PCBs CAUSE MANY HEALTH PROBLEMS
Cancer is not the only concern - by far
last update 1/20/01
To The Editor of The Daily Gazette:
[Sent to the Gazette on March 18, 1999
and Assemblyman Robert D'Andrea on March 22, 1999]
The purpose of this letter is to respond to and clarify your editorial of March 13, 1999,
concerning the pollution of the Hudson River by the General Electric Company. Your
Editorial is true as far as it goes. PCB's have yet to be proven as a cancer producing pollutant.
Other effects, however, which have been proven to be damaging to the health of humans, and
are equally as devastating as cancer, are presented in a recent book by Mr. Thomas O'Boyle.
The book is entitled "At Any Cost Jack Welch, General Electric, and the Pursuit of Profit."
We can all be assured that Jack Welch would have sued Tom O'Boyle by now if every single
word in the book was not accurate. The book is a must read for all Americans, but in
particular for anyone living near any GE plant.
FROM TOM O'BOYLE's BOOK
Page 184: "Other health researchers turned up evidence of PCBs accumulating in human body
fat and breast milk. Soon it became apparent that PCBs were indeed everywhere -- in soil, air,
and ocean; in the mud of lakes, rivers, and estuaries; in the body fat of virtually every human
being -- and that their omnipresence posed a greater threat to human life and the environment
than was previously understood. PCBs don't dissolve readily in water. They are "persistent"
chemicals, in that they resist the natural processes of decay that would render them harmless.
Once ingested, they are drawn by their chemical structure to a human's or animal's fat cells and
are virtually impossible to dislodge. Very minute quantities of PCB have been found to interfere
and distort hormones, particularly in the embryonic fetus. Often the medical problems that arise
out of this chemical interference don't show up until adults who have been exposed to PCBs
have children. Toxicologists now believe that the variety of neurological, reproductive, and
immune system dysfunctions associated with PCB exposure are more likely to be evident in this
second generation. Although biologists disagree over the extent of the threat PCBs pose to
human health, there is now renewed concern, so much so that the EPA has expanded its
research to better understand how these chemicals disrupt hormones."
Page 185: GE, over a period of more than thirty years, intentionally discharged into the Hudson
River more than one million pounds of PCBs -- about thirty pounds a day -- from two factories
forty miles north of Troy, at Fort Edward and Hudson Falls. The PCBs entered the river mainly
via waste water used to wash off the casings of electrical capacitors that were manufactured at
the two plants and were submerged in a PCB bath. In 1976, the state of New York, acting with
urgency after the federal declaration of the chemical as a public health menace, attempted to
deal with the PCB problem. Abraham Sofaer, a Columbia University law professor who presided
over a hearing on the PCB question, judged General Electric guilty of violating state water
quality standards: "GE has discharged PCBs in quantities that have breached applicable
standards of water quality . . . injured fish, and . . . destroyed the viability of recreational
fishing in various parts of the Hudson by rendering its fish dangerous to consume."
"The Sofaer hearing did little to resolve the issue -- two decades later, the debate still rages over
what to do about the Hudson, as GE has successfully forestalled retrieval of PCBs from one of
the nation's most majestic waterways -- but it was important in another regard: It catapulted Jack
Welch in his career. Armed with Sofaer's decision, New York entered into negotiations with GE,
judged by Sofaer to be the responsible party. Reg Jones chose Welch to represent the company
in the negotiations with the state, a choice that confirmed the import Jones attached to them.
Because the Hudson was one of the hundreds of sites where GE was potentially liable for
expensive environmental remediation, the showdown with New York would set important
precedent. Jones was livid over the state's handling of the PCB question, and he had angrily
warned then New York Governor Hugh Carey that he would pull all company facilities out of
New York if its environmental commissioner, Ogden Reid, forced the two Hudson River plants
to go to zero-PCB discharge before Jones thought it feasible."
SHANNON's COMMENTS
It is interesting that corporations have the right to pollute public land and waterways and the
public than has to prove that what the corporations did was health threatening. GE dumped
PCBs for thirty years and didn't care about cancer or any other disease until someone was
smart enough to ask the right questions.
I know that GE owns Congress, the question is, do they own this country? Perhaps owning
Congress is the same as owning the Nation!
John P. Shannon
262 Jones Road
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
518-587-3245
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