Friday, May 07, 2010

Greed Trumps Health and Common Sense Yet Again

The last sentence in an article in this morning's paper caught my attention, "About 80,000 chemicals are in commercial use in the United States, but federal regulators have assessed only about 200 for safety." ("Panel: Cancer-causing Chemicals Abound", The Wichita Eagle, Friday, May 7, 2010, p. 1A, 4A)

Innocent until proven guilty is admirable in dealing with people. It's stupid when dealing with chemicals.

Oh, and by the way, can you say, "No new taxes!"? Assuming that corporations who plan to make mega-millions from a chemical will accurately and completely test a chemical and then report the results of those tests truthfully is naive at best and stupid and short-sighted at worst. Even if it does mean the government is spending less of "your" money by "wasting" it on testing for and regulating chemicals.

2 comments:

David in Kansas said...

Aye! Aye! People forget that the first and foremost goal of any business is to make money. Everything else is to serve this goal which means if it hurts profits you bury it, falsify it, ignore it.

Gaia Gardener: said...

True, true and related.

I do not understand why so many people feel that corporations are morally wonderful. They are not moral at all. They exist to make money. Period.

And, lest we forget, "Love of money is the root of all evil."