The Environmental Protection Agency banned the sale on Thursday of Imprelis, a weed killer introduced this year that landscapers link to thousands of tree deaths around the country. DuPont, which held discussions with the E.P.A. on the herbicide, suspended sales of the product last week and announced plans for a refund program. The company already faces lawsuits from property owners who lost numerous trees after landscapers began applying Imprelis to lawns and golf courses this spring. A spokesman for the E.P.A., Larry Jackson, said the agency acted because data provided by DuPont showed that at least three types of evergreens - balsam fir, Norway spruce and white pine trees - were susceptible to damage or death from Imprelis.
There's lots of stuff still in use in America long banned in Europe because it's known to be dangerous. But the manufacturers lobby keeps it on the market poisoning Americans and their kids. There's capitalism for you.
DuPont screwed up but your comment is incorrect. I know of opposite examples, the most famous being Thalidomide which caused birth defects in Europe but was not approved for use in US.
The heroine who prevented countless tragedies was Dr. Frances Kelsey. She stubbornly fought powerful entrenched interests and succeded in having Thalidomide banned in the U.S.
Read about her on many Web sites. Here's just one paragraph:
"Thalidomide affected more than 10,000 babies, mainly in Europe and Canada, while in the United States, just a few women gave birth to "thalidomide babies." These were women who had obtained the drug while living abroad, or who had participated in investigational studies. Dr. Frances Kelsey received the highest award for federal civilian service from President Kennedy (see Figure 1), and on July 15, 1962, she was hailed by the Washington Post as the "heroine=85[whose] skepticism and stubbornness=85prevented what could have been an appalling American tragedy, the birth of hundreds or indeed thousands of armless and legless children."
This happened under Kennedy. Would it have happened under Bush?
Thalidomide was approved in the U.S., but at a much later date.
Marketed as "Thalomid", it's currently used to treat some myelomas as well as complications from Hansen's Disease (Leprosy). Only one company makes it, and distribution is strictly monitored, as one might imagine.
Her work, and others, was truly a medical detective tour-de-force. The drug only caused deformities if taken on a certain few days of a woman's pregnancy when limb buds first appeared in the fetus. As a result, though
1,000's took the drug throughout pregnancy, only a very few had deformed babies and those were consistently claimed by the drug's maker to be from other causes.
Maybe, maybe not. I think it was just one of those things. Just trying to be non-partisan here. Ironically, Bush signed a consumer protection bill in
2008 that makes him look more liberal than Obama. No wonder Republicans are trying to tacitly disown him.
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(Heybub, are you reading? "It's for the children!!" And it was from Bush! And my, how Big Business screamed and moaned about the "burden" of having to be more careful about killing children!)
I only point this out to bolster my contention that Federal law is largely a history of business abuse of citizens. The Chinese pet food scandal, among others, FORCED Bush and his fellow regulation-hating comrades to sign a bill putting very tight reins on child-related businesses.
Since Federal law is largely the history of businesses running roughshod over not only citizens but smaller competitors and the country, you can began to see why Big Business is working so hard for small government. No one wants to be reminded of their past sins. No one wants to be told what to do. Yet a tour through most volumes of current law books will reveal hundreds of thalidomide-like cases where businesses caused substantial harm and injury to people and regulations were put in place to prevent similar tragedies from recurring.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (1911 - 146 killed) rewrote labor laws from the ground up. The rule of thumb about "tombstone agencies" (that count deaths of citizens) is that when someone or something kills over 100 people in one incident, there's going to be a lot of new Federal law aimed at preventing a recurrence. That's one reason why commercial aviation is regulated to the hilt. They routinely kill 100+ per accident, sometimes hundreds more. It's also the reason the coal industry is so heavily regulated:
The three worst coal mine disasters in U.S. history:
1913 Stag Canon No. 2 Dawson, NM Explosion 263 dead
1909 Cherry Mine Cherry, IL Fire
259 dead
1907 Monongah 6 and 8 Monongah, WV Explosion 362 dead
Voters demand action when so many people are killed. And Congress and the President almost always act by passing new laws and regulations. Contrary to the propaganda put out by the USCOC and other business shills, unregulated businesses have a history of killing people, often by the hundreds. It is their misdeeds and NOT the zeal of progressives or anyone else that demands regulations be put in place to prevent future disasters. If I were Big Business, I too would be working overtime to undo Federal regulation since it holds a very ugly mirror up to past misdeeds.
Thalidomide film premiere revives compensation fight By Tony Paterson in Berlin Thursday, 8 November 2007
Germany's pharmaceutical industry spent more than a year trying to ban the film, but last night a moving, controversial and widely acclaimed television drama about the tragedy suffered by thousands of children crippled by the drug thalidomide was finally broadcast to an audience of millions.
The two-part drama ? entitled A Single Pill and shown at prime time ? amounts to a savage indictment of Grünenthal in Aachen which first manufactured thalidomide, which was known in Germany as Contergan, in 1957.
Lawyers for Grünenthal spent 18 months trying to ban A Single Pill, arguing that it mixed fact with fiction and distorted the truth. However last year, judges at Germany's constitutional court dismissed all objections to the film and ruled that in the interests of free speech it should be shown.
I wonder how much money the makers of thalidomide spent trying to erase their past misdeeds from history? I wonder how Exxon would tell the story of the Valdez if *they* were writing the history books?
I've seen a Canadian film about thalidomide babies born there as they grew into adulthood. Everyone who saw it with me cried like a baby. It should be shown every time someone complains that our government over-regulates Big Business in America.
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