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This month my son, Ben, starts middle school and my daughter Anna begins second grade. Like many parents, I wonder how well they are being prepared to compete in the global marketplace. You see, my children, and their generation face a silent threat from mercury pollution. Mercury is in the fish they eat. It’s in mother’s blood and can cross the placenta to her unborn child. Mercury is also in breast milk. Too much mercury can cause health problems for anyone. Young children with rapidly developing brains are exquisitely sensitive. Mercury pollution can cause irreparable harm, including lower IQs and learning disabilities. Mercury is our generation’s lead. We made a connection between lead in paint and gasoline and severe learning disabilities. We mandated these products be lead-free and saw a rapid decline in lead related injuries. The Environmental Protection Agency’s stated mission is to protect public health and the environment. But it’s doing the opposite. Right now, the Clean Air Act mandates power plants that upgrade take care of toxic mercury emissions at the same time. Cost efficient technology already exists to do just that. In fact, this technology has been in use in inner city hospital incinerators with outstanding control. The EPA has written a new regulation that delays the reduction of mercury from coal-fired power plants, the chief source of this potent neurotoxicant. But the EPA’s new rule delays protections from mercury emissions by at least 15 years. It does too little, too late to protect our nation’s children, including my kids. The Center for Disease Control determined that more than 3.5 million women of child-bearing age in the U.S. have elevated mercury from eating contaminated fish. That means over 600,000 children are born every year at risk from the toxic effects of mercury pollution. Lower I.Q.s? Memory deficits? Learning disabilities? This damage to our nation’s “intellectual capital” may be subtle, but will cost us. It will cause diminished economic productivity throughout the lives of those exposed, which researchers at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine estimate will cost us $8.7 billion annually, of which $1.3 billion is linked to U.S. power plant mercury emissions. Members of the U.S. Senate voted recently on whether or not this rule does enough to protect the neurological health of our young children. Along mostly partisan lines they decided to let the EPA rule stand, favoring the utility industry over public health. It’s now up to the legal system, as a last resort, to hopefully intervene and require the EPA to do the right thing. An historic effort has teamed physicians (Physicians for Social Responsibility, The American Academy of Pediatrics), the American Nurses Association, states’ attorney generals and national environmental groups to challenge the EPA. If the flawed EPA rule is struck down, it’s possible that the outdated Alabama Power plants built in the 1960s could be cleaned up before the end of the decade. Controlling mercury pollution with modern, affordable power plant pollution controls just makes sense. And it’s THE LAW, required by the Clean Air Act. Even those who embrace a cost-benefit, small government approach should recognize that decreasing, not increasing mercury pollution is a no-brainer. Dr. Kent Bransford is an oncologist and president-elect of Physicians for Social Responsibility (www.psr.org). |
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