Wednesday, March 2, 2011

CANADA - Mallick; Spectre of Agent Orange haunts us

Mallick: Spectre of Agent Orange haunts us
If you ever go to Philadelphia, check out the office building next to the Independence Hall visitors centre. It’s Dow, shameless Dow. I do like a little irony with my Liberty Bell.

The province is angry and wants to investigate, but Ottawa isn’t interested in a national survey on what might have been done in provinces (that’s what “smaller government” means). Dow and Monsanto care even less now than they did when their product was dumped on Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.

Hydro One, one of the government sprayers, is still downplaying the possible health damage, offering Star investigative reporter Diana Zlomislic a soothing medical “study” so structurally flawed that it was cartoonish, insulting even.

And the victims, mainly Ontario young people who spent three decades of lazy summer days doused in the stuff, are suffering now. But it’s not over. What the citizens of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have been telling us, if we cared to listen, is that Agent Orange doesn’t go away. The dioxin herbicide used to kill green leaves is still killing.

We mainly sell seeds now, says shy Monsanto.

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