With herbicidal spraying by NStar only one month away, on our bookshelf, I have placed Poisoned for Profit: How Toxins Are Making Our Children Chronically Ill, by Philip and Alice Shabecoff. Now, I admit, I have not finished reading this excellent book, concentrating on fiction this month, but the topic is important and so timely. The authors "follow the trail from corporate coffers through highly paid Washington lobbyists, into the laboratories of scientists-for-hire, to the offices of politicians responsible for regulation, and right back to our homes and schools - which are built, stocked, and 'cleaned' with deadly toxics."
Small children and the endocrine system of the developing fetus are the most at risk. We all need to read Poisoned for Profit to understand why it is so hard to change the status quo, pertinent information here on Cape Cod where citizen outcry has fallen on deaf ears. NStar will not even listen to our legislators, nor to the Cape Cod Commission, all urging a change of policy. Why contaminate our sole-source aquifer with traces of toxic chemicals if there are alternative means of vegetation removal? Could the reason be chemicals are cheaper, that health does not matter?
For a Cape Cod take on this issue, watch Laura Kelley's interview with a young mother and a dog-walker for Cape Cod Matters:
