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Diacetyl Media Coverage Rant

Byoliveridley

06Sep07Capture.jpgFeel free to disregard if you don’t like rants, but the NY Times story of one man’s at-home exposure to diacetyl and the resulting case of bronchiolitis obliterans has made the most emailed list as of 06-Sep-07, and propelled diacetyl into the big time. Now, anyone who keeps half an eye on occupational health issues (or reads the pump handle) would have known that at least 5 workers in the flavoring industry had died of this disease, and many many more were afflicted by bronchiolitis obliterans. Yet, the press completely ignored this issue. As soon as one person had the same problem at home, it suddenly became a frontpage issue, causing all kinds of backpedalling by Conagra and big popcorn (gotta love that phrase!!).

There is a casual and systemic disregard for blue collar worker’s rights in this country, starting from an institutional distaste for unions, lack of health coverage, job security, pensions, playing one set of workers against the other, using selectively and arbitrarily enforced immigration laws to keep workers pliant, putting industry executives and lobbyists in charge of agencies that are supposed to keep workers’ welfare in mind, stressing “voluntary” regulation. failing to react to new information, I could go on and on, but you know the deal.

Why is it that the US national press can identify so much easier with one isolated case of popcorn lung while having ignored all the other occupational exposure cases? I am just a scientist, no sociologist/economist/anthropologist, but it seems to me that the press here is way too white collar and just cannot relate to the average agricultural/industrial worker. The average journalist is a white man with a journalism major from a reputable school who cut his chops doing unpaid work for the school paper. These kinds of educational and apprenticeship requirements filter the journalist worker pool to a rather homogeneous white, middle class tepidity. Because the average journalist can’t identify with issues faced by blue collar America, there’s this unstated assumption that somehow, their lives are hard and fraught with danger and uncertainty, but they don’t really deserve much better, it’s their lot in life. It’s probably because they did not study hard enough or were smart enough.

As usual, there are no easy answers. I would say Agitate, Agitate, Agitate!! But what do I know about blue collar America? People are working so hard to make ends meet without a safety net or anyone looking out for them that they have just about enough energy to get through the day and face the next one.

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    Brits…

    Byoliveridley

    Yes, fight and die for us in the most important war we ever fought, but god forbid, we don’t want you to live with us.

    BBC NEWS | UK | Gurkha hero appeals for UK entry

    A former Gurkha who won the British military’s highest honour is appealing against a decision to deny him a home in the UK. Tul Bahadar Pun, 84, who was awarded the Victoria Cross during World War II, wants to move from Nepal to the UK for health reasons. But British officials in Nepal told him that he was unable to demonstrate strong enough ties to the UK.

    Geez, are these guys morons or what? Is this just plain old “going by the book” incompetence, or something more malign? Anyway, I don’t expect anything more from these people. It’s kinda like how the US lets fewer Iraqi refugees in than Sweden.

    Update June 3rd:

    All’s well that ends well…

    Tul Bahadur Pun, 84, who wanted to move from Nepal for medical reasons, promised to be a “credit” to Britain and expressed “deep gratitude”.

    He was initially told he did not have enough British ties to move but was eventually granted a visa because his case was “exceptional”

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    Bush appoints fox to guard henhouse

    Byoliveridley

    Apparently, the fact that the senate would not confirm this person does not matter much. Democracy is a quaint concept in this august country!

    Bush Recess Appointment Threatens Public Protections – Press Room – OMB Watch

    2007—President George W. Bush today installed Susan Dudley as White House regulatory czar through a recess appointment. Dudley will now serve in the White House Office of Management and Budget as administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).

    OIRA is a powerful office responsible for reviewing and approving federal agencies’ most significant regulations. Installing Dudley threatens decades of public health and safety protections; doing so by recess appointment endangers our democratic process.

    “Dudley’s record is one of anti-regulatory extremism,” said Rick Melberth, Director of Regulatory Policy at OMB Watch. “She has opposed some of our nation’s most basic environmental, workplace safety and public health protections.”

    Dudley has falsely proclaimed ground-level ozone to be beneficial, opposed ergonomic standards to protect workers from repetitive stress disorders, and even suggested that airbags should never have been mandated in automobiles.

    The kinds of rollbacks Dudley may push forward could render useless valuable federal laws that have saved countless American lives. OMB Watch and Public Citizen documented Dudley’s anti-regulatory views in a September 2006 report, The Cost Is Too High: How Susan Dudley Threatens Public Protections.

    Dudley’s strong ties with the industries she will be regulating pose an obvious conflict of interest. For the three years before her nomination, Dudley directed the Regulatory Studies program at the Mercatus Center — an industry-funded, anti-regulatory think tank. It is likely that industry executives will have unprecedented access to Dudley, while concerned citizens will be increasingly shut out.

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    NC Primary – Vote for a Non Panderer

    Byoliveridley

    Apparently, there’s a relevant presidential election this time around in my erstwhile home state, woohoo! (Not that it matters to me, when I was living in the States as an alien on parole, I did not have a vote, and I don’t even live there no more, but I follow US politics religiously!). I do have a dog in the fight (okay, references to dog fighting are no longer cool), being an Obama supporter (he’s skinny, brown and intelligent, and his name, he could be me!). He has tried hard, and only occasionally failed in his attempts to not pander, to not go against his broad principles or intelligence (do not get me started on his famous coal fetish). Clinton, on the other hand, is losing her mind, and here’s the end result.

    Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton lined up with Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, in endorsing a plan to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for the summer travel season. But Senator Barack Obama, Mrs. Clinton’s Democratic rival, spoke out firmly against the proposal, saying it would save consumers little and do nothing to curtail oil consumption and imports

    As Clinton Seeks Gas Tax Break for Summer, Obama Says No – New York Times

    GasPrices.jpgSo, 18.4 cents a gallon, ai, let’s see, ah, friendly chart of gas prices in North Carolina this MONTH (courtesy Gas Prices) shows the price jumping about 36 cents a gallon, or double this so called tax break. By the time the holiday weekend rolls around, prices would have gone up a little more. What exactly does this accomplish? It fails the first test of not providing meaningful relief to anyone concerned. Most people don’t know that the tax directly funds transportation infrastructure.

    The highway trust fund that the gas tax finances provides money to states and local governments to pay for road and bridge construction, repair and maintenance. Mr. McCain and Mrs. Clinton propose to suspend the tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day, the peak driving season, which would lower tax receipts by roughly $9 billion and potentially cost 300,000 highway construction jobs, according to state highway officials.

    So, take money from the federal government and give it to whom? Here’s a word from Dean Baker, my favorite economist.

    Actually, almost all economists would agree that the tax cut proposed by Senators Clinton and McCain would save consumers nothing. With the supply of gas largely fixed by the capacity of the oil industry (they claim to be running their refineries at full capacity), the price will
    not change in response to the elimination of the tax. The only difference will be that money that used to go to the government in tax revenues will instead go to the oil industry as higher profits.

    So, Hilary Clinton supports the transfer of money from the government to the the oil companies? I don’t think so and she ought to know better, she’s a smart and intelligent woman. So, what gives? Why the pander?

    Of course, she claims that she will make up the funding shortfall by increasing taxes on the oil companies. Who is she kidding here? You think our emperor (yes, he’s still there) will allow any new tax increases on his buddies in the oil industry? He’ll happily veto any such bill that comes his way!

    Note that I did not have to make a single environmental argument about how high gas prices will, in the medium to long run, eventually result in increased fuel efficiency, investments n public transit and hopefully, a shift away from the American (can’t say “our” any more!) car driven model of planning.

    Oh well, at this point in time, everyone’s mind’s made up anyway. Cheers and enjoy your rare meaningful vote.

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  • Ah, Propaganda

    Byoliveridley

    Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

    Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand – New York Times

    Of course, the word “propaganda” is first used on page 4 of the article, long after most people stopped reading. Not that I am surprised or shocked or anything, it was clear that all those military suits on the screen were spouting propaganda from the very beginning. They said the same things, used the same words, it was always well timed and planned, but apparently, no one in the media bothered to ask them about it. The media must have thought “very patriotic folks them, they wear a lot of lapel pins!”

    I fail to see how this meticulously detailed story will have any impact on anything that happens in the States. What would John McCain’s reaction be to this news? Will anyone actually ask him if he would have done the same thing? Will there be any protests, calls for resignations, impeachments, court martials, media boycotts? Maybe a shocked letter to the editor or two, maybe a million blog posts like this one, nothing more.

    God Bless America, it has lived up to all my expectations finally!! Pravda, Xinhua and Goebbels have nothing on these guys. It looks like all the president’s people and all the mass media colluded to sell this war to the American people and make each other very rich. Wonderful! Note that a small part of every dollar spent on cable and newspapers goes to support this war effort. Note that a small part of everyone’s taxes go to support this war effort.

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    Diacetyl hits the big time

    Byoliveridley

    It’s well known that occupational exposure to various pollutants including pesticides, manufacturing raw materials, and in this case, flavoring agents, is a serious problem affecting millions of factory and farm workers all over the world.

    Which is why it is interesting when one case of a man contracting an illness possibly linked to at-home diacetyl exposure makes much more splashy news than the well documented cases of many workers dying of such exposure at work. It is unfortunate, but people working at factories and in farms are somehow expected to handle higher levels of exposure and risk. The assumption is that they are protected by agencies such as OSHA, and that they will provided with protective wear, etc. But, when the agencies drop the ball on protecting workers, it takes an “escape” of the incident into the ambient realm for the news agencies to pick it up as a headline.

    I guess the good thing now is that this diacetyl issue is blown open, and should result in reform, because alternatives are available.

    Doctor Links a Man’s Illness to a Microwave Popcorn Habit – New York Times

    A fondness for microwave buttered popcorn may have led a 53-year-old Colorado man to develop a serious lung condition that until now has been found only in people working in popcorn plants.

    Lung specialists and even a top industry official say the case, the first of its kind, raises serious concerns about the safety of microwave butter-flavored popcorn.

    “We’ve all been working on the workplace safety side of this, but the potential for consumer exposure is very concerning,” said John B. Hallagan, general counsel for the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association of the United States, a trade association of companies that make butter flavorings for popcorn producers. “Are there other cases out there? There could be.”

    A spokeswoman for the Food and Drug Administration said that the agency was considering the case as part of a review of the safety of diacetyl, which adds the buttery taste to many microwave popcorns, including Orville Redenbacher and Act II.

    Meanwhile, ConAgra, the biggest manufacturer of popcorn, announces plans to drop diacetyl at some undetermined “later date”. Weird, their website’s currently down!

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    Split court rules against Bush on greenhouse gases – CNN.com

    Byoliveridley

    Interesting, see here for background…. So, the Supreme Court has ruled that CO2 is a pollutant, good for them.

    Split court rules against Bush on greenhouse gases – CNN.com

    The Supreme Court ordered the federal government on Monday to take a fresh look at regulating carbon dioxide emissions from cars, a rebuke to Bush administration policy on global warming.

    In a 5-4 decision, the court said the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars.

    Greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the landmark environmental law, Justice John Paul Stevens said in his majority opinion.

    The court’s four conservative justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — dissented.

    Kennedy, swung left on this one! I stand by my original asseesment, just regulating cars using the clean air act is inadequate, but the important matter resolved here is that CO2 is a pollutant, and this will, I hope, provide precedent in cases to come.

One Comment

  1. I think you’ve hit on it. Workers issues in general don’t make the headlines very often. This class consciousness among journalists and the “educated classes” isn’t universal (see Democracy Now! for an alternative) but it is pervasive and largely invisible. There once was a day when workers had their own press, published newspapers and had radio shows specific to issues that affected their lives. Those were all crushed or run out of business by the William Randolph Hearsts and Rupert Murdochs of the world. Unfortunately, the digital divide still makes blogs the domain of the privileged. Hopefully this won’t be the case for too much longer because the low cost and universal distribution offers the potential for a genuine social movement.

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