even by their own tax-paid public health officials, that the stuff was tobacco"-period. An average person treats smoking "warnings"- as they do advice to not go swimming alone, or to not eat too much, or the like. The vague, non-specific, cig warnings are so grossly insufficient that, of course, few heed them. It's all Motherly Advice, to be ignored.
No one warned the mothers about, or protected them from, Contaminated Tobacco, if, of course, the stuff was tobacco. It could as well have been processed wood pulp, or peanut shells, or coffee bean hulls, made in patented ways to "simulate"- tobacco""that is, to lie by its appearance. Though these other cellulose sources probably don't contain as many pesticide residues as tobacco, they are still chlorine contaminated, and the cig is still wrapped in dioxin-producing chlorine bleached paper. No warnings about any of that are required or publicized even by the most "concerned"-, zealous, pretend-progressive, "anti tobacco"- legislator.
Those mothers, and their babies, constitute important evidence against pesticides and dioxins. The "anti tobacco"- crusade has stolen that evidence, the horror of which could have brought a lot of previously unconcerned people, including honest liability attorneys, into anti-pesticide action. And the deceived mothers and babies can sure use some help.
Elsewhere, in order to craft bans on smoking in cars with children, we are told that over 700,000 children are afflicted with middle ear infections caused by "environmental tobacco smoke"-. Tobacco must be one damn bad plant. What disease does it not cause? It's a wonder the Pentagon hasn't dropped it on Al-Qaeda.
As for the ear infections, once again, there is substantial, easily-found information available about such maladies caused by pesticides and dioxin. It's doubtful, improbable, that the researchers that found those hundreds of thousands of child victims of tobacco smoke, supposedly, spent a nanosecond addressing industrial chemicals and dioxin either in typical cigarettes or elsewhere. The ear infections might have been, and probably were, effects of already-identified ear infection causes like highway pollution, industrial pollution, PCBs, dioxins, and pesticides in homes, yards, playgrounds and schools, or anywhere. Since there are no studies provided about how much dioxin or pesticide fumes are or can be delivered to anyone by "environmental tobacco smoke"-, it's only speculation that any of those industrial toxins and carcinogens got to kids by either "environmental tobacco smoke"- or smoke from whatever a cig may be made from.
It's not always easy to find the research funders, but it would be no surprise if the studies were funded by elements of the chlorine/petrochemical industries"-including their PR firms, the insurers that insure and invest in them, or their related foundations. It is unimaginable, in fact, that the studies were not funded by them, directly or indirectly.
Those 700,000 + children and their medical records have been stolen, by the "concerned"- and "wholesome"-, seemingly "progressive"-, war on tobacco, from the pool of evidence against those industrial chemicals and their corrupted government regulators. Those children are being denied proper compensation from the unindicted perpetrators as well, while, instead, we get pitiful feel-good crumbs of No Smoking in Bars, and No Smoking in cars with kids, and other "healthful"- "clean air"- legislation.
But, there is an ironic silver lining here. Since virtually every serious disease said to be "smoking related"- or "tobacco related"- is identical to effects of pesticide and/or dioxin exposure, we have the "anti smoking"- crusaders identifying the diseases caused by those industrial substances, the very things they dread facing consequences for. As they try to scapegoat tobacco plants, and smokers, for their crimes, they point us to their crimes. In articles about the latest research, generally one can replace the words "smoking"- and "tobacco"-, etc., with "pesticides and dioxins"- and find, at last, some truth.
Are ear infections caused by smoke from tobacco or any plants? Hardly. That they are caused by industrial chemical pollution, pesticides and dioxin is not a question.
Heart disease caused by plant smoke? Not likely. But it's known and well-established to be caused by industrial chemical toxins. No one, and no ones heart or ear, has evolved long enough to tolerate any of that novel industrial stuff.
Fetal Damage and pregnancy disruption caused by natural plant smoke? Not a chance--- but the ample material about industrial pesticides and dioxin doing those harms makes the charges against tobacco absurd. That such researchers manage to keep their licenses is an indication of the depth and extent of this problem.
But there's more. Here are some more things blamed on, or "linked to"-, primary and secondary tobacco smoke---a.k.a. "smoking"- or "cigarettes"-, remembering that a typical cigarette may not contain any tobacco, unless it says so on the pack. It may be instead made from industrial waste cellulose camouflaged as tobacco"-with the added shot of nicotine, of course. Organic? That a typical cigarette is pesticide/chlorine-free is as likely as Bush and Cheney, or Exxon and Blackwater CEOs, turning themselves in.
The traditionally-used tobacco plant, and those disobedient, government-distrusting smokers, are indicted by corporate media and complicit journals, and by the industry-backed Anti Tobacco organizations, etc., for causing the following so-called "Smoking Related"- or "Tobacco Related"- diseases:
[Rather than printing out the long list of illnesses known to be caused by, or aggravated by, or just linked to, pesticides, chlorine, and dioxin, to match-up with this list of so-called "smoking /tobacco related"- diseases, items in the list that are all incidentally effects of, aggravated by, or linked-to pesticides are identified by a "P"-, and the chlorine/dioxin-related ones, with a "D"-. The designations are not meant to be thorough, just what was found from simple computer searches of the terms"-searches that "smoking"- researchers are loath to do. They are not paid to do that. They are paid to not do that.]
Cancers of the cervix (D, P), kidney (D, P), pancreas (D, P), and stomach (D, P);
Cancer of the bladder (D, P), esophagus (D, P), larynx (D, P), lung (D, P), mouth (D, P), throat (D, P);
Acute myeloid leukemia (D, P);
Abdominal aortic aneurysm
Cataracts (D, P);
Periodontitis (D);
Pneumonia (D, P);
Chronic lung disease (D, P);
Chronic heart and cardiovascular disease (D, P)
Reproductive problems (D, P);
Chronic bronchitis (D, P);
Atherosclerosis (D, P);
Hypertension (D, P);
Vascular diseases (D, P);
Stroke (D, P);
Tongue cancer (D);
Impotence (D, P)
Emphysema (D, P);
Asthma (D, P);
Osteoporosis (D, P);
Buergers Disease (lower leg circulation),
Diabetes (D, P);
Alzheimer's disease (P).
Sperm loss (D, P)
Premature hair loss (D, P);
Skin damage (D, P)
Learning disabilities (D, P);
Attention Deficit Disorder-ADD (D, P);
Hyperactivity and behavioral disorders (D, P);
Anxiety Disorders (D, P);
Multiple Sclerosis (D, P);
Miscarriages (D, P);
Premature birth (D, P);
Fetal distress (D, P);
Fetal death (D, P);
Child deformities- webbed toes etc. (D, P);
Halitosis (D);
Sleep apnea (D);
Overactive bladder (D, P);
Raynaud's syndrome (D, P);
Suppression of immune system (D, P);
Gene damage (D, P);
DNA damage (D, P);
Oral cancer (D, P);
Dental stains (D);
Hearing loss (D, P);
Inner ear infection (D, P);
Increase risk of malignant hypertension (P);
Breast cancer (D, P);
Testicular cancer (D, P);
Nausea (D, P);
Dizziness (D, P);
Rapid heart beat (D, P);
Insomnia (D, P);
Mild depression (D, P);
Mental illness (D, P);
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) (D, P);
Spontaneous abortions (D, P);
Inflammatory bowel disease (D);
and Burns.
Fire is a rare thing in that list not caused by, or aggravated by, the pesticide/chlorine industry, directly, at least as relates to toxicity or carcinogeneity. The still-legal burn accelerants in typical cigarettes come from citrates, phosphates, and official tolerance of fluffing up the cig stuffing to create more oxygen for burning, and official tolerance for paper made porous specifically to promote non-self-extinguishing, and profitable, and sin-tax-generating, fast-burning cigarettes. Profitable---as long as the perpetrators face no consequences for their contributions to the resultant fires, injuries and deaths. Fires, like baby deformities, are said to be "smoking related"-, caused exclusively by those easy targets"-"careless"- smokers. It is not mentioned that most cigarettes are designed and permitted to be virtual fuses"-incendiary devices.
Dioxin is a notorious immune suppressant, so every disease blamed on, or "linked to"- "smoking"-, or even resulting from getting a chill in the rain, is a result of, or is exacerbated by, chlorine's dioxin"-a still-legal, non-prohibited, component of cigarette smoke, and a substance now found in every human from other sources. Since inhalation is the worst possible exposure route for dioxin, since dioxin is a known human carcinogen, since even the USA signed the POPs Convention to phase dioxin off the earth as one of the worst dozen industrial pollutants, and since no smoker was warned or informed about dioxin contamination of cigarette smoke, justice requires that the burdens of law ought be dumped onto the chlorine/dioxin cartels instead of their victims.
Demonization of nature's own tobacco plant must be reconsidered. No study of effects of clearly described uncontaminated tobacco seems to exist. But if one did, a list of health problems resulting from use of plain, pesticide-free, chlorine-free, adulterant-free, perhaps grow-your-own, organic tobacco may look like this:
- Irritation from over-use.
- Irritation to those with industrially-damaged immune systems.
- Smelly hair and ashtrays.
Nicotine, despite withdrawal symptoms, has not been determined to be harmful. Indeed it's approved in all sorts of synthetic patented products made by anti-tobacco pharmaceuticals. Public interest justification for anti-tobacco legislation seems to be non-existent. Whether some enjoy the smell or not, in the American way, tobacco has been convicted without a trial. Injustice is so easily dumped on the unpopular.
What have been overwhelmingly determined to be harmful are the industrial cigarette adulterants. Every person said to have been harmed by tobacco, or by "smoking"-, deserves to be told the full story. They deserve to be tested for body burdens of the industrial substances, they deserve justice for the fraud of being sold smoking products as if they were just tobacco, and they deserve compensation for being harmed and for being treated as Guinea pigs--- poisoned and experimented upon without informed consent.
If "smoking"- and "tobacco"- are to be blamed, penalized and prohibited for the health effects that are from pesticide residues, chlorine, and dioxin (and many other non-tobacco cigarette adulterants), then every victim will be denied justice, the perpetrators will retain credibility to continue to pollute and contaminate wherever they want, the detrimental chemical substances will not receive proper attention or regulation, the organic movement will have a harder time becoming mainstream, anti-pesticide activists will have ignored perhaps the biggest pesticide crime in history, the medical professionals who aided, abetted and ignored this will retain their licenses, and the complicit public officials who let this all happen will stay in place"-as will the system that tolerates such private influence in public governing.
It is not just our evidence against industrial toxins and carcinogens that has been stolen, we have also been robbed of our health, untold number of lives, vast amounts of money, a safe environment, an independent health and medical science system, an unbiased judiciary, and a public regulatory system that serves the pubic welfare.