"Upon the People"
“The study of what is upon the people” is an accurate translation of the word “epidemiology.” It is a significant branch of the public health services. And because most epidemiologists are employed by government -- at the state or federal level -- the difficulties of this science is frequently compounded by bureaucratic hurdles.
In the 1980s and ‘90s, these hurdles prevented the New York State Department of Health from assisting the general public in a meaningful way. Let’s consider two examples. First, the 120-acre Richardson Hill/ Sidney Landfill USEPA Super Fund Site is located in Sidney, in Delaware County. However, it overflows into the townships of Masonville and Trout Creek (aka “Tompkins”). The NYS Department of Health has refused requests for a health study in the area surrounding the dump site, because they were restricted to studies of individual townships.
The BAGS (Bainbridge, Afton, Guilford, Sidney) Landfill, located off of Rt. 8 north of Sidney, is on the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation’s “super fund” list. However, it overlaps into four towns -- Bainbridge, Guilford, Sidney, and Unadilla -- and three counties -- Delaware, Chenango, and Otsego. Hence, the DOH refused to study the area most impacted by the dump’s plume.
This was as much a source of frustration for the many sincere people working for the DOH, as it was for citizens who discovered their tax dollars were being spent to cover for industry, rather than being invested in protecting public health. But as individual employees of good will took small steps around those bureaucratic stumbling blocks, some progress has been made.
Thus, while a Governor banking on gas industry contributions to his planned 2016 presidential campaign can appoint agency heads that say hydrofracking is “safe,” there are men and women of conscience who want to protect the public. This is true for both the DOH and the Department of Environmental Conservation. It is important that, as citizens, we do not reject the DOH and/or DEC in their entirety, because the agency heads are mere cogs, compromised by the Cuomo machine.
I began working on the issues relating to industrial toxic waste dump sites in 1980. Over the past three decades, I have encountered individuals employed by state and federal agencies who span the wide range between “amoral cog” to “dedicated public servant.” I’ve also learned that individuals can change: the same US Environmental Protection Agency cog who made midnight phone calls, threatening to have myself, a lawyer from River Keeper, and a NYC Department of Environmental Protection for “trespassing” on private property -- we took a walk with the land-owner -- would later become a valuable asset. Thus, I have kept contact information for these individuals, filed with the hundreds of pages of studies and other official documentation concerning numerous toxic waste dump sites.
Epidemiological studies -- no matter how accurate they may be -- tend to follow a general path: they are attacked upon release; then marginalized; and eventually ignored. An interesting example would be the US Surgeon General’s studies that connected smoking and cancer. The federal government, decades later, continues to subsidize the tobacco industry. The legal conflicts over smoking have been marginalized to the issue of where those addicted to the drug can light up. And the obvious, direct link between this government-subsidized health risk and the health care system is ignored by the Congress and White House.
More, corporations hire “scientists” who will sell their souls to the highest bidder; these folks prostitute science by issuing studies that suggest the poisons their pimp industry uses pose no danger to an unsuspecting public. It’s not a matter of their reaching a sincere but mistaken opinion -- they are purposefully lying. Those people who suffer the consequences of their lies do not matter to them: they simply lie for money.
As a result, good people are unaware of the impact of exposure to toxic wastes on their lives, and on their family, friends, and neighbors. This reminds me of the fable about the sleeping giant that lived in a community; perhaps for this example we will say that giant lives in Sidney. The giant’s house catches on fire, while he sleeps in an upstairs room. His neighbors panic: How can they carry the giant to safety? He is huge, too heavy to carry down the stairs, and too large to fit through a window. Finally, a small child asks, “Why don’t we wake the giant up? Then he can save himself.”
The residents in Sidney -- like in every other community -- are that sleeping giant. Too often, we waste our time and energy by focusing on how to carry them downstairs, or fit them through a window. We should be waking that giant, and allowing him the opportunity to save himself.
For example, a small group of friends and I are beginning a health study in the Village of Sidney. We are in contact with those good people in government agencies, as well as a wide range of doctors, lawyers, and university professors. Our goal isn’t to produce a study to be attacked, marginalized, then ignored by the combined ghouls in government and industry. Rather, it is to document trends in public health, which are related to the numerous industrial toxic waste dump sites that poison the local environment. By producing a study that is accessible to professionals and lay-persons alike, I am confident that we can wake the sleeping giant. And once the public becomes fully aware of “what is upon the people,” we will work together to save ourselves.