Rachel's News #837: A Good Year for Biotech

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Rachel's News #837: A Good Year for Biotech

Thu, 5 Jan 2006 23:47:28 -0500

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Rachel's Democracy & Health News #837

" Environment, health, jobs and justice--Who gets to decide? "

Thursday, January 5, 2006

www.rachel.org -- To make a secure donation,

 

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Featured stories in this issue...

 

2005 Was a Very Good Year for the Biotech Food Industry

Many people around the world resist eating genetically modified

foods (GMOs), and they still have a choice. But pollen carried on the

wind is slowly contaminating all the world's crops with GMOs. One of

these days, there won't be any such thing as " organically grown " or

non-GMO crops. Then most of us will be eating food grown from seeds

patented by Monsanto and Dow.

Interview with Greg Leroy, Author of the Great American Jobs Scam

Today, states, counties, and cities cannibalize their own

communities in the name of " attracting business, " which entails

competing with one another to waste vast amounts of precious taxpayer

dollars in the form of corporate subsidies. As The Great American

Jobs Scam reveals, these subsidies are not just " unfair " but also

entirely useless. Companies routinely pocket the money -- all $50

billion of it each year -- without delivering either the promised jobs

or tax revenues.

The Economic Costs of Environmental Diseases and Disabilities

" What it comes down is this: The economic costs of environmental

diseases and disabilities are very significant and they are largely

preventable. By taking action to reduce or eliminate exposures to

toxic chemicals, the US could save billions of dollars a year in

health and related costs and significantly improve public health. "

Correction: Serious Error in Rachel's News #836

Last week, I wrote, " But decade after decade since World War II,

economic growth rates have been stagnant or declining, not just in the

U.S. but throughout the " developed " world. " I should have written,

" But decade after decade since 1970, economic growth rates have been

stagnant or declining, not just in the U.S. but throughout the

'developed' world. " --P.M.

 

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Rachel's Democracy & Health News #837, Jan. 5, 2006

 

2005 WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR FOR THE BIOTECH FOOD INDUSTRY

 

By Peter Montague

 

[DHN introduction: In this series, we are reviewing the 10 most

important trends of 2005. -- Editors]

 

Felix Ballarin spent 15 years of his life developing a special

organically-grown variety of red corn. It would bring a high price on

the market because local chicken farmers said the red color lent a

rosy hue to the meat and eggs from their corn-fed chickens. But when

the corn emerged from the ground last year, yellow kernels were mixed

with the red. Government officials later confirmed with DNA tests that

Mr. Ballarin's crop had become contaminated with a genetically

modified (GMO) strain of corn.

 

Because Mr. Ballarin's crop was genetically contaminated, it no longer

qualified as " organically grown, " so it no longer brought a premium

price. Mr. Ballarin's 15-year investment was destroyed overnight by

what is now commonly known as " genetic contamination. " This is a new

phenomenon, less then 10 years old -- but destined to be a permanent

part of the brave new world that is being cobbled together as we speak

by a handful of corporations whose goal is global domination of food.

 

Mr. Ballarin lives in Spain, but the story is the same all over the

world: genetically modified crops are invading fields close by (and

some that are not so close by), contaminating both the organic food

industry and the " conventional " (non-GMO and non-organic) food

industry.

 

As a result of genetically contamination of non-GMO crops in Europe,

the U.S., Mexico, Australia and South America, the biotech food

industry had an upbeat year in 2005 and things are definitely looking

good for the future. As genetically modified pollen from their crops

blows around, contaminating nearby fields, objections to genetically

modified crops diminish because non-GMO alternatives become harder and

harder to find. A few more years of this and there may not be many (if

any) truly non-GMO crops left anywhere. At that point there won't be

any debate about whether to allow GMO-crops to be grown here or there

-- no one will have any choice. All the crops in the world will be

genetically modified (except perhaps for a few grown in greenhouses on

a tiny scale). At that point, GMO will have contaminated essentially

the entire planet, and the companies that own the patents on the GMO

seeds will be sitting in the catbird seat.

 

It is now widely acknowledged that GMO crops are a " leaky technology "

-- that it to say, genetically modified pollen is spread naturally on

the wind, by insects, and by humans. No one except perhaps some

officials of the U.S. Department of Agriculture were actually

surprised to learn this. GMO proponents have insisted for a decade

that genetic contamination could never happen (wink, wink) and U.S.

Department of Agriculture officials want along with the gag. And so of

course GMO crops are now spreading everywhere by natural means, just

as you would expect.

 

It couldn't have turned out better for the GMO crop companies if they

had planned it this way.

 

Growers of organically-grown and conventional crops are naturally

concerned that genetic contamination is hurting acceptance of their

products. Three California counties have banned GM crops. Anheuser-

Busch Co., the beer giant, has demanded that its home state (Missouri)

keep GMO rice fields 120 miles away from rice it buys to make beer.

The European Union is now trying to establish buffer zones meant to

halt the unwanted spread of GM crops. However, the Wall Street

Journal reported November 8 that, " Such moves to restrict the spread

of GM crops often are ineffective. Last month in Australia, government

experts discovered biotech canola genes in two non-GM varieties

despite a ban covering half the country. 'Regretfully, the GM

companies appear unable to contain their product, " said Kim Chance,

agriculture minister for the state of Western Australia, on the

agency's Web site.

 

For some, this seems to come as a shocking revelation -- genetically

modified pollen released into the natural environment spreads long

distances on the wind. Who would have thought? Actually, almost anyone

could have figured this out. Dust from wind storms in China

contaminates the air in the U.S. Smoke from fires in Indonesia can be

measured in the air half-way around the world. Pollen is measurable in

the deep ice of antarctica. No one should ever have harbored any doubt

that genetically modified pollen would spread everywhere on the Earth

sooner or later. (We are now exactly 10 years into the global

experiment with GMO seeds. The first crops were planted in open fields

in the U.S. in 1995. From this meager beginning, global genetic

contamination is now well along.)

 

Who benefits from all this? Think of it this way: when all crops on

earth are genetically contaminated, then the seed companies that own

the patented seeds will be in a good position to begin enforcing their

patent rights. They have already taken a test case to court and won.

In 2004, Monsanto (the St. Louis, Mo. chemical giant) won a seven-year

court battle against a 73-year-old Saskatchewan farmer whose fields

had been contaminated by Monsanto's genetically modified plants. The

Supreme Court of Canada court ruled that the farmer -- a fellow

named Percy Schmeiser -- owed Monsanto damages for having Monsanto's

patented crops growing illegally in his field.

 

Armed with this legal precedent, after genetically modified crops have

drifted far and wide, Monsanto, Dow and the other GMO seed producers

will be in a position to muscle most of the world's farmers. It is for

cases exactly like this that the U.S. has spent 30 years creating the

WTO (world trade organization) -- to settle disputes over

" intellectual property rights " (such as patents) in secret tribunals

held in Geneva, Switzerland behind closed doors without any impartial

observers allowed to attend. Even the results of WTO tribunals are

secret, unless the parties involved choose to reveal them. Let me see

-- a dirt farmer from India versus Monsanto and Dow backed by the U.S.

State Department and the U.S. Treasury. I'm struggling to predict who

might win such a politico- legal dispute conducted by a secret

tribunal in Geneva, Switzerland.

 

During 2005, it was discovered that GMO crops have not lived up to

their initial promise of huge profits for farmers and huge benefits

for consumers. It was also discovered that the U.S. Department of

Agriculture has not enforced its own strict regulations that were

intended to prevent experimental GMO seeds to accidentally

contaminating nearby fields. GMO crops were supposed to produce

important human health benefits - and the be developed under super-

strict government control - but all these promises have turned out to

be just so much eye wash.. GMOs were supposed to reduce reliance on

dangerous pesticides -- but in fact they have had the opposite effect.

Monsanto's first GMO crops were designed to withstand drenching in

Monsanto's most profitable product, the weed killer Round-Up -- so

farmers who buy Monsanto's patented " Round- up ready " seeds apply

more, not less, weed killer.

 

But so what? Who cares if GMO seeds don't provide any of the benefits

that were promised? Certainly not the seed companies. Perhaps benefits

to the people of the world were never the point. Perhaps the point was

to get those first GMO crops in the ground -- promise them the moon!

-- and then allow nature to take its course and contaminate the rest

of the planet with patented pollen. The intellectual property lawsuits

will come along in good time. Patience, dear reader, patience. Unlike

people, corporations cannot die, so our children or our grandchildren

may find themselves held in thrall by two or three corporations that

have seized legal control of much of the world's food supply by

getting courts (backed by the threat of force, as all courts

ultimately are) to enforce their intellectual property rights.

 

The Danish government has passed a law intended to slow the pace of

genetic contamination. The Danes will compensate farmers whose fields

have become contaminated, then the Danish government will seek

recompense from the farmer whose field originated the genetic

contamination, assuming the culprit can be pinpointed. This may slow

the spread of genetic contamination, but the law is clearly not

designed to end the problem.

 

Yes, it has been a good year for the GMO industry. None of the stated

benefits of their products have materialized -- and the U.S.

government regulatory system has been revealed as a sham -- but

enormous benefits to the few GMO corporations are right on track to

begin blossoming. For Monsanto, Dow and Novartis, a decent shot at

gaining control over much of the world's food supply is now blowing on

the wind and there's no turning back. As the Vice-President of plant

genetics for Dow Agrosciences said recently, " There will be come

continuing bumps in the road, but we are starting to see a balance of

very good news and growth. The genie is way out of the bottle. "

 

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AlterNet, Jul. 27, 2005

 

INTERVIEW WITH GREG LEROY, AUTHOR OF THE GREAT AMERICAN JOBS SCAM

 

By Lakshmi Chaudhry

 

We increasingly live in a Wal-Mart America, where the hours are long,

wages low, and benefits non-existent. Where have all the good jobs

gone? The debate over jobs has for the most part been obscured by

partisan rhetoric, corporate spin and media hype. Screaming headlines

about outsourcing jostle those of corporate fraud. But in the end

we're none the wiser about how to create a better future for ourselves

and our children.

 

Greg LeRoy's new book, " The Great American Jobs Scam: Corporate Tax

Dodging and the Myth of Job Creation offers at least part of the

answer in exposing a system that subsidizes corporate greed at the

expense of the taxpayer. Today, states, counties, and cities

cannibalize their own communities in the name of " attracting

business, " which entails competing with one another to waste vast

amounts of precious taxpayer dollars in the form of corporate

subsidies. As LeRoy demonstrates in his book, these subsidies are not

just " unfair " but also entirely useless. Companies routinely pocket

the money -- all $50 billion of it each year -- without delivering

either the promised jobs or tax revenues.

 

LeRoy spoke to AlterNet from his office in Washington DC.

 

Lakshmi: So what is the " great American job scam " ?

 

Greg LeRoy: It's an intentionally rigged system that enables companies

to get huge tax breaks and other taxpayer subsidies by promising good

jobs and higher tax revenues -- and then allowing them to fail to

deliver and suffer no meaningful consequences.

 

LC And this is a system that costs the American tax payers $50 billion

a year?

 

GL Right, that's the estimated total spending by states and cities.

 

LC One of the points you make in the book is that it is very hard to

get this data, right? There is no disclosure, with these corporate

deals being negotiated behind closed doors. So the very heart of your

argument -- that corporations don't deliver on the increased tax

revenues, increased jobs, etc that they promise in return for these

tax breaks -- is obscured by this lack of disclosure.

 

GL People who develop these estimates at the state level are dealing

with broad aggregate numbers. It would tell you nothing about any

specific company, whether it did or did not create jobs, did or did

not generate tax revenue. In most states, we are completely in the

dark.

 

Having said that, 12 states now have some form of annual company-

specific disclosure. We're very excited because just recently

Illinois, just began reporting data. There are four states now that

disclose some of their data on the web and we think Illinois is the

best.

 

LC Whose interest does this secrecy serve? It obviously serves the

interest of the corporations, but it's surprising that state

governments have not pushed for more disclosure.

 

GL It obviously serves lots of peoples' self-interest to hide what's

going on: the companies who get the big tax breaks and don't want

people to look carefully at the outcomes; the politicians who often

frankly know this is bad public policy and don't want to own up to it.

Often the effects of these tax breaks play out over many years. So you

have one governor hand off budget potholes to the next governor and so

on. So there's lots of buck-passing going on. There's lots of self-

interest in these things being hidden.

 

LC One of the most striking things in your book is this ridiculously

lopsided power relationship between public officials and corporations.

The politicians are almost like members of a harem vying for the

king's attention, or in this case, a company's favor.

 

A lot of the scams that you describe -- as in extorting these huge

subsidies without delivering any kind of return -- comes from the fact

that different states are competing with each other to land a

corporate deal. Have we always had this war among the states, almost a

kind of mutual and assured destruction?

 

GL That's really the nub issue. It's the power dynamic both among

states and companies and among suburbs and companies -- because this

harem/king dynamic, as you put it, plays out at the regional level as

well as at the multi-state level.

 

No, it was not always like this, and I tried to sketch the major kind

of milestones along the way where I think the dams really broke.

There's the birth of a site location consulting industry we got with

Fantus, and its growth in the '50s and '60s is part of the story. The

secretive consulting industry hides in the shadows and specializes in

playing states and cities against each other on behalf of the

companies it represents. By the '70s, we had done this thousands of

times.

 

Then there's the rise of the whole business climatology industry as

exemplified by the studies -- especially in the '70s and early '80s by

the Grant Thornton Firm for the state manufacturers associations --

which offered this highly politicized interpretation of jobs and tax

data. These studies basically said to the North and to the Midwest:

" You've got to be more like the South. We will judge you based on how

willing you are to give up your tax base and help us suppress wages. "

 

Another big watershed moment was the arrival of the Japanese

transplants -- the auto assembly plants that started arriving early-

and mid-'80s. Despite the fact that the Japanese automakers had to set

up these plants because they were fighting off protectionist

legislation in the U.S. Congress, they still got eight- and nine-

figure subsidy packages by playing states against each other -- and

all with the assistance, frankly, of the American site location

consulting industry.

 

So I think all those are big watershed moments that kept upping the

ante. So today the average state has 30 different ways it gives away

money in the name of jobs. It does a very bad job of accounting for

outcomes and monitoring cost effectiveness. And the debate in most

state legislatures is not about fixing this problem or reducing

subsidies but over enacting even more handouts.

 

LC Along the way though there's also been a huge ideological

transformation of American culture, beginning with the Reagan era. And

according to this rightwing, pro-corporate worldview, attracting

business is an unadulterated good. As in anything you do bring a

corporation into your city, district, state, or your country, is an

absolute good. How much has the broader political transformation been

a part of making this kind of corporate extortion easier and more

legitimate?

 

GL I think you are exactly right. The broader rise of conservatism

goes hand-in-glove with this give-away subsidy problem. Frankly, I've

seen very little scholarship looking at the sort of political economy

of job subsidies. It's a woefully understudied subject. Anecdotally,

I've heard people many times suggest that the way governors allocate

their economic development dollars amounts to political engineering.

 

They use these dollars to cut ribbons with mayors and county

executives of their own party; use the programs for partisan benefit;

grow new jobs in areas that are more favorable to them politically.

I've never seen that studied systematically -- so there are a couple

of great dissertations waiting for somebody to write here.

 

LC Right at the outset, in the introduction, you write: " At the core

of this scandal are corrupted definitions of 'competition' that

obscure cause and effect. " What do you mean by that?

 

GL The corporations have transformed the definition of competing for

economic development -- so it's now defined as which state or which

suburb will give away the most money to a company.

 

But here's the reality: because state and local taxes are such a

small, small cost factor to the average company -- less than 1 percent

for the average company after they deduct them on their federal income

taxes -- these taxes don't determine where companies expand or locate.

If a company were to pay attention to 0.8 percent of its cost

structure and ignore the other 99.2 percent, that company would not be

around very long.

 

So what's really going on in this rigged system is that companies are

getting paid to do exactly what they would have otherwise done. All

the while that governments are posing as competitors, it's really a

false competition, a rigged competition.

 

LC Let me clarify that. So what you're saying that a company's

decision on where to locate its operations actually has nothing to do

with these tax subsidies. And therefore, if they decided to set up

shop in Location A, they would have done it anyway, irrespective of

whether they received handouts or not.

 

GL Exactly right. It's why believe that we need a different form of

competition that doesn't have to do with how much of your tax base

you'll give away. It should be about how good your public systems are

-- public systems that are available to all employers. That is, how

good is your infrastructure? How good is your workforce development

system? How good are your public schools? How good is your quality of

life, your cultural amenities and your open spaces? It's not just

about being " fair. " Quite frankly, that's the way a lot of employers,

including the best employers, determine where they want to invest.

 

So it's a really twisted dance that local officials often have to

dance. In one breath, they're talking about all these giveaways which

allow companies to dodge paying their fair share for these public

goods that I just talked about. On the other hand, they have to brag

about how good their public goods are because they know that's what

really matters to a lot of good employers.

 

LC And most of these companies are basically being rewarded for doing

what they are supposed to do anyway, which is, do business.

 

GL Exactly right. And they are getting rewarded in ways that don't

really affect their bottom line -- actually, I'd argue, in ways that

could hurt their bottom line because it's going to undermine the

quality of life, the quality of the skills base, and the quality of

the infrastructure.

 

LC One of the most interesting connections you make in the book is

between this kind of economic competition and sprawl. So when local

governments give huge incentives to retail stores like Wal-Mart,

they're actually creating unsustainable development.

 

Yes, absolutely. It's not just the terrible things Wal-Mart does to

wages and competition or the trade deficit. It's about cities being

treated like they are disposable; and open space being treated like

its disposable; and malls being treated like they are disposable.

 

Because many states allow job subsidies to go to retail companies like

Wal-Mart, etc., we've got suburbs that are cutting each other's

throats. They're robbing each other of shoppers in order to collect

the incremental payment on sales tax. So we have this gross over-

building of retail space in this country, far more than any of our

major trading partners, far more than we had twenty, thirty years ago.

Wal-Mart, as the biggest retail player, is the poster child for that

trend.

 

It's terrible public policy because it moves lots of economic activity

away from places that need it, that are already developed, and that

have the infrastructure. It's an extremely inefficient and, as you put

it, unsustainable, both ecologically and from a tax point of view. We

can't keep thinning out and expecting the taxpayer to support ever

more miles of roads, ever more miles of sewer and water lines, ever

more under-utilized public schools.

 

It just doesn't work, and at some point things snap. So you see a

number of big cities -- Detroit is a pretty good example, or

Philadelphia -- struggling with their tax base. These regions are so

gutted that they're really struggling.

 

LC When it comes to jobs, a lot of the conversation in the media is

centered around outsourcing. You don't focus on that very much at all.

Why is that?

 

We have one: the case of Sykes Enterprise, the call center company

that is included in Chapter One. That story has not been pieced

together elsewhere, and we think it's one of the breaking news hooks

of the book.

 

But you're right. We didn't focus a lot on outsourcing. Here's the

reason. It goes back to the disclosure problem. Certainly there are

lists of companies out there that outsource -- some of them are the

biggest IT, engineering and manufacturing companies that we know

about. The Fortune 100 so to speak. But because those companies are so

huge, the quality of disclosure about economic development subsidies

that the companies have gotten is fragmentary. It would be almost as

bad as finding a needle in a haystack to try and knit together the

story of a particular job that used to be in upstate New York and got

a tax break and is now off-shore. Linking those specific stories is

virtually impossible in those cases because of the poor quality of

disclosure of subsidies.

 

And there are so many things going on with jobs that aren't moving

overseas. We wanted to focus on the fact that taxpayers are

subsidizing fast-food joint and poverty-wage big-box retail jobs and

other kind of low-end, dead-end service sector jobs -- and all this at

a time when some of the best jobs in the country, like manufacturing

jobs, are either being automated out of existence, or going offshore

or being lost because of bad trade policies.

 

In manufacturing, for instance, we focus on this one particular kind

of tax break called " single sales factor " that a lot of state

manufacturers associations have been touting as kind of a panacea. But

if you look at the track record of the states that have adopted this

huge tax break, they're doing no better than the country as a whole.

 

The issue affecting manufacturing jobs generally is globalization.

There are a certain number of manufacturing jobs that are very

unlikely to go offshore because they are tied to markets here --

printing things that are time sensitive, business-sector related

things and so on. Other things are very likely to go offshore --

things that are labor intensive, more commoditized, and

technologically less complicated. And we need to grapple with those

realities. We have to save what we can, acknowledge what we can't

save, and try to find good ways to employ people that are affected by

those events. But subsidizing Wal-Mart or fast food joints isn't the

answer to dislocated manufacturing workers.

 

LC Another interesting thing about the Sykes story is that these call

center jobs that the politicians paid so much to attract weren't even

worth having.

 

GL Yes, the call center jobs often do not pay very well, and often

suffer lots of erratic ups and downs in terms of layoffs and rehiring.

So it's really testimony to what a company can do when it tries to be

a big fish in a little pond. These call centers had impressive numbers

of jobs. Some of them had five hundred or more people working in them,

and in pretty small labor markets in rural areas where they were

drawing a lot of people. To me, it makes those stories all the more

tragic because the amount of subsidies that the localities gave was,

for them a very huge sum in many cases. And I'm sure it left a bitter

taste in a lot of people's mouths.

 

LC So what is the solution? You list a series of prescriptions at the

end of the book. But what is the broader philosophy -- paradigm

change, if you will -- that is required here?

 

GL One theme we come back to a lot -- especially when I train public

officials -- is the idea of your own civic self-esteem or your own

civic self-image. If you internalize the demeaning, degrading

stereotypes that are peddled by the business climatologists and by the

site location consultants -- if you think your community really is

worthless -- then you've set yourself up to give away the store for a

bad deal.

 

The idea is not to internalize those demeaning stereotypes. To believe

that your community has real assets -- a good school system, a skilled

labor force, valuable business linkages that other companies would

like to link up to. When you've got some fundamentals that have real

value for companies, then you can drive a smarter bargain. Then you

can ask for job quality standards, for better wages and healthcare.

You can put a clause back in the contracts so that if the company

fails to deliver, taxpayers get their money back. And at the state

level you can even demand disclosure -- as we now have in twelve

states -- so that taxpayers can see every deal, every year, to measure

the cost against the benefits.

 

I like to think that we're close to a tipping point on the disclosure

debate. With twelve states now on line and some of them putting their

information on the web, we think that disclosure of subsidies is going

to become as mainstream as things like the disclosure of toxic

emissions which has been federal law for a very long time as well

under the Toxic Right to Know Law. We think it's approaching that

level of acceptance and legitimacy.

 

None of the states that have adopted these rules have hurt their

business climate. None of them are losing deals or losing businesses

as a result of putting some sunshine on the process. I think they are

making it easier for local officials to keep the bottom-feeders out of

the public trough, so to speak. And I think they are making it easier

for public officials to save their money for skills and infrastructure

and things that really work.

 

LC And that actually creates better paying jobs in the future, right?

 

GL Skills and infrastructure have always been proven winners for

creating good jobs. But now more than ever, it's an acute issue

because of the looming baby boom generation retirements that will

begin en masse -- as early as 2008 -- and because of the decrepit

condition of many parts of the American infrastructure system, which

have suffered because states and cities have had such budget crunches

for so many years.

 

So either we are going to let our infrastructure fall apart and hurt

everybody's productivity and we're going to ignore the massive loss of

skilled labor resulting when the baby boom hits the exit doors. Or,

we're going to massively redirect our money away from company

giveaways into things that benefit all employers. It's the only way to

cope with this very predictable train wreck.

 

Lakshmi Chaudhry is the former senior editor of AlterNet.

 

Copyright 2005 Independent Media Institute

 

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Rachel's Democracy & Health News, Jan. 5, 2006

 

THE ECONOMIC COSTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL DISEASES AND DISABILITIES

 

By Kate Davies

 

[DHN introduction. In two other studies, found here and here, Kate

Davies has estimated that enviromment-related diseases in Washington

state cost somewhere betwen $2.8 and $3.5 billion per year. If these

costs were generalized to the entire U.S. population, the total cost

of environment-related diseases would be $132 to $165 billion each

year. However, as this article makes clear, there are large

uncertainties in these estimates. And of course such estimates

completely ignore the psychological and emotional costs of the human

suffering involved for the victims, their families, and their

communities.--DHN Editors]

 

Introduction

 

It has been said that economics is the only subject in which two

people can get a Nobel Prize for apparently contradictory research.

Joking aside, economics is quite literally a deadly serious business.

Especially when it comes to the health effects of toxic chemicals.

 

Environmental health advocates have long claimed that economics, and

more specifically the high costs of implementing environmental

protection measures, have been used to justify the continued use of

many toxic chemicals. They assert that government and industry are

reluctant to protect public health from exposure to toxic chemicals,

if it means implementing measures that would cost too much money and

reduce profitability. For example, lead based paint was banned in some

European countries as early as 1921 because of health concerns, but it

was not outlawed in the US until the 1970s. Similarly, information on

the risks of leaded gasoline was available for many years before

regulatory action was taken. Today, the health risks of asbestos,

mercury and many other toxic chemicals are generally acknowledged by

the scientific community, but these substances continue to be used and

released into the environment.

 

Environmental health policy decisions focus on the costs of taking

action to protect public health, while often ignoring the costs

associated with inaction. In particular, the continued use of toxic

chemicals has been associated with many chronic diseases and

disabilities, including cancer, birth defects, and learning and

developmental disabilities. These and other chronic diseases now cause

major limitations in daily living for more than one in every ten

Americans and account for more than 70 percent of the $1 trillion

spent each year on health care in the US . Although exposure to toxic

chemicals is only one factor in chronic disease causation,

environmental health policy decisions should take account of both

sides of the metaphorical coin -- both the costs of taking action to

protect public health, and the costs of inaction and continued

exposures to environmental hazards.

 

The idea that the health costs of environmental hazards should be

considered in policy decisions is not new. About 150 years ago,

Charles Dickens argued that the high cost of typhus in London (440,000

pounds in 1848 alone) should be considered in decisions about whether

to implement new public health measures. He commented: " This cold-

blooded way of putting the really appalling state of the case is,

alas, the only successful mode of appealing.... His heart is only

reached by his pocket. " Placing an economic value on people's

suffering may be " cold-blooded " , but it is necessary because

environmental health policy decisions are based primarily on an

economic metric. Nevertheless, monetary valuations can never take

account of the psychological and emotional costs of disease to

patients or to their families, friends and communities.

 

THE ECONOMIC COSTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL DISEASES & DISABILITIES

 

So what are the economic costs of environmental diseases and

disabilities today? This is a tricky question because it is difficult

to be precise about the proportions of different diseases and

disabilities attributable to environmental exposures, and because of

the challenges of estimating the economic costs of health conditions.

 

But in the past few years, a growing consensus has emerged on the

fractional amounts or percentages of some common diseases and

disabilities generally linked to exposure to environmental

contaminants. This is a result of increasing knowledge about gene-

environment interactions in disease causation, the determinants of

health, and the health effects of toxic chemicals. At the same time,

health economists have made significant improvements in " cost of

illness " models for most common health conditions. These models now

include direct healthcare costs, such as hospitalization, physician

and nursing services, prescription medications and home care, and

indirect costs, such as lost productivity and costs associated with

special educational and social services.

 

These advances are paving the way for the development of sophisticated

estimates of the costs of diseases and disabilities attributable to

environmental contaminants. Using cautious assumptions about health

and related costs, the environmentally attributable fractions of a

limited number of health conditions, and disease rates in populations,

researchers are beginning to generate conservative estimates of the

costs of diseases and disabilities attributable to environmental

contaminants.

 

The studies on the health and related costs of environmental

pollutants fall into three general categories. Early studies focused

on the costs of lead exposure. Key among these are Schwartz's and

Salkever's estimates of the earnings benefits from reduced childhood

exposure to lead. More recently in 2002, Grosse et al. were the first

to estimate the national economic gains resulting from increased

worker productivity associated with reduced lead exposure since the

1970s. Subsequent studies on the costs of lead exposure have gone

beyond looking at productivity and earnings, and have estimated costs

for special education and juvenile justice. Most recently, Trasande

et al. have calculated the costs of mental retardation attributable to

exposure to another heavy metal, methyl mercury.

 

The second type of study to estimate the health costs of environmental

pollution has focused on the costs of air pollution. An early study

in Pennsylvania estimated the hospitalization costs resulting from air

pollution and a major study conducted by the Ontario Medical

Association used a software model to estimate that air pollution costs

in the Province amounted to more than $1 billion a year in hospital

admissions, emergency room visits, and absenteeism .

 

The third type of study has focused on multiple disease outcomes,

especially in children. The first major national study considered

childhood asthma, cancer, neurobehavioral disorders, and lead

poisoning, and it estimated that the environmentally attributable

costs of these diseases and disabilities were $55 billion. This

study was followed by similar studies in Massachusetts, Washington,

and Montana.

 

These studies are important because they provide estimates of economic

costs that have been traditionally externalized from environmental

health policy decisions. Classic examples of costs usually

externalized from decision making include the costs of the raw goods

and services provided " free " by nature, such as: trees for lumber;

fish and agricultural crops for food; oil, coal and hydro-electric

power for energy; and air and water for industrial processing. Then

there are free waste disposal services provided by nature, also

usually externalized from decision making. These costs include water

purification functions provided by wetlands and other aquatic

ecosystems, and the ability of micro-organisms to break down some

environmental pollutants into less harmful substances. The emerging

discipline of ecological economics is beginning to estimate the costs

of these " free " goods and services provided by nature. This is a

useful way of pointing out the need to take account of all costs in

environmental policy decisions. The recent estimates of the health and

related costs of environmental diseases and disabilities add to this

emerging body of knowledge.

 

COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS

 

So how can information on the health and related costs of

environmental diseases and disabilities be internalized into

environmental health decision-making? One way is to incorporate it

into cost-benefit analyses. This can be done by seeing these costs as

economic benefits that would accrue if exposures were eliminated or

reduced. Indeed, one recent study has estimated the economic benefits

of public health improvements attributable to air pollution

regulations in the US . Cost-benefit analysis can be most useful to

policy-makers if it includes both types of information -- the costs of

protecting environmental health, and the health and related benefits

of doing so. To be comprehensive cost-benefit analyses should include

all costs and benefits to public health and to industry, not just

some.

 

A related issue is that the health and related costs of the continued

use of toxic chemicals are borne mostly by individuals, communities

and ultimately by society as a whole, rather than by those who are

responsible for producing, using, disposing of, and releasing toxic

chemicals into the environment. In contrast, the economic benefits of

the continued use of toxic chemicals go mostly to individual

companies. Hence, there is a disparity between who benefits and who

pays. This is a common problem with externalized costs: those who pay

the price are usually different from those who reap the benefits.

 

THE BOTTOM LINE

 

Incorporating health costs into environmental health cost benefit

analyses and other policy processes would provide decision makers with

more complete, balanced and accurate information. This would

strengthen decision making processes considerably. Indeed, a recent

study found that environmental health policy makers identified

information on the links between environmental health and the economy

as one of their key needs. Some may argue that we can never know the

exact costs of environmental diseases. This is a valid point, but even

if the recent conservative estimates are inaccurate by a significant

margin, the estimates show that the costs of environmental diseases

and disabilities run into tens of billions of dollars a year in the

US, possibly outweighing the costs of environmental protection.

Moreover, the estimated costs of environmental protection measures are

themselves based on many assumptions that are unlikely to be

completely precise or accurate.

 

What it comes down is this: The economic costs of environmental

diseases and disabilities are very significant and they are largely

preventable. By taking action to reduce or eliminate exposures to

toxic chemicals, the US could save billions of dollars a year in

health and related costs and significantly improve public health.

 

Kate Davies MA DPhil

Core Faculty, Environment & Community

Associate Director

Center for Creative Change

Antioch University Seattle

 

==============

 

References

 

Department of Health and Human Services. The Burden of Chronic

Diseases and Their Risk Factors: National and State Perspectives;

2004. Available here. Accessed December 4, 2005.

 

Johnson E. Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and Triumph Vol. 2 p. 715. NY:

Simon Schuster; 1952.

 

Schwartz, J , Pitcher H, Levin R, Ostro B, Nichols AL. Costs and

Benefits of Reducing Lead in Gasoline: Final Regulatory Impact

Analysis. EPA-230/05-85/006. Washington, DC:U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency, 1985.

 

Salkever, DS. Updated estimates of earnings benefits from reduced

exposure of children to environmental lead. Environ Res. 1995;

70(1):1-6.

 

Grosse SD, Matte TD, Schwartz J, and Jackson R. Economic gains

resulting from the reduction in children's exposure to lead in the

United States. Environ Health Perspect. 2002;110(6):563-569.

 

Stefanak M, Diorio J and Frisch L. Cost of child lead poisoning to

taxpayers in Mahoning County, Ohio. Public Health Reports.

2005;120:311-315.

 

Korfmacher KS. Long-term Costs of Lead Poisoning: How Much Can New

York Save by Stopping Lead? University of Rochester, 2003. Available

here. Accessed December 4, 2005.

 

Trasande L, Landrigan PJ and Schecter C. Public health and economic

consequences of methyl mercury toxicity to the developing brain.

Environ Health Perspect. 2005;113(5):590-596.

 

Carpenter BH, Chromy JR, Bach WD, LeSourd DA, and Gillette DG. Health

costs of air pollution: a study of hospitalization costs. Am J Pub

Health. 1979; 69(12):1232-1241.

 

Ontario Medical Association. The illness costs of air pollution in

Ontario: a summary of finding. Available here. Accessed December 4,

2005.

 

Landrigan P, Schechter C, Lipton J, Fahs M, and Schwartz J.

Environmental pollutants and disease in American children: estimates

of morbidity, mortality, and costs for lead poisoning, asthma, cancer,

and developmental disabilities. Environ Health Perspect.

2002;110(7):721-728.

 

Massey R, and Ackerman F. Costs of Preventable Childhood Illness: The

Price We Pay for Pollution. Global Development and Environment

Institute, Tufts University; 2003. Available here. Accessed December

4, 2005.

 

Davies K. Economic Costs of Diseases and Disabilities Attributable to

Environmental Contaminants. Antioch University Seattle, 2005.

Available here. Accessed December 4, 2005.

 

Davies K. How much do environmental diseases and disabilities costs?

Northwest Public Health WF5-1, 2005. Available here. Accessed

December 4, 2005

 

Bureau of Business and Economic Research. 2005 Databook Montana Kids

Count. University of Montana. Available here. Accessed December 4,

2005.

 

Yang T, Matus K, Paltsev S and Reilly, J. Economic Benefits of Air

Pollution Regulation in the USA: An Integrated Approach Report No. 113

MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, 2005.

Available here. Accessed December 4, 2005.

 

Morrone M, Tres A, and Aronin R. Creating effective messages about

environmental health. J. Environ. Health. 2005;68:9-14.

 

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Rachel's Democracy & Health News #837, Jan. 5, 2005

 

CORRECTION: SERIOUS ERROR IN RACHEL'S NEWS #836

 

Last week, in Rachel's #836 I misstated the history of economic growth

in the U.S. since WW II. I wrote, " But decade after decade since

World War II, economic growth rates have been stagnant or declining,

not just in the U.S. but throughout the " developed " world. "

 

I should have written, " But decade after decade since 1970,

economic growth rates have been stagnant or declining, not just in the

U.S. but throughout the 'developed' world. "

 

A corrected version of Rachel's #836 can be found here and a

corrected version of that particular essay can be found here.

 

The slowdown in economic growth has occured during the past 35 years.

It is particularly obvious when compared to the decade of the 1960s.

 

My thanks to Mike Hollinshead for pointing out the error.

 

Anyone who wants data on growth rates of the " developed " economies of

the world during the past 50 years can find it in these five books:

 

Bernstein, Michael A., and David E. Adler. Understanding

American Economic Decline. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1994. ISBN 0-521-45679-7.

 

Bjork, Gordon C. The Way It Worked and Why It Won't; Structural

Change and the Slowdown of U.S. Economic Growth. Westport, Conn.:

Praeger, 1999. ISBN 0-275-96532-5.

 

Cohen, Richard and Peter A. Wilson. Superpowers in Economic

Decline; U.S. Strategy in the Transcentury Era. N.Y.: Taylor

and Francis, 1990. ISBN 0-8448-1625-6.

 

Mardick, Jeffrey. The End of Affluence; The Causes and

Consequences of America's Economic Dilemma. N.Y.: Random House,

1995. ISBN 0-679-43623-5.

 

Shutt, Harry. The Trouble with Capitalism; An Enquiry into the

Causes of Global Economic Failure. London: Zed Books, 1998.

ISBN 1-85649-566-3.

 

--Peter Montague

 

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Rachel's Democracy & Health News (formerly Rachel's Environment &

Health News) highlights the connections between issues that are

often considered separately or not at all.

 

The natural world is deteriorating and human health is declining

because those who make the important decisions aren't the ones who

bear the brunt. Our purpose is to connect the dots between human

health, the destruction of nature, the decline of community, the

rise of economic insecurity and inequalities, growing stress among

workers and families, and the crippling legacies of patriarchy,

intolerance, and racial injustice that allow us to be divided and

therefore ruled by the few.

 

In a democracy, there are no more fundamental questions than, " Who

gets to decide? " And, " How do the few control the many, and what

might be done about it? "

 

As you come across stories that might help people connect the dots,

please Email them to us at dhn.

 

Rachel's Democracy & Health News is published as often as

necessary to provide readers with up-to-date coverage of the

subject.

 

Editors:

Peter Montague - peter

Tim Montague - tim

 

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To start your own free Email subscription to Rachel's Democracy

& Health News send a blank Email to: join-rachel.

 

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