Why do elected officials hesitate to do the right thing?

BY STEVEN KASZAB

During the period that General Grant led America, over 150 years ago, the US Government knew that disease and permanent illness can and did happen when someone smoked: cigars, cigarettes, and even chewed tobacco. Official investigations by the government continued for over a century recording the escalation of lung, pancreas, brain and other cancers caused by, or in connection to tobacco use.

The Government officially did nothing until the 1970’s bringing about state and national challenges to the tobacco sector, and a powerful tobacco lobby. Well over a hundred years, millions of people suffered and died because of addictions to tobacco products. No action for decades, and then lawsuits that resulted in convictions of the tobacco industry, with payments in the hundreds of millions to billions of dollars over time, while the tobacco Industry harvested from the smoking public trillions of dollars in sales and profits. How much of that money went to: politicians’ re-election campaigns, greased government committee’s hands, halting decisive decisions that would have saved many lives in the run? Politicians and government had been pressured to do something, anything about this scourge.

Today various governments in Canada and the USA are attempting to make decisions that will affect multiple industries but can ultimately save many lives. Have you heard of ‘forever chemicals?’ They are a class of toxic chemicals, perhaps over 10,000 variations of products, and these chemicals are harming the earth, and each and every one of us. Known as PFAS, these forever chemicals are a direct danger because until other products created by mankind, these products’ chemical makeup is so strong it will not break down, making it impossible to pass through the environmental processes of breakdown and absorption into the eco-sphere.

Most are toxic and have become agents that cause multiple health problems such as: cancers, hormone disruptions, immune system problems and liver disease. The forever chemicals pass into the environment, our soil, water and air to be consumed, absorbed by humanity. The government knows this, has issued a draft recommendation to designate the entire class of chemicals as toxic, dangerous to society and hopefully stop using these chemicals. These chemicals can be found in your non-stick cookware, items that are waterproofed, stain repellents to carpeting chemicals. They are everywhere.

The United Nations Health Organization has shown that there has been an increase in the number of cancer cases within the age group below 50 years old. What do you think is causing these cancers? PFAS ‘s! Slowly absorbed chemical toxins in our food, water and even the air we breathe.

Will the government continue studying these items, as they did with tobacco products? Why do governments not act in relatively urgent time periods?

The business-industry sector has undue sway with our elected officials in many ways. They create jobs and employ millions throughout the world. They donate legally and illegally to elected officials. The threat of a corporation supporting a politician’s opponent over another can cause policies unfriendly to ending toxic threats to be side-barred or forgotten in committee studies taking years to accomplish something.

Our legal systems protect industry as it does each of us. Corporations are considered living entities like you and I, so they have rights that can be often superior to ours legally.

It is easier to ignore, or over-study such issues, allowing elected officials to bypass these problems, while giving corporations time to legally: delay, denounce and elongate and chance of stopping these toxins from spreading. Profit and power are the main issues here, not the public’s safety.

Last year 3M settled a lawsuit from over 300 municipalities who found these chemicals in their drinking water. The settlement could reach $12.5 billion in Canada. 3M says it will stop using PFAS by 2025. Last June, the Chemistry Industry Association sent a letter to the Environment and Climate Change Ministry in Canada asking that these chemicals not be classified all together as an entire class, but dealt with individually, on a case-by-case basis. Delay, denounce and over study, with an added when in doubt send in the lawyers.

Europe leads the struggle to stop using these chemicals, using all means necessary to force industry to change their ways. California has put limits on the use of these chemicals in food packaging and banned their use in all things concerning children. Canadian and American corporations made claims that a North American solution should be found. More delay tactics.

Let’s see what happens in the next few decades shall we?