Real-Life Epilogue to "Erin Brockovich"

Medical Journal Retracts Fraudulent Chromium/Cancer Study by Firm Headed by Bush Appointee

WASHINGTON, June 2 (AScribe Newswire) -- In a real-life epilogue to "Erin Brockovich," a peer-reviewed medical journal will retract a fraudulent article written and placed by a science-for-hire consulting firm whose CEO sits on a key federal toxics panel. The retraction follows a six- month internal review by the journal, prompted by an Environmental Working Group (EWG) investigation ...

The article appeared to be a reversal of an earlier study by Zhang that found a significant association between chromium pollution of drinking water and higher rates of stomach cancer in villages in rural northeast China. Since its publication, the fraudulent article has influenced a number of state and federal regulatory decisions on chromium ...

Under the state Public Records Act, EWG obtained and posted online documents from California regulators and court records that showed the article was actually the work of ChemRisk, a San Francisco-based consulting firm whose clients include corporations responsible for chromium pollution. The documents and the story they outline are at http://www.ewg.org ...

ChemRisk's founder and CEO, Dennis Paustenbach, is a Bush Administration appointee to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control advisory panel on toxic chemicals and environmental health. His firm holds a lucrative contract with the CDC and the Energy Department to investigate radioactive and toxic releases from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico ...

http://newswire.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/behold.pl?ascribeid=20060601.154650&time=21%2000%20PDT&year=2006&public=0

steal.....

There should be an OverView Dept to make sure these guys do whats in the Best interest of the Nation, the People, the Evirons, and the Planet...

With BushCo, a whole lotta peeps would have to resign...

Is it something like "This job pays really well. Me and my family can all afford filtered water, and fuck everybody else?" Or do they actually think they're fighting some righteous battle against evil liberal science?

I'm reminded of that scene from the Brockovitch movie, where she tells the chemical company stooges that the water they've been drinking is from the contaminated sites. I'd seriously like to see that in real life. Just to see how sincere they really are.

They seem quite sociopathic. For much more on this sort of thing you might want to read "Toxic Sludge is good for You" - Stauber and Rampton. It's about how public relations firms have been used by industry to get away with heinous activities on a grand scale (of course this activity is greatly facilitated by lobbyists, many of whom occupy Government positions and call themselves - Republicans).