An important environmental principle might be coming back to bite environmentalism in the behind.

Some hybrid-vehicle owners claim to be suffering health problems caused by the electromagnetic currents from the vehicles’ batteries.

Sounds dubious, even if The New York Times says otherwise ("There is a legitimate scientific reason for raising the issue. The flow of electrical current to the motor that moves a hybrid vehicle at low speeds (and assists the gasoline engine on the highway) produces magnetic fields, which some studies have associated with serious health matters, including a possible risk of leukemia among children").

But as Sterling Burnett, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, points out:

Environmental activists routinely use the Precautionary Principle as a weapon against technologies and products they do not like. They assert that until and unless a product they oppose can be definitively proven to be safe, the product must be banned. Now, however, when consumers and some scientists assert that one of the activists’ pet products may be causing serious health harms, the activists act like they have never heard of the Precautionary Principle.

Here’s one explanation of the precautionary principle that seems to suggest hybrid cars should indeed be recalled:

When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof.

Seems pretty cut and dried, doesn’t it?

Good point. The rot goes beyond lack of inspectors to a system built on cronyism.

If we get our tomatoes from huge agribusiness concerns there is an increased likelihood that no one will blow the whistle because that would hurt a big business ironically increasing the likelihood that other big concerns will get slammed if the public ends up distrusting the safety of the product.

The brass lining to this cloud is that scandals like this and the increased cost of diesel fuel to truckers may cause local growers to kick into high gear.

Local tomatoes are better, but you have to get them in season. Hopefully, so-called “heirloom” tomatoes will not be the next big farce. They may look funny but they are not guaranteed to taste better.

Indeed.  It’s a known phenomenon - can’t remember the term for it, but the general gist is that these FDA and USDA inspectors get assigned long term to certain producers.  They get to know the folks they work with every day and end up wanting to help them get their product out.  I have read of cases in which the gov’t inspector actually helped the producer hide violations. 

Remember the big deal not too long ago about the slaughterhouse with “downer” cows?  Supposedly there was a USDA inspector there on site who knew about it, but let it go on.

Could a Salmonella outbreak in tomatoes and the huge loss of revenue to growers have something to do with budget cutbacks in the FDA and the lack of produce inspectors ?

Is it possible the agency protects not just consumers but agribusiness too ?

Ah!  A DK fan…

A “Tricky Dicky Screwdriver.”

Haven’t heard that one in years.  I think I actually still have the vinyl in a box somewhere.

It runs on a mixed fuel...the crushed bones of exploited workers, oil (obviously)childrens tears and...of course..."a shaker of formaldahyde from the jar with Hitlers brain in it we have in the back store room”.

with a bumper sticker that says “Jackal Man Uber Alles” on the back.

Caution!

Wait - is the Jackalmobile a hybrid?  Or an alternatively-fueled vehicle? 

Does it have any bumper stickers on it?

Quick Heyena Boy!!! ...to the Jackalmobile!!

“Maybe that’s where I got my super powers from.”

I was thinking more along the lines that it might have had something to do with a methane plant.

Bill,

I thought your previous career was as a dancer at Boysie’s Sausage Factory down on Franklin in the Bottom??

I knew a guy who used to heat up his sandwiches when out on the flight line by holding them up in front of the feed horn of the airplanes radar transmitter. He died from cancer when he was 40. Whacky.

I think a products potential to cause serious health problems is directly related to the size of the bank account of the company that makes it. That’s at least one important factor.

When I was little we used to climb the high tension towers that ran thru the Chickahominy near the house. About half way up the hair on your arms and head would start to tingle. Yet hawks routinely built nests in these towers (found that out the hard way!)

Maybe that’s where I got my super powers from.

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