We regard companies that knowingly introduce toxic substances into the environment as perpetrators of a crime against our children. Here are some of the biggest and most powerful chemical companies whose record of deeds and misdeeds are on the public record.
The U.S. ranks 26th in infant mortality rate among the industrialized nations.
Co-Conspirators
If perchlorate, a chemical used in rocket fuel, finds its way into a person’s body, through drinking water for example, it knocks out the thyroid gland’s ability to use iodine and that disrupts the body’s major systems. In an adult, that could be harmful. In a fetus or infant, even in small amounts, it can destroy the brain.
For decades, perchlorate has been leaking from military dumpsites into surrounding areas. For decades, the Pentagon and its aerospace contractors have known about the leaks. By now, perchlorate contaminates the public drinking water sources that supply 40 states, the entire Colorado River and the water for farms in California growing berries and lettuce for the nation. But the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin and Kerr-McGee, among others, have colluded, spending millions of dollars to block the EPA from requiring any clean up. The corporations have contracted with “science-for-hire” laboratories to generate study after study over the years to muddy the debate and to keep fighting with EPA over ‘safe’ levels.