"Bill McKee" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Jim," wrote in message
...
A.Melon wrote:
Just because it is on the internet does not make it true. Simply copying
and pasting a political slam does not excuse you from being a spammer.
Salon.com is a far left organization that invents their own stories.
Just
cause a rag smells like fish does not make it worthy of posting here.

Get a life.

You don't have to like Salon -- but what about these studies?

Browngoehl's remarks are backed by several alarming studies of mercury in
the past decade. One study, sponsored by the U.S. National Institute of
Environmental Health Sciences, and Europe's Environment and Climate
Research Program, showed that children exposed to mercury in utero did
poorly on tests measuring their attention span, memory and speaking
abilities. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, both
the brains and nervous systems of children who have been exposed to
mercury can be damaged. Their language and visual spatial skills can also
suffer.

Karen Perry, deputy director of the environmental health department at
Physicians for Social Responsibility, has this advice: "For women who are
of child-bearing age, we would advise they learn more about which fish
are the cleanest and the safest and continue to eat fish in moderation
and choose the lowest-mercury fish. The sad part of all of this is that
fish is such a healthy food, we don't want to tell people not to eat it.
So you have to give them more information, so they can make the best
choices."

You would have seen them had you read the article

On Mon, 18 Apr 2005, "Jim," wrote:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20...ury/print.html

Extract

Millions of fetuses whose mothers eat fish are being exposed to
brain-damaging mercury. But critics charge the Bush administration's
regulations are like bailing the ocean with a thimble.

"Children who suffer the consequences of methylmercury toxicity often
appear like other children who may have been affected for a genetic
reason," explains Leo Trasande, the assistant director of the Mount
Sinai School of Medicine's Center for Children's Health and the
Environment in New York. "A child with mental retardation may have had a
significant environmental exposure in the perinatal period. But there
are no hallmarks." One study found that an affected child could score
lower on IQ tests by as little as .20 of a point to as much as 24
points.

While the Bush administration cajoles women to follow its fish warnings,
it's proved unwilling to take on the root of the problem. Fish, after
all, are only the pathway of mercury to our bloodstreams. Coal-fired
power plants, in the United States and abroad, are the largest source of
man-made mercury pollution. But Bush and company stand in the way of
international efforts to prevent mercury pollution and are doing little
the stop it at home.


What a biased report. US coal fired plants are some of the cleanest
plants in the world. And since we have the possibility to make very clean
power via nuclear which most likely you and your political allies oppose,
we are stuck with firing plants with coal or expensive imported oil. You
want dirty, go to China. When my friends went over there in 2001, they
said, they never saw the sun because of all the pollution and smog. Go to
China and complain.


1) Particulates from coal burned in power plants is easily traced to its
source using marker chemicals designed for that purpose. That's how we know
where the crud comes from. They may be the cleanest in the world, but
they're still no panacea. If scientists say that the crud (including
mercury) in lakes in the Adirondack Mountains of NY came from Ohio, it came
from Ohio. End of discussion.

2) Regarding your comment on about opposition to nuclear power, I'd suggest
you either throw away your script, or stop speaking to whomever feeds you
your lines. The opposition involves the total lack of a solution to the
disposal problem, something you cannot argue against. At this moment, you're
getting ready to respond with a comment about how Yucca Mountain is a good
solution, according to "experts". But, hang on before you respond. You
probably did NOT catch the news about 10 days ago, describing how scientists
(at Los Alamos lab, if I recall) doctored the research data that supposedly
"proves" YM is a great place to bury nuclear waste.