Category Archives: Health Care

Senate Farm Bill adds Rural Gigabit Amendment

The U.S. Senate just adopted an amendment to invest in gigabit (1,000 megabit per second) rural broadband networks. Our local leaders need to lobby for the House to pass this, if they are serious about fast affordable Internet service for everyone here. Senator Leahy’s tiny Vermont, with the population of a single Congressional district, is already well along towards gigabit Internet. Our three House members can help get south Georgia on the road to better jobs, education, and health care through better Internet service.

Jennifer Reading wrote today for WCAX, Leahy’s high-speed internet amendment passes,

What I want to make sure is that a rural area can compete the same way an urban area can. It’s actually the argument, the debate that went on before I was even born about whether you had rural electricity, rural telephone or not and if we hadn’t done that much of this country would be a wasteland,” said Sen. Leahy.

Don’t we want that, too?

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Birds stop cleanup work at closed Hanford plutonium plant

Birds nested using radioactive mud from WW II-era nuclear bomb production plant, stopping attempts to clean up some of the worst leaking atomic waste, much of which is liquid in leaking tanks near the Columbia River. We have nuclear plants leaking radioactive tritium next to the Chattahoochee and Altamaha Rivers, and radiation is detectible in the Savannah River near Plant Vogtle. How many radioactive solar panels or windmills have you heard of?

Annette Cary wrote for the Tri-City Herald yesterday, Birds at Hanford vit plant spread contaminated waste,

Work stopped Wednesday morning at parts of the Hanford vitrification plant after radioactive contamination was detected under a bird’s nest, according to Bechtel National.

The contamination is suspected of coming from mud used for the nest, which may have belonged to a swallow, said Bechtel spokesman Todd Nelson. Only a small amount of contaminated soil was found, and the contamination was at a low level.

Should workers believe that?

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GM Ag corporations thank Jack Kingston for Monsanto rider

A long list of agricultural corporations wrote a letter thanking Jack Kingson (R GA-01) for working to get the Monsanto rider into the 2013 Ag. bill:

Again, we commend Subcommittee Chairman Kingston’s efforts and urge the support of Section 733 in the Fiscal Year 2013 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.
This letter is on Monsanto’s own website. It contains not one word about public health or quality of food or preservation of farmers who do not choose to poison people the Monsanto way. The glyphosate mentioned in the letter is the principal ingredient in Roundup, and research shows it causes DNA damage even when vastly diluted. Monsanto’s glyphosate-resistant crops are genetically modified to include a gene which produces a poison that other research indicates is toxic to humans. These poisons are what the Monsanto rider makes harder to get out of fields.

June 12, 2012 
The Honorable Harold Rogers 
Chairman 
House Committee on Appropriations 
United States House of Representatives 
H‐307 U.S. Capitol 
Washington, D.C. 20515  		The Honorable Norm Dicks 
Ranking Member 
House Committee on Appropriations 
United States House of Representatives 
1016 Longworth House Office Building 
Washington, DC 20515 
Page 1

Dear Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Dicks:   

Our organizations strongly support Section 733 of the Fiscal Year 2013 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. The provision will give growers assurance that crops developed through biotechnology that have already been approved by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) can be planted and harvested under temporary stewardship conditions in the event of litigation against the agency’s decision. We commend Subcommittee Chairman Kingston for including Section 733 in the subcommittee bill and urge your support for this necessary provision when the Appropriations Committee considers this bill later this month. The provision addresses Continue reading →

Videos: trash, appointment, GEMA, juveniles, mowing, and wellness @ LCC 2013-05-28

Trash wasn’t on the agenda, but it was the biggest issue. Like last Regular Session a Commissioner who happens to be a Christian minister prayed for one thing while the Commission does the opposite. Commissioners and staff also seemed confused about a mowing contract but we don’t know why, since none of us have seen what they were looking at. A Board incumbent was reappointed without discussion. In good news, county employees have lost 600 pounds.

Here’s the agenda, with a few notes and links to the videos. See also the Work Session of the same morning.

Lowndes County Commission LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, TUESDAY, MAY 28, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, MAY 28, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
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Owners want out of uranium enrichment company

Maybe Southern Company and Georgia Power should listen to Urenco’s owners: the nuclear industry is flatlining after Fukushima.

Stanley Reed wrote for Dealbook.Nytimes.com 27 May 2013, Powerhouse of the Uranium Enrichment Industry Seeks an Exit,

The company that operates this uranium enrichment center, Urenco, is the world leader in the field. It is also plumply profitable. So why are its owners eager to sell it?

The answer, as with many things involving nuclear power, is a combination of economics, geopolitics and the Promethean prospect of an energy source that is as potentially green and abundant as deadly dangerous….

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Monsanto rider came from south Georgia: Jack Kingston GA-01

Jack Kingston (GA-01) slipped the Monsanto rider into a recent law, requiring “the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, even if a federal court has ordered the planting be halted until an Environmental Impact Statement is completed”.

Alexis Baden-Mayer wrote for AlterNet 8 July 2012, The “Monsanto Rider”: Are Biotech Companies About to Gain Immunity From Federal Law?

Whom do we have to thank for this sneak attack on USDA safeguards? The agricultural sub-committee chair Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) — who not coincidentally was voted “legislator of the year for 2011-2012” by none other than the Biotechnology Industry Organization, whose members include Monsanto and DuPont. As reported by Mother Jones, the Biotechnology Industry Organization declared Kingston a “champion of America’s biotechnology industry” who has “helped to protect funding for programs essential to the survival of biotechnology companies across the United States.”

The Biotechnology Industry Organization’s PR about that award of 24 April 2012 says down at the bottom:

Photos of the award presentation are available upon request.

If that award is such an honor, why are they hiding the pictures of Jack Kingston receiving it? If Monsanto’s products are so great, why don’t they label them so we can tell which they are? Why did a French court just uphold a conviction of Monsanto for poisoning a French farmer? Why does Monsanto oppose independent GMO research? And why did hundreds of thousands of people just march against Monsanto?

Could it be because of liver and kidney damage, cancer and birth defects, pollution of water and air, systematic gaming of the patent system, perversion of the regulatory system, and corruption of the legislative system?

Speaking of corruption, Kingston has put the survival of biotechnology companies above the survival of farmers and the health of the American people.


Jack Kingston, voted Biotech “Legislator of the Year.” Responsible for adding the Monsanto Immunity Rider to the farm bill (H.R. 5973, Section 733). Tell him what you think!
www.facebook.coim/jackkingston/, 202-225-5821, 912-352-0101

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Board of Health meets this morning @ VLCHA 2013-05-21

The Board of Health meets this morning at 7:30 AM, according to the VDT calendar. There’s nothing about this on its own web page. Gretchen is there with the LAKE video camera.

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Videos: trucks and row crops @ LCC 2013-04-23

Plus a presentation to Joyce Evans, all about mosquitoes, and a love fest between the county and the VDT!

Here’s the agenda with a few notes, and links into the video. See also the LAKE videos of the previous morning’s work session.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
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Mosquito trapping and spraying @ LCC 2013-04-23

A logical and systematic plan for mosquito trapping and spraying is what Public Works Director Robin Cumbus described at the 23 April 2013 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.

She said the county contracts with VSU for trapping and surveillance. Mosquitoes trapped either by the county or by VSU are sent to Public Health Atlanta for testing.

Mostly in July, Aug, Sep This testing is presumably for mosquito-borne diseases; According to USGS disease maps using CDC data, there were 15 cases of positive test results for West Nile virus in Lowndes County in 2012; that’s 13% of the total of 113 for the whole state.

15 West Nile Cases in Lowndes County in 2012

She continued:

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