March 27, 2019: Bad News for Humans, Also Bird and Bees

 

3/27/19: You know what America needs? Less government regulation! More opioids! And more toxic chemicals in our water! 

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What could go wrong for humans!

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We get another wakeup call regarding business ethics this week when we learn that there is always a company out there that lives by one guiding rule. If customers will buy it, and it might harm or kill them if they do, that company will still gladly sell it if it reaps a fat profit. 

First, a bit of good news: The State of Oklahoma (not exactly known to be crawling with socialists who want to cut the nuts off capitalists) wins a $270 million judgment against Purdue Pharma. Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter had sued Purdue and others, including Johnson & Johnson, for fueling the opioid crisis “with aggressive marketing of the blockbuster drug OxyContin and deceptive claims that downplayed the dangers of addiction.” 

Then the bad news: No court settlement will bring back the 200,000 Americans who are estimated to have died from opioid overdoses in the last twenty years.

 

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IF OPIOIDS don’t get you, maybe pesticides for breakfast will. David Bernhardt, Trump’s new choice to head the Department of the Interior, has stepped in and blocked regulations to control use of two pesticides: malathion and chlorpyrifos. It turns out, after years of study, that scientists at the Fish and Wildlife Service determined those chemicals were so toxic “they jeopardize existence [emphasis added]” for 1,200 species of endangered birds, fish and other animals. You know. First you spray the crops to kill pests. Then the chemicals get into the food chain. 

What could go wrong for humans!

 

Dow, which makes the pesticides, insists they’re perfectly safe, just like cigarettes used to be. Or opioids! Just to boost that narrative along Dow donated $1 million to the Trump inauguration. 

Bernhardt then stepped in (you get what you pay for) and with pretty much zero knowledge of the science, killed the new regulations. 

So have some pesticides for lunch too! 

 

FUN FACT: In a new book about Barbara Bush, we learn that she kept a Trump countdown clock next to her bed until the day she died. The red, white, and blue clock, which kept track of the time left until January 20, 2021, was a gift from a friend who knew how deep the former First Lady’s disdain was for our current president. 

In fact, her disdain goes back to the 90s, when she wrote in her diary, “Trump now means Greed, selfishness and ugly.”

Bad for the birds and the bees and for you.