John - You might be interested in today's Scottish sequel to the Camelford incident. In this case, a faulty valve allowed gallons of Aluminium Sulphate to leak into a river. It killed thousands of fish. Unlike the human carnage at Camelford, this incident, which took place only a year ago, was quickly dealt with, by a court fine, although the amount was derisory, and probably paid with public money. At least there was an acknowledgement of the harm caused by this poisonous chemical, but it seems harming wildlife is considered more worthy of official sanctions than harming humans.

http://news.stv.tv/tayside/311584-scottish-water-dumped-chemicals-in-river-farg-poisoning-5000-fish/

Quote from above:-
"Scottish Water has admitted causing a catastrophic pollution incident which killed nearly 5000 fish.
The company admitted polluting several kilometres of a river with aluminium sulphate after an employee left a water valve open. The government quango was fined £8000 after the court heard it was responsible for killing "huge numbers of fish".

Perth Sheriff Court was told the pollution turned six kilometres of the River Farg in Perthshire "white and milky" and wiped out virtually all of the trout and salmon. The court was also told the sight of the dead and dying fish also caused distress to passers-by who witnessed it.

Dunfermline-based Scottish Water admitted a charge of killing approximately 4900 fish and other organisms in the River Earn tributary on May 13 and 14 last year. The company admitted carrying out a controlled activity liable to cause pollution of the water environment, namely by discharging aluminium sulphate into the River Farg.

Aluminium sulphate is harmful if swallowed or inhaled."

Hi Carol,

Yes, this was also written about by David Lewis. There is an interesting parallel in the case of the UK's contaminated water disaster, Camelford. It occured just as the CDC's colleagues at our Department of Health were clearing the decks for the introduction MMR vaccine in July 1988, and arranging indemnities for GSK, the men from the ministry were immediately on the job. Finally, 25 years later a report was published into the incident. On that occasion, aluminium toxicity expert, Chris Exley wrote to the BMJ:

"Re: Campaigners criticise report into Camelford water poisoning

"It is if nothing else reassuring to read at least one news item on the publication of this report, now more than one month ago.

"It does not come as any surprise to learn that this latest enquiry, 13 years in the making, has achieved absolutely nothing. This is not altogether the fault of those who sat on the enquiry. It was not they who chose not to appoint anyone with the relevant experience to the panel. It may have been them who chose not to invite anyone with the relevant experience to make submissions to the panel. I was certainly not asked to do so and I volunteered my services.

"The brief point to be made here is that by simply reading between the lines of the very brief section of the report which outlines possible further research it becomes abundantly clear that neither those questions which were asked at the outset nor those questions which should have been asked at the outset have been answered or in some cases even addressed in this report.

"This has proven to be a terrible waste of both time, for the panel and for the people of Camelford, and a complete waste of taxpayer's money.

"If ever there was a panel set up with the absolute intention of achieving nothing then this is such a model for the future.

"The story of Britain's most catastrophic mass poisoning of the public remains to be told. It is not too late to begin to do this and I urge the government to at least act upon the recommendations of this report, actions which could have been instigated 13 years ago if not 25 years ago immediately after this terrible event.

"The very limited (and wholly independent) science which has investigated Camelford to date has demonstrated that there is a story to be told. This is perhaps why this report has gone out of its way to prevent this from happening."

http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f3376/rr/647108

In a previous correspondence (2005) one of the local people, Elizabeth Sigmund recalled the early days of the cover up:

"Handling of the Camelford incident by the Department of Health

"I am writing to support the letter published in the BMJ written by Dr Chris Exley and signed by 58 international aluminium specialists.

"Professor Woods is the chairman of the Lowermoor Sub-group, a subgroup of COT, which is itself an Advisory Body of the Department of Health (DoH). I would like to draw attention to some of the actions of the DoH in relation to the Lowermoor incident.

"In late July 1988 I made contact with a senior toxicologist at the DoH, Dr G K Matthew. We spoke many times: he told me that he had attended committee meetings about the Lowermoor acid water incident and had urged the department to send an expert team to North Cornwall to gather samples of the water and other relevant data, and to make clinical assessments of the health of the people. His words to me were: “I am constantly being overruled”. He asked me to write a critique of the actions of the DoH in relation to this incident. His words were: “State what we did that we should not have done, what we have not done that we should have done, and name names.”

"I was also at that time in contact with Dr Virginia Murray of the Poisons Unit at Guys Hospital London. She told me that they had a team ready to go down to North Cornwall but that the DoH told her that there was no need as the DoH was carrying out an investigation itself. As we now know, neither the DoH nor the Poisons unit carried out any investigation of the event.

"On the 24 August 1988 Dr C R Grainger, Specialist in Community Medicine for the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Health Authority, received a letter from Michael Waring, Senior Medical Officer at the DoH. In this letter Mr Waring said: “I have not of course undertaken clinical or
laboratory examination of any of those who may have suffered ill effects, and have not been in a position to verify any of the clinical reports or water quality data independently. You will wish to show this letter and
the attached document to interested parties locally.” Under the heading ‘Long-term effects’ he said: “There is no reason to expect long-term or delayed harm following on the evident effect of these substances on the gastrointestinal tract. Long-term effects on other organs would not be
expected for several reasons as follows: a) the amount of the substances absorbed and retained at the time of the incident would have been very small; b) the period of exposure was relatively short; c) no long-term effects are reported in the scientific literature for most of these
substances.”

"We know that Dr Grainger circulated this letter and attachment to medical practitioners at all levels in the West Country, so it therefore had a profound effect on the understanding of the possible effects of this incident and therefore the treatment of patients.

"In the autumn of 1988 I spoke to Christopher Beazley, then MEP for Plymouth and Cornwall. He told me that he had discovered that the then Department of the Environment (DoE) had never informed the European Commission (EC) of this major contamination of drinking water, which, under EC directive 80/778 Article 10, they are obliged to do. When I spoke to Paul Douglas at the DoE he said: “We didn’t notify the EC because Mr Waring at the DoH told us that aluminium is non-toxic.”

"We now note with concern that Professor Woods and his committee appear to be repeating these findings. In para 1.22 (page 16) of the draft report the executive summary states: “On the basis of the available data, it is not anticipated that the combination of metals which occurred as a result of the pollution incident would have caused or would be expected to cause delayed or persistent additive or synergistic effects.”

"On inquiring of the secretariat of the Woods committee whether or not they had seen the medical records of people claiming to be suffering long-term effects from consuming the water, or whether or not they were going to undertake clinical or medical testing or assessments of the health of
these people, I was told that they were not taking either of those courses. This appears to me to be a most extraordinary decision, as it is merely reiterating the statements made by Mr Waring and Barbara Clayton.

"Many patients lost fingernails and toenails in the months following the event: one patient presented Professor Woods with a sample bottle of nails, which Professor Woods acknowledged with a nod but with no suggestion of conducting a metabolic investigation (para 1.27: “…further
metabolic investigation of the patients’ nails was not required.”)

"Professor Woods and his team are highly qualified people, albeit without the presence on the committee of an expert in aluminium toxicity, it is therefore even more surprising that thoroughgoing and convincing clinical investigations have not been undertaken."

http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/30/handling-camelford-incident-department-health

This is terrifying testament to the power of government agencies in so-called liberal democracies to cover up almost anything. The media reported on Camelford from time to time but by the time the "inquiry" reported 25 years on they were completely silent. There was in objective terms not the remotest shred of credibility to the inquiry but they had brought the matter to an official close. Something rather similar happened about the contaminated blood that the DH imported from the US to give haemophiliacs with disasterous and inhuman consequences - and inquiry was held 25 years after which failed to aportion any blame for anything.

I think history ought to have something to say about this now global culture.

We know the CDC is corrupt. How? Not because AoA says so, but because the mainstream media told us a few years ago. The Washington Post told us; Salon told us. The U.S. Congress told us.

"Federal and local political leaders, D.C. parents and health advocates reacted Thursday with a mixture of anger and fear to news that a federal agency misled them about the harm that lead in the District's water had caused -- and might still be causing. The furor came as a House investigative subcommittee released a report showing that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention knowingly used flawed data when telling D.C. residents that their health hadn't been harmed by spikes in lead in the drinking water in 2004....The furor came as a House investigative subcommittee released a report showing that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention knowingly used flawed data when telling D.C. residents that their health hadn't been harmed by spikes in lead in the drinking water in 2004.... The congressional investigation placed most of the blame for the 2004 report on Mary Jean Brown, the CDC's director of lead poisoning prevention. It found that she ignored missing data and contrary conclusions. She gave her fellow authors three hours to review her analysis before publication.

The year-long House investigation vindicated Virginia Tech water expert Marc Edwards, who has repeatedly questioned the CDC finding and spent thousands of hours and dollars requesting public records, reanalyzing blood test data and investigating how the agency reached its counterintuitive conclusion...." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/20/AR2010052005173.html

In his foreword to David Lewis's book, _Science for Sale_, Dr. Edwards says this: "It took more than six years of personal effort and a U.S. Congressional investigation to finally discover that the agencies' 'data,' which they reportedly relied on for their landmark conclusions and publications, had strangely disappeared if it ever existed in the first place."

Dr. Edwards' testimony before Congress:
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/linkableblob/4600256/data/marc-edwards3a-drinking-water-with-lead-testimony-2010-data.pdf