Robert Kennedy Jr.

We are the M TEAM. Our mission is to expose the truth about one of the biggest cover-ups in the history of America, one that is bigger than the tobacco industry and more toxic than lead. Our journey has united some of the most influential players in the fight to contain, rather than recycle, one of nature’s most toxic elements, mercury.

When I was first asked to be on Air America with Bobby Kennedy, Jr., I thought, “Oh, no…I can’t.” Even though my deceased Irish Catholic parents would be ecstatic, I’m not political and I don’t want to be identified as a Democrat or a Republican because I’m neither. I’m a documentary filmmaker and a five-time cancer survivor in search of the truth about mercury and it’s connection to our escalating chronic health issues. I had made a promise to God while having a bone marrow transplant in 1997, that if He let me live, I would do the right thing, I just asked God to send me signs. They all pointed to mercury.

What started as a film about dental mercury has taken me around the globe in search of the twisted roots of this tragic problem. Mercury pollution is an issue that transcends all social, economic, cultural and racial borders. The issue is not red. It’s not blue. It’s purple, the color of high truth and spiritual awareness. So when I read Mr. Kennedy’s book, Crimes Against Nature, I realized that he had written about everything we had captured on tape during the Open Your Mouth Tour, our soon to be completed feature doc-u-rock-u-mentary. I knew I would be a fool to not step out in the name of truth over politics.

So, I jumped on a plane and headed for White Plains, New York to Pace
University School of Law to interview Mr. Kennedy. It turned out to be a gratifying exchange of information between us -him interviewing me for his radio show and me interviewing him for my documentary. His sentiments were impassioned and filled with inspiring idealism, political realism and personal convictions. I knew that it was a moment I would never forget.
Q: how did you get involved in the mercury issue?
A: I got involved because I have been fighting for water and fisheries and working for fisherman for twenty-one years and today in nineteen states it’s now unsafe to eat any freshwater fish because of mercury contamination. In forty-eight states, at least some or most of the fish are now unsafe to eat from mercury contamination. In fact the only two states where all the fish are still safe to eat are Wyoming and Alaska where the Republican controlled legislatures have refused to authorize the money to test the fish. In all of the other states, at least some if not all of the fish are unsafe to eat. We know a lot about mercury that we didn’t know a few years ago. We know, for example, that one out of every six American women now has so much mercury in her womb that her children are at risk for a grim inventory of diseases including autism, blindness, mental retardation, heart, liver, kidney disease.
Q: have you had a mercury test?
A: I got tested recently and I have so much mercury in my body, my levels are double what is considered safe. Dr. David Carpenter, a national authority on mercury contamination, told me that a woman with my levels of mercury in her blood would have children with cognitive impairment. (100 million Americans have this same problem) I said to him, “You mean might have?” He said, “No, the science is very certain today. Her children would be permanently brain damaged. Probably a permanent IQ loss.” He estimated a 5-10 point loss. Today there are 630,000 children born every year who have been exposed to dangerous levels of mercury.
Q: can this be avoided?
A: The Clinton Administration, recognizing the gravity of this health epidemic reclassified mercury as a hazardous pollutant under the clean air act. That triggered a requirement that all of those coal burning power plants that are the major sources for mercury in our fish have to remove the mercury within three and a half years. It would have cost them less than one percent of plant revenues.

Q: representatives from the coal industry say the technology is not sufficient to adequately remedy the situation. is this true?
A: There were four major suppliers of the technology out there that were hungry to sell that mercury removal technology to those coal burning power plants and that technology is in use all over the place but this is an industry that donated 48 million dollars to the Presidential Campaigns during the 2000 election cycle and have given 58 million dollars since.
Q: i’m not very political…
A: You can’t talk about mercury without getting somewhat political. Campaign funding and the way the system is set up makes political candidates patsies to their funding sources.
Q: is there any form of punishment or regulations to stop this?
A: The 2003 mercury spill in Washington DC that required a Hazmat Crew to do a clean up at Cardozo High School now has three teenagers facing charges of terrorism for their adolescent prank. The school was closed for several days while the Hazmat team cleaned up the toxic mess. Students were ordered to bring their clothes back to school in plastic bags to be mercury vapor tested by the Jerome Machine, a mercury vapor analyzer.
Q: that’s the same device we used to test the vapor in peoples mouths on The Open Your Mouth Tour.
A: It’s the industrial hygiene machine used by OSHA to monitor air quality. Well, on March 15th, 2005, it was reported that the three teenage suspects are to be tried as adults for their crime and they could be sentenced to federal prison. On the very same day these children were notified of their potential criminal penalties, the EPA announced the unveiling of their Trade and Cap Scheme, a “scheme” which allows dirty power plants to buy pollution credits from cleaner power plants rather than install mercury separators on their stacks. Under the current rule, corporate polluters were to clean up by the year 2008. The Trade and Cap Scheme pushes this responsibility off until 2020. Coal fired power plants currently emit 48 tons of mercury a year into the air over the US and will continue to be allowed to do so with no penalties. While teenagers face prison sentences, corporations dump tons of mercury into our air, water and food supplies.
Q: how did this happen?
A: The Bush Administration brought in lawyers from the power industry to write the rules. It’s like letting the fox into the hen house. Government lawyers were replaced by industry lawyers to write the regulations that regulate them. It’s crazy. These lawyers have written so many loopholes into the plan…they are stripping us of our rights to clean air and clean water. It’s a crime.

As a result of this, we are living in a science fiction nightmare, where my children and the children of most Americans can no longer engage in the seminal, primal activity of American youth, which is to go fishing with their fathers and then come home and eat the fish.

And with that, the passionate Bobby Kennedy Jr. ran to his next appointment. After the interview, as I walked the halls of Pace University’s Environmental Law Clinic where Mr. Kennedy teaches environmental law, I saw on display a timeline of environmental mileposts. Ronald Reagan was featured on this timeline for reversing the environmental emissions law responsible for controlling mercury in 1976. I found it ironic that President Reagan, the President who relaxed the environmental regulations in favor of coal fired plants, ended his life in a battle with Alzheimer’s, a disease that has been scientifically linked to mercury by researcher and mercury toxicity expert, Dr. Boyd Haley. According to Dr. Haley, Chairman of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky, “the science is in, and mercury is the most toxic non-radioactive substance known to man. It interferes with every function of the cell… One broken thermometer can contaminate a twenty-acre lake and we are putting grams of it in people’s teeth. There are no safe levels of mercury.”

by kelly gallagher
Provided by Yogi Times Magazine - www.yogitimes.com