Yesterday, June 12th, marked World Day Against Child Labor. For this occasion I highlight the plight of young children employed to work in the tobacco agribusiness in the United States. It is estimated, by Deutsche Welle, that 500,000 children labor in this market; most are exposed to hazardous conditions ranging from exposure to high levels of nicotine and pesticides, farm implements, and long working hours among others. Variances in the standard federal child labor standards permit tobacco growers to employ children–some of whom are under twelve years in age.
After decades of public objection and later government restrictions on advertisements, marketing, and distribution of tobacco products to minors for reasons not limited to just health and nicotine dependency, the cultivation of “green tobacco” by children exposes them often to immediately hazardous levels of nicotine at often unconscionably young ages.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) in 2013 published an extensive study into the child labor practices of the tobacco growers industry in four states: North Carolina; Kentucky; Tennessee; and Virginia. According to this study one hundred and forty one children participating in the tobacco harvests of 2012 and 2013 were interviewed by HRW. Ages of these children ranged from seventeen to as young as seven.
According to this study, “nearly three quarters of those interviewed reported sudden onsets of serious illnesses—including nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, headaches, dizziness, skin rashes, difficulty breathing, irritations to their eyes and mouths—while working in the fields of tobacco plants and barns with dried tobacco leaves and tobacco dust. Many of these symptoms are consistent with acute nicotine poisoning.”
Duties assigned to children in tobacco cultivation and harvesting included seed planting, topping, thinning undesirable leaves, applying pesticides, harvesting leaves by hand or with machinery, cutting plants with sharpened tobacco knives, storage and removal of cured leaves from barns, and stripping and sorting dried leaves.
Resulting from these exposures, often from unprotected skin and lax safety policies, children suffer often from a condition known as Green Tobacco Sickness. This illness is an occupational disease caused by workers absorbing nicotine through their skin after prolonged exposure to the plants. These symptoms, references earlier, are identified by Public and Occupation health officials. The long term effects are currently unknown though other studies on the usage of tobacco products (such as smoking) in adolescents may have links to complications in brain development. Public health research indicates that non-smoking workers in tobacco agriculture have similar levels of nicotine in their bodies as do smokers in the general population.
The study contained interviews consistent with their findings generally, where child workers reported being sprayed by pesticides applied to rows nearby causing illnesses contemporaneously. To mitigate this environment the children often would bring plastic garbage bags with them that they could fashion into ad-hoc raingear to resist spray landing on their clothes and skin—though this did not protect necessarily their hands and faces.
Due to the nature of tobacco cultivation and harvesting occurring within the summer months, the combination of high levels of heat and long hours of labor puts great amount of stresses on children that often culminate with heat stroke and dehydration. Compliance with break time standards is widely varied with some farms providing a reasonable break period for workers and others mandating that workers continue almost without pause.
The introduction of labor contractors, those who sell labor for a fixed price to farmers and where the workers are actually the employees of the contractor, has provided an opportunity for exploitation. Since these contractors retain earnings based on the margin between the revenue from the farm and the labor costs they endure, the temptation to extract more earnings often becomes high; especially in light of the fact that most workers are of an economic underclass that is less likely to report labor abuses and especially in the case of children having not the life experience or foreknowledge of what constitutes a proper and healthy working environment.
Compounding the problem is that current U.S. child labor laws permit children to labor in tobacco farms with liberal policies that permit very young children to work simply with parental permission to do so. It is often the case where this parental permission is granted by parents who also work on these farms where low wages create a need and temptation for parents allowing their children to work to supplement household incomes. Small farms are given the most leeway to employ young children. Agriculture is permitted by federal law to employ children as young as twelve with parental permission but with these small farms children under twelve may labor with parental consent. In all other industries the employment of children under fourteen is prohibited, and children fourteen to fifteen may only be employed in certain jobs with a limited number of hours each day.
The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour for work in tobacco farms. Some employers caused children to be paid on a piece basis which can in some respects be exploited to motivate children to perform more productively than what is reasonable for their abilities. HRW reported children interviewed expressed that they are often confused as to the actual wage they are paid and some stating they were actually paid less than the minimum permitted. Contractors were said to stoop to the level of charging children for necessities such as water and for inaccurate recording of work performed.
Internationally, treaties ratified by the United States might actually be in conflict with current federal child labor laws and their applicability to the tobacco farming industry. HRW addresses this as follows:
International Standards on Child Labor
via Human Rights Watch
In recognition of the potential benefits of some forms of work, international law does not prohibit children from working. The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention, which the US has ratified, obligates
countries to prohibit certain types of work for children under age 18 as a matter of urgency, including work that is likely to jeopardize children’s physical or mental health, safety or morals (also known as hazardous labor). The ILO leaves it up to governments to determine which occupations are hazardous to children’s health. Several countries, including major tobacco producing countries such as Brazil and India, prohibit children under 18 from performing work in tobacco farming. Based on our field research, interviews with health professionals, and analysis of the public health literature, Human Rights Watch has concluded that no child under age 18 should be permitted to perform any tasks in which they will come into direct contact with tobacco plants of any size or dried tobacco leaves, due to the health risks posed by nicotine, the pesticides applied to the crop, and the particular health risks to children whose bodies and brains are still developing.
The ILO Worst Forms of Child Labor
Recommendation states that certain types of work in an unhealthy environment may be appropriate for children ages 16 and older “on the condition that the health, safety and morals of the children concerned are fully protected, and that the children have received adequate specific instruction or vocational training in the relevant branch of activity.” Because exposure to tobacco in any form is unsafe, Human Rights Watch has determined, based on our field investigations and other research, that as a practical matter there is no way for children under 18 to work safely on US tobacco farms when they have direct contact with tobacco plants of any size or dried tobacco leaves, even if wearing protective equipment. Though protective equipment may help mitigate exposure to nicotine and pesticide residues, rain suits and watertight gloves would not completely eliminate absorption of toxins through the skin and would greatly increase children’s risk of suffering health related illnesses. Such problems documented by Human Rights Watch in the US seem likely to extend to tobacco farms outside the United States
HRW called upon the tobacco product manufactures and tobacco leaf companies to provide statements of their policy to address the issue of child labor. The NGO queried “companies that source tobacco from the states we visited. Eight of those companies manufacture tobacco products (Altria Group, British American Tobacco, China National Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco Group, Japan Tobacco Group, Lorillard, Philip Morris International, and Reynolds American), and two are leaf merchant companies (Alliance One International and Universal Corporation).”
In the months prior to the release of this report, HRW sent letters to each company and requested a response along with a request to meeting with company officials to discuss the issue. The HRW report stated the following regarding these exchanges:
Nine companies responded to Human Rights Watch and stated that they took steps to prohibit child labor in their supply chains. Only China National Tobacco did not respond to Human Rights Watch’s letter or repeated attempts to secure a meeting with company executives.
All of the tobacco manufacturing companies and leaf supply merchants that replied to Human Rights Watch expressed concerns about child labor in their supply chain. Only a few of the companies have explicit child labor policies in place. The approaches to child labor in the supply chain varied from company to company, as detailed below. Human Rights Watch correspondence with these companies is included in an appendix to this report, available on the Human Rights Watch website.
Of the companies approached by Human Rights Watch, Philip Morris International (PMI) has developed the most detailed and protective set of policies and procedures, including training and policy guidance on child labor and other labor issues which it is implementing in its global supply chain. PMI has also developed specific lists of hazardous tasks that children under 18 are prohibited from doing on tobacco farms, which include most tasks in which children come into prolonged contact with mature tobacco leaves, among other hazardous work.
Several companies stated that in their US operations they required tobacco growers with whom they contract to comply with US law, including laws on child labor, which, as noted above, do not afford sufficient protections for children. These companies stated that their policies for tobacco purchasing in countries outside of the US were consistent with international law, including with regard to a minimum age of 15 for entry into work under the ILO Minimum Age Convention, with the exception of certain light work, and a prohibition on hazardous work for children under 18, unless national laws afford greater protections. However, most companies did not specify the tasks that they consider to constitute hazardous work. Under these standards, children working in tobacco farming can remain vulnerable to serious health hazards and risks associated with contact with tobacco plants and tobacco leaves. A number of companies stated that they had undertaken internal and third party monitoring of their supply chains to examine labor conditions, including the use of child labor, as defined within the scope of their existing policies.
100 years later are we still doing enough?
To commemorate World Day Against Child Labor it is time to perhaps seek a reassessment of the need to employ children in an occupation that studies have shown is hazardous to their health, especially during their development. We as a society have said no to the notion of children consuming nicotine as end users but we have been mostly blind to the poisonous effect of the substance on children participating in its cultivation. Yet with inconsistent oversight by tobacco companies of their farm suppliers, it is likely that opposition from the tobacco states will result in protective child labor laws. The indifference to the subject by Congress is often due to lack of demands from their constituents and heavy lobbying efforts by the tobacco industry. It is not likely these children will see improvement in their young lives as long as they are employed in an industry that in many ways is shown to be detrimental to their wellbeing.
Since approximately ninety percent of the tobacco produced in the United States comes from these four tobacco states, it is probable that they industry still will survive the additional cost of a tobacco leaf that is harvested by an adult or machine instead of a child but it is unlikely tobacco agribusinesses will want you to believe such a reality.
A true measure of a society is how well it treats its most vulnerable.
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
229 thoughts on “The Tobacco Industry And Child Labor”
There would not be much support for the child labor if the product was meth and not tobacco. That is because many of you accept the tobacco product in human life and behavior. And what if the children were making porn? Would it be ok if the hours were long? What if they were grinding up dead fetus from the abortion clinic? And worked long hours and were exposed to HIV?
What if your kid dies of cancer from exposure to tobacco? Not at age 12 but say at age 50 when he/she has kids and you grandpa are still with us?
Yeah, smoke em if ya gottem.
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Plenty of vegetables are cheap, but the poor do not buy them. It is about nutrition education and convenience.
I love programs that promote organic community gardens, backyard gardening, farmers markets, and cooking classes on how to eat without using a box.
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Isaac:
“When I grew up we had porridge sometimes with raisins and sometimes brown sugar. A tea spoon of brown sugar is still about a quarter of the sugar that you get in the sugar loaded cereal produced by our mega agribusinesses. Consider Post, Kellogs, etc and their influence as oligarchs.”
Even with the low sugar, that is not a very healthy breakfast. It is just grain and its close cousin, sugar. Grain can also cause cavities just like sugar – it’s all carbohydrates.
I have enjoyed plenty of Porridge growing up, with a dollop of butter and brown sugar. It’s wonderful on a cold winter day.
If it’s the government’s job to either outlaw, control, or tax anything unhealthy that we eat, then this breakfast would fall under their purview.
Would you be OK with banning porridge? With having your own eating choices scrutinized, and what you wanted taxed so you could not afford groceries? What if we made everything besides carrots too expensive to eat? Is that permissible to do to people – control what they eat, the most basic freedom in the world, by making the “wrong” choices too expensive to afford?
That is NOT the government’s job.
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Darren – that is sad. Conventional farming practices expose farm workers to a toxic soup of pesticides and herbicides. And imported produce can have pesticides that aren’t even used here.
Growing your own organic “Victory Garden” is a great way to control what’s in some of the food we eat, and buying organic local produce supports a healthier environment for farm workers.
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Nick
Up until a certain age, perhaps 40 one can exercise off what one over eats. I used to run a lot, did a couple of marathons, and ran five to ten miles several times a week. All throughout my twenties I rode a bike twenty plus miles a day. In my village in France above Monaco I would run five plus miles, go home and shower, and then tuck into whatever I wanted at my table in my restaurant, Le Bar Tonkin in Beausoleil. Over the years I noticed, then in my early thirties, that I was putting on a little flab. I lifted weights, played basketball, and ran but the kicker was in what I ate.
After one’s metabolism changes it starts to be all about food. One simply cannot afford the time and energy to work off all what one over eats. Some whose job is physical might be exceptions. On the other end of the age spectrum, it is all about food habits and energy levels. Sugar and other garbage gives kids mood highs and lows.
The vegetable truck in the poor neighborhood alone will not suffice in addressing this problem. Any one solution will be ineffectual. As with most things it is a multifaceted and acquired problem that demands a multifaceted and relentless attack. Education, price, availability, and attractiveness must all be combined. If a box of sugar pops is affordable then that is what the negligent parent will buy to make sure their kid eats breakfast. If sugar pops are too expensive then the parent might, just might search a little further and if the good stuff is affordable then turn to that. There is no sure fix.
When I grew up we had porridge sometimes with raisins and sometimes brown sugar. A tea spoon of brown sugar is still about a quarter of the sugar that you get in the sugar loaded cereal produced by our mega agribusinesses. Consider Post, Kellogs, etc and their influence as oligarchs. Sometimes crap is good for the bottom line and sometimes good stuff needs some help from, you guessed it, the government.
“Pesticides pose risks of short- and long- term illness to farmworkers and their families. Acute (immediate) health effects of pesticide exposure include rash, eye irritation, dizziness, nausea and vomiting, and headaches. More serious acute effects include difficulty breathing, seizures, loss of consciousness and death. Chronic (long-term) effects can result in cancer, neurological disorders, hormonal and reproductive health problems, birth defects and infertility. Even low levels of pesticide exposure over time can lead to these chronic health effects.
The exact number of workers injured each year by pesticides is unknown, because there is no national surveillance system for acute pesticide illness reporting and no surveillance system for tracking chronic illness related to pesticide exposure. 30 states require health professionals to report suspected pesticide poisoning, but many incidents go unreported due to a number of factors, including workers’ failure to seek medical care, workers seeking medical care in Mexico, medical misdiagnosis, and health provider failure to report. Factors deterring farmworkers and their families from seeking medical care for pesticide illness include lack of health insurance, language barriers, immigration status, cultural factors, lack of transportation, lack of awareness of or exclusion from workers’ compensation benefits, and fear of job loss.”
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Isaac:
“We believe that there should be more government control in what we ingest.”
Why? Why do you think it is the government’s job to decide what we put in our mouths, rather than our job?
What if the government decides that GMOs are healthiest? Or a vegetarian diet, while I feel healthiest on an omnivorous diet? Do you recall the news story where a child’s sandwich was thrown away by the school because it was “not healthy enough” and she was directed to the cafeteria, where she bought fried chicken strips? What if you extensively research what the healthiest diet is for your child, but the government disagrees? You may recall that the carb-heavy pyramid diet was created out of a flawed study where the researcher didn’t realize his study occurred during Lent, and so did not accurately represent the typical diet. Or that fat free milk was used to fatten pigs, and has oxidized cholesterol from powdered milk added to combat its blue color.
And yet, our all knowing, benevolent government now mandates that fat free or low fat milk be served in schools and day cares. My son drinks full fat organic milk, and is very active. He does not have any weight he needs to lose, and yet the government wants to put him on a diet along with everyone else.
Putting the government in charge of us, while absolving ourselves of personal responsibility, is not a good idea. The government is rife with cliches like the DMV anti-customer service. I do not blame the government or taxes for what I put in my mouth.
It’s my responsibility to take care of my own health, and no one else is to blame if I don’t do a good job.
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PaulS, Heading out to see Love and Mercy. I’ll let you know what I think. That’s surprising I’m sure. LOL.
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Anecdotally I thought I would mention a worrying story a friend of mine who retired from the State Patrol told me last year.
He stopped a man on suspicion of DUI and arrested him. He was a migrant farm worker. When he brought him to the Breath Test machine the device threw an error several times for an Invalid Sample. It gave a code he did not recognize. Since it was during the day he telephoned the BAC section and asked if they could look into this.
The technicians logged into the device and investigated. A short time later they called back and informed my buddy they had never seen such a reading and wanted to determine why this happened. They telephoned the prosecutor’s office and offered the arrestee immunity from prosecution if he agreed to provide a blood sample at the hospital–he assented.
Once the tox lab returned their findings it indicated extremely high levels of pesticide contamination of his blood; so much in fact that he was exhaling metabolites and toxins. It was to such a high degree it caused a BAC DataMaster to throw invalid samples.
One can only imagine the detriment to this man’s heath and longevity. Very sad indeed
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What do you think the chances are they follow the EPA haz mat guidelines on cleaning up the mercury released by a broken bulb?
Zero. Nada. Zip.
When I was a child one of our annual field trips was to go to the Almaden Quicksliver mine and park. We were given dollops of mercury to play with. I still remember the fascination of rolling the quicksilver around in the palm of my hand. Smooshing it into smaller balls and watching them reabsorb back together. No one considered it dangerous.
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Elaine, If you’re so derisive of people here, why are you here?? Well, we both know why. Echo chambers are BOOOORING! LOL.
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Nick – thanks! 🙂
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Nick – thanks
Isaac – along the same lines, sugar and its cousin, grain, should be heavily taxed because of the health problems that they cause when consumed in excess. It’s not just obesity, but many inflammatory and auto-immune illnesses are worsened on a diet high in processed foods, sugar, and grain rather than meat, fish, fruits, and vegetables. But we should not force a healthy diet on people by making it too expensive to buy a cookie. That is not the government’s job, to force us to make good choices. And if it was, the government has been doing a bad job at it.
I don’t like social engineering. They already tried taxing sodas, but people did not make healthier eating choices. Addicts will continue to buy their drug of choice, including cigarettes. Massively taxing cigarettes will just hit the poor the hardest.
Education and smoking prevention programs are much more effective than social engineering taxes.
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Karen – I propose we tax breathing. Without breathing we do not need any of those other things. The more breathes one takes, the more you would be taxed. Seems fair don’t you think?
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DBQ, OF COURSE no one is reveling in kids working in any toxic situation. Liberals like to build strawmen named Scrooge. It’s part of their pathology.
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DBQ – great post at 12:17.
Squeeky – that haz mat disposal protocol on the EPA website is exactly why I’ve howled for years at the government’s push to replace incandescents with CFLs. Currently, LED bulbs are safe, but they’re still expensive.
Mercury contamination of our water is a cause I’m passionate about. I don’t know why our politicians act like maniacs and encourage people to buy CFLs. What do you think the chances are they follow the EPA haz mat guidelines on cleaning up the mercury released by a broken bulb?
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Political speech is the most protected of speech and must NEVER be hindered. Anyone w/ even a rudimentary understanding of the US Constitution knows that. Money buys speech. It’s ugly. It’s nasty. But, it’s protected. Anyway, Freakonomics showed, contrary to conventional wisdom, very often the candidate w/ the most money LOSES.
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Karen, Amen sister. You were raised right. Hard working, sensible, and smart.
“It’s a whole ‘nother ball game picking tobacco….”
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Airdog
All private money, union money, billionaire money, etc. The governments of Canada and other more progressive countries fund their political campaigns based on the number of votes the candidate represents. There is private money to surface the candidate but the campaigns are financed by the people as a whole, not by special interest groups be they union, corporations, or incredibly rich individuals. This is democracy. What we have in the US is oligarchy, a form of dictatorship. The leaders we consider are primarily run by behind the scenes money. The campaigns represent little substance but are successful primarily due to saturation or the more time one hears it, lie or otherwise, the more apt one is to believe it. The American voter left or right is less aware of the real issues, only energized by rhetoric and repetition. This past administration has proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Whatever Obama has done ‘wrong’ has been magnified multiple times by the opposition. If you ask the average person who is against Obama they couldn’t express why. Their primary reason would be that he is responsible for all the woes of the US. They would have little to no memory of the mess he inherited, the obstruction he experienced, and the momentum of the past fifty years which is resulting in the erosion of the middle class and America as an industrial leader. They would simply reiterate what they heard the most, what has been pounded into their ears by unlimited funding from corporate oligarchs. Visit the statistics of the past seven years. Visit the statistics of the past fifty years. Therein can be found the facts, or you can vent your spleen mindlessly at the person whose name is most attached to the problems.
Some on this blog search and find some supposedly holy icon that Obama has supposedly or allegedly trashed and then trash him in his entirety for that alleged fault.
Yesterday, June 12th, marked World Day Against Child Labor. For this occasion I highlight the plight of young children employed to work in the tobacco agribusiness in the United States. It is estimated, by Deutsche Welle, that 500,000 children labor in this market; most are exposed to hazardous conditions ranging from exposure to high levels of nicotine and pesticides, farm implements, and long working hours among others. Variances in the standard federal child labor standards permit tobacco growers to employ children–some of whom are under twelve years in age.
Resulting from these exposures, often from unprotected skin and lax safety policies, children suffer often from a condition known as Green Tobacco Sickness. This illness is an occupational disease caused by workers absorbing nicotine through their skin after prolonged exposure to the plants. These symptoms, references earlier, are identified by Public and Occupation health officials. The long term effects are currently unknown though other studies on the usage of tobacco products (such as smoking) in adolescents may have links to complications in brain development. Public health research indicates that non-smoking workers in tobacco agriculture have similar levels of nicotine in their bodies as do smokers in the general population.
The introduction of labor contractors, those who sell labor for a fixed price to farmers and where the workers are actually the employees of the contractor, has provided an opportunity for exploitation. Since these contractors retain earnings based on the margin between the revenue from the farm and the labor costs they endure, the temptation to extract more earnings often becomes high; especially in light of the fact that most workers are of an economic underclass that is less likely to report labor abuses and especially in the case of children having not the life experience or foreknowledge of what constitutes a proper and healthy working environment.
There would not be much support for the child labor if the product was meth and not tobacco. That is because many of you accept the tobacco product in human life and behavior. And what if the children were making porn? Would it be ok if the hours were long? What if they were grinding up dead fetus from the abortion clinic? And worked long hours and were exposed to HIV?
What if your kid dies of cancer from exposure to tobacco? Not at age 12 but say at age 50 when he/she has kids and you grandpa are still with us?
Yeah, smoke em if ya gottem.
Plenty of vegetables are cheap, but the poor do not buy them. It is about nutrition education and convenience.
I love programs that promote organic community gardens, backyard gardening, farmers markets, and cooking classes on how to eat without using a box.
Isaac:
“When I grew up we had porridge sometimes with raisins and sometimes brown sugar. A tea spoon of brown sugar is still about a quarter of the sugar that you get in the sugar loaded cereal produced by our mega agribusinesses. Consider Post, Kellogs, etc and their influence as oligarchs.”
Even with the low sugar, that is not a very healthy breakfast. It is just grain and its close cousin, sugar. Grain can also cause cavities just like sugar – it’s all carbohydrates.
I have enjoyed plenty of Porridge growing up, with a dollop of butter and brown sugar. It’s wonderful on a cold winter day.
If it’s the government’s job to either outlaw, control, or tax anything unhealthy that we eat, then this breakfast would fall under their purview.
Would you be OK with banning porridge? With having your own eating choices scrutinized, and what you wanted taxed so you could not afford groceries? What if we made everything besides carrots too expensive to eat? Is that permissible to do to people – control what they eat, the most basic freedom in the world, by making the “wrong” choices too expensive to afford?
That is NOT the government’s job.
Darren – that is sad. Conventional farming practices expose farm workers to a toxic soup of pesticides and herbicides. And imported produce can have pesticides that aren’t even used here.
Growing your own organic “Victory Garden” is a great way to control what’s in some of the food we eat, and buying organic local produce supports a healthier environment for farm workers.
Nick
Up until a certain age, perhaps 40 one can exercise off what one over eats. I used to run a lot, did a couple of marathons, and ran five to ten miles several times a week. All throughout my twenties I rode a bike twenty plus miles a day. In my village in France above Monaco I would run five plus miles, go home and shower, and then tuck into whatever I wanted at my table in my restaurant, Le Bar Tonkin in Beausoleil. Over the years I noticed, then in my early thirties, that I was putting on a little flab. I lifted weights, played basketball, and ran but the kicker was in what I ate.
After one’s metabolism changes it starts to be all about food. One simply cannot afford the time and energy to work off all what one over eats. Some whose job is physical might be exceptions. On the other end of the age spectrum, it is all about food habits and energy levels. Sugar and other garbage gives kids mood highs and lows.
The vegetable truck in the poor neighborhood alone will not suffice in addressing this problem. Any one solution will be ineffectual. As with most things it is a multifaceted and acquired problem that demands a multifaceted and relentless attack. Education, price, availability, and attractiveness must all be combined. If a box of sugar pops is affordable then that is what the negligent parent will buy to make sure their kid eats breakfast. If sugar pops are too expensive then the parent might, just might search a little further and if the good stuff is affordable then turn to that. There is no sure fix.
When I grew up we had porridge sometimes with raisins and sometimes brown sugar. A tea spoon of brown sugar is still about a quarter of the sugar that you get in the sugar loaded cereal produced by our mega agribusinesses. Consider Post, Kellogs, etc and their influence as oligarchs. Sometimes crap is good for the bottom line and sometimes good stuff needs some help from, you guessed it, the government.
http://www.farmworkerjustice.org/sites/default/files/Petition%20-%20Pesticides%20in%20the%20Air%20-%20Kids%20at%20Risk.pdf
“Pesticides in the air, kids at risk.” Could even be YOUR children.
http://www.farmworkerjustice.org/content/pesticide-safety
“Pesticides pose risks of short- and long- term illness to farmworkers and their families. Acute (immediate) health effects of pesticide exposure include rash, eye irritation, dizziness, nausea and vomiting, and headaches. More serious acute effects include difficulty breathing, seizures, loss of consciousness and death. Chronic (long-term) effects can result in cancer, neurological disorders, hormonal and reproductive health problems, birth defects and infertility. Even low levels of pesticide exposure over time can lead to these chronic health effects.
The exact number of workers injured each year by pesticides is unknown, because there is no national surveillance system for acute pesticide illness reporting and no surveillance system for tracking chronic illness related to pesticide exposure. 30 states require health professionals to report suspected pesticide poisoning, but many incidents go unreported due to a number of factors, including workers’ failure to seek medical care, workers seeking medical care in Mexico, medical misdiagnosis, and health provider failure to report. Factors deterring farmworkers and their families from seeking medical care for pesticide illness include lack of health insurance, language barriers, immigration status, cultural factors, lack of transportation, lack of awareness of or exclusion from workers’ compensation benefits, and fear of job loss.”
Isaac:
“We believe that there should be more government control in what we ingest.”
Why? Why do you think it is the government’s job to decide what we put in our mouths, rather than our job?
What if the government decides that GMOs are healthiest? Or a vegetarian diet, while I feel healthiest on an omnivorous diet? Do you recall the news story where a child’s sandwich was thrown away by the school because it was “not healthy enough” and she was directed to the cafeteria, where she bought fried chicken strips? What if you extensively research what the healthiest diet is for your child, but the government disagrees? You may recall that the carb-heavy pyramid diet was created out of a flawed study where the researcher didn’t realize his study occurred during Lent, and so did not accurately represent the typical diet. Or that fat free milk was used to fatten pigs, and has oxidized cholesterol from powdered milk added to combat its blue color.
http://butterbeliever.com/fat-free-dairy-skim-milk-secrets/
And yet, our all knowing, benevolent government now mandates that fat free or low fat milk be served in schools and day cares. My son drinks full fat organic milk, and is very active. He does not have any weight he needs to lose, and yet the government wants to put him on a diet along with everyone else.
Putting the government in charge of us, while absolving ourselves of personal responsibility, is not a good idea. The government is rife with cliches like the DMV anti-customer service. I do not blame the government or taxes for what I put in my mouth.
It’s my responsibility to take care of my own health, and no one else is to blame if I don’t do a good job.
PaulS, Heading out to see Love and Mercy. I’ll let you know what I think. That’s surprising I’m sure. LOL.
Anecdotally I thought I would mention a worrying story a friend of mine who retired from the State Patrol told me last year.
He stopped a man on suspicion of DUI and arrested him. He was a migrant farm worker. When he brought him to the Breath Test machine the device threw an error several times for an Invalid Sample. It gave a code he did not recognize. Since it was during the day he telephoned the BAC section and asked if they could look into this.
The technicians logged into the device and investigated. A short time later they called back and informed my buddy they had never seen such a reading and wanted to determine why this happened. They telephoned the prosecutor’s office and offered the arrestee immunity from prosecution if he agreed to provide a blood sample at the hospital–he assented.
Once the tox lab returned their findings it indicated extremely high levels of pesticide contamination of his blood; so much in fact that he was exhaling metabolites and toxins. It was to such a high degree it caused a BAC DataMaster to throw invalid samples.
One can only imagine the detriment to this man’s heath and longevity. Very sad indeed
What do you think the chances are they follow the EPA haz mat guidelines on cleaning up the mercury released by a broken bulb?
Zero. Nada. Zip.
When I was a child one of our annual field trips was to go to the Almaden Quicksliver mine and park. We were given dollops of mercury to play with. I still remember the fascination of rolling the quicksilver around in the palm of my hand. Smooshing it into smaller balls and watching them reabsorb back together. No one considered it dangerous.
Elaine, If you’re so derisive of people here, why are you here?? Well, we both know why. Echo chambers are BOOOORING! LOL.
Nick – thanks! 🙂
Nick – thanks
Isaac – along the same lines, sugar and its cousin, grain, should be heavily taxed because of the health problems that they cause when consumed in excess. It’s not just obesity, but many inflammatory and auto-immune illnesses are worsened on a diet high in processed foods, sugar, and grain rather than meat, fish, fruits, and vegetables. But we should not force a healthy diet on people by making it too expensive to buy a cookie. That is not the government’s job, to force us to make good choices. And if it was, the government has been doing a bad job at it.
I don’t like social engineering. They already tried taxing sodas, but people did not make healthier eating choices. Addicts will continue to buy their drug of choice, including cigarettes. Massively taxing cigarettes will just hit the poor the hardest.
Education and smoking prevention programs are much more effective than social engineering taxes.
Karen – I propose we tax breathing. Without breathing we do not need any of those other things. The more breathes one takes, the more you would be taxed. Seems fair don’t you think?
DBQ, OF COURSE no one is reveling in kids working in any toxic situation. Liberals like to build strawmen named Scrooge. It’s part of their pathology.
DBQ – great post at 12:17.
Squeeky – that haz mat disposal protocol on the EPA website is exactly why I’ve howled for years at the government’s push to replace incandescents with CFLs. Currently, LED bulbs are safe, but they’re still expensive.
Mercury contamination of our water is a cause I’m passionate about. I don’t know why our politicians act like maniacs and encourage people to buy CFLs. What do you think the chances are they follow the EPA haz mat guidelines on cleaning up the mercury released by a broken bulb?
Political speech is the most protected of speech and must NEVER be hindered. Anyone w/ even a rudimentary understanding of the US Constitution knows that. Money buys speech. It’s ugly. It’s nasty. But, it’s protected. Anyway, Freakonomics showed, contrary to conventional wisdom, very often the candidate w/ the most money LOSES.
Karen, Amen sister. You were raised right. Hard working, sensible, and smart.
http://youtu.be/iLZBfDGNDI8
“It’s a whole ‘nother ball game picking tobacco….”
Airdog
All private money, union money, billionaire money, etc. The governments of Canada and other more progressive countries fund their political campaigns based on the number of votes the candidate represents. There is private money to surface the candidate but the campaigns are financed by the people as a whole, not by special interest groups be they union, corporations, or incredibly rich individuals. This is democracy. What we have in the US is oligarchy, a form of dictatorship. The leaders we consider are primarily run by behind the scenes money. The campaigns represent little substance but are successful primarily due to saturation or the more time one hears it, lie or otherwise, the more apt one is to believe it. The American voter left or right is less aware of the real issues, only energized by rhetoric and repetition. This past administration has proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Whatever Obama has done ‘wrong’ has been magnified multiple times by the opposition. If you ask the average person who is against Obama they couldn’t express why. Their primary reason would be that he is responsible for all the woes of the US. They would have little to no memory of the mess he inherited, the obstruction he experienced, and the momentum of the past fifty years which is resulting in the erosion of the middle class and America as an industrial leader. They would simply reiterate what they heard the most, what has been pounded into their ears by unlimited funding from corporate oligarchs. Visit the statistics of the past seven years. Visit the statistics of the past fifty years. Therein can be found the facts, or you can vent your spleen mindlessly at the person whose name is most attached to the problems.
Some on this blog search and find some supposedly holy icon that Obama has supposedly or allegedly trashed and then trash him in his entirety for that alleged fault.