the latest headlines in the week in review here on r t rebels gain momentum in libya putting an end to their recent satellite that local leaders blame foreign forces and their airstrikes are helping the advance. of. washington tries to distance itself from the crisis in libya but the country's long history of international interference leaves a war weary public fearing another. painful economic cost zero quarter of a million a march through london and protests south where as hard pressed european question

expensive libya campaign spending slashed at home. and in japan radiation rises in the senior fukushima despite afterwards to bring the plant under control probably the earthquake tragedy over ten thousand are now in the city's dead with many more homeless. optimax is an award winning documentary about cancer it alleges that companies working on a cure for the disease could actually be responsible for it my mother was diagnosed with cancer at the age of forty nine she did not smoke she ate five fruits and vegetables a day exercised regularly and her parents never had cancer if she was diagnosed with the disease what caused her cancer no one could say i kept wondering

why. a. every day about three new synthetic chemicals enter the consumer market of the one hundred thousand synthetic chemicals in heavy commercial use only about two percent have talked to logical profiles in other words every day without our consent or exposed to about ninety five thousand untested chemicals. a.

few. who exactly are the world's leading chemical producers. now a new product is on grocery store shelves genetically modified foods. who develops most of the world's genetically modified crops. only a handful of independent studies have been conducted health problems ranging from infertility to proliferative changes have been detected through these foods cause cancer we have no idea because no long term health studies have been conducted anywhere but rest easy because if someone in your family is diagnosed with cancer

a number of treatments are available and here are the companies that provide them. it's. six six six six.

this is sarnia situated three hundred kilometers from toronto. you and i may not live in sarnia but we use the fruits of its labor. vinyl siding lastic patio furniture pesticides chargeable batteries plastic food containers compact disk cases paint in jet fuel and gasoline. to make these products

over five and a half million kilograms of suspected and known human carcinogens which are such. senses that cause cancer are emitted each year. dioxins one of the most toxic carcinogens known to science is also admitted during these chemical processes. sitting in the middle of these over sixty chemical plants is the first nations reservation. health issues we were easy our concerns with respect to. you know all. experiencing the they didn't want to use cancer. they just didn't want to use

concerns so therefore commuting off actually that's how almost every one of our meeting with the government had been the no one had that they need for the industry for those they were trying to tell the industry that they have to name all the chemicals to them and they said they are really due to that n.p.r. i but they only report what is it over ten thousand pounds of chemicals that are police and the industry was kind of upset because they didn't want to give away their trade secrets in all this and they didn't do self-important you're talking about who's going to actually pull the phone. now you just let industry police themselves and all these are just a name but in your office waiting for them to report to you can tell you what is going on shouldn't that be allowed at home.

we actually sold them the land i don't know what here it was they they did hold a boat out here and ask. well the land and i don't know how much land that they ended up selling to them but. i have asked our elders and they said that they were told that there was going to be chemical plants what did they tell you about chemicals that their chemical. abode if they didn't really tell me a whole lot more. and then everybody at that time i guess they must have been looking and i think that a dollar signs that they're going to get some money. i don't know how much anybody profited from it. when the kids ride their bikes in the town and that they say it like if there is a mist sometimes there is a mist in the earth. and then they have all these little walkways around here and they have that coming from sarnia and they want to put it through

a chemical valve the way it's going to kill everybody. every single facility that does any any kind of culture comical refining and it's going to tell you what on benzene in particular there's no law. limiting how much facilities can emit i mean the benefit that the industry has down there in having so many different facilities is nobody can point to one facility and say you're caught because of the problem so everybody had all the industries down there if you're going to point to your videos and say there are many more that we are that they should clean up the mass we have all kinds of evidence that our emissions have been reduced substantially one by measuring them. by working collectively as a as a group of companies to keep improving our performance there have been examples over the years in our reports where companies have. looked at the responsible care ethic and decided well this we can't do it this way to succeed or too risky to the

community or transporting something that's in a way that's not we can't defend or a product looks too risky i'm not sure i can manage it so let's just limit it so there are countless examples i think where people have continually challenge themselves and prove their performance and ended up in their view a better company for. what we're finding out from the bucket sampling because what we do is we take a sample. and then we ship it off to california and then they tested to see what chemicals are in there and at what levels then we give a back to global community monitoring and they love the chemicals and how they can

affect your body and what the standards are in the states for these chemicals. that are really turned around and headed to the people here are strong old people just us and that they love the standards in canada or terrio or whatever and they're finding that there is a lot of there is no standards for a lot of these chemicals here sold out so when they when they were shown as the slides. are showing all the chemicals that are produced and how they affect your body as i was looking at that was all my fault there's a whole bunch of people on the reserve that have these illnesses. in two thousand and four ada compiled a health survey of the nine hundred residents in the adults she discovered severe chronic headaches chronic respiratory problems. severe skin problems. neurological problems infertility and miscarriages birth defects

cancers and loss of children to illness in the children she found severe chronic headaches. chronic respiratory problems. neurological problems. developmental problems severe skin problems. arthritis birth defects. kidney and bladder diseases and cancer. what are you thoughts on the relationship between health and the petrochemical industry. i'm not so sure what the relationship is we do know again we also legacy issues and you know mesothelioma is an issue related to the use of specialists in industry and you know that's well documented as well understood and we know that there is this legacy issue out there you know it's unfortunate we have

empathy for those individuals who are suffer from as well feel yoma but we do know there is a legacy issue there with respect to other health issues that you know i think there's been a lot of inference was made of both the connection between health and potential admissions coming from the coming from the petrochemical industry this is one of the reasons why we and many others in the in the community major major major players in the community are advocating for a comprehensive health study a scientifically rigor rigorous peer reviewed health study. in sorry it's not if you're going to get cancer it's when we found a cat in my mom's field and the cat have since been sprayed down at the end of the season and she was drenched with pus decides we brought her home to died so i can stand the thought of her dying in this field. we managed to save her life but she has ongoing neurological problems she has seizures and timers and issues around any pesticides now or any type of chemical she has seizures and i started thinking if

it's happening to cats what is it doing to us so then i started looking at pesticides and the science behind that i have master's degree in science so reading this stuff again other persecuted now became very interesting in my life to learn what actually happens to chemicals when they hit our body so and then with my husband working in chemical valley i was even more interesting learning the stuff that happened there and then my mom got the first of her three cancers and then she got second and then i got cancer and then she got the third and my concern about cancer is in this community on a personal level you know. and you know that's got nothing to do with with with my job here or anything else you know regrettably in our society there's all kinds of potential for different exposures and lifestyle issues and genetics all have to be factored in i mean clearly i have had relatives who have you know terrible diseases

what their relationship is i couldn't tell you you know and again but i don't have a concern living in the city of sarnia related to do the kinds of things that you're talking about you know that the levels of contamination there are among the highest ever recorded for as best as for benzene for the dioxins so why are we doing this and what we're really it's supposed to be illegal to experiment on people without their permission. that's the nuremberg protocols sarnia is violating the nuremberg protocols we passed a number of laws that were basic environmental laws to clean up the air the water soil and provide for protection for consumers and workers the fundamental tenet of those laws was it's better to be safe than sorry the basic precautionary principle was in those laws in the one nine hundred seventy s. but in the one nine hundred eighty s. we moved away from that approach and we took the position in the government that we had to have proof in terms of human harm and dead bodies and we've now got to come

back to the precautionary approach in europe they've passed legislation like the rich program to require evaluation of chemical hazards but over the past eight years the bush administration has hammered away as has the canadian government at the european union saying that's a restraint of trade it's going to interfere with our ability to have commerce so the european principles have become a slightly weaker because of that but they're still better than what we have in canada the us today in canada and the us today it is legal for you to use a bubble bath on your baby that contains a known carcinogen something that causes cancer in animals but not in europe it's not legal so why should european babies bottoms be safer than my grandchildren.

midland michigan is home to dow chemicals world headquarters well dupont. bear monsanto and i.c.i. which is today owned by asco nobel are all responsible for releasing dioxins dow chemical is thought to be the world's largest root source of dioxin. it was also thought to be the world's largest producer of chlorine one of the root causes of dioxins and the largest producer of chemical feedstocks to make p.v.c. plastics whose life cycle is associated with more dioxin formation than any other manmade product on earth. because of these modern chemical processes by nine hundred eighty seven dioxins were present in everything from diapers to coffee filters to tampons. in two thousand and three di released an open letter to midland

residents stating the dioxins were naturally occurring substance the letter however forgot to clarify a few details while forest fires and volcanoes do produce dioxins they are not the same dioxins created during the chemical processes men made out since also a number of the natural variety by a hundred to one. a letter also forgot to mention that the first health assessment of dioxin completed by the american environmental protection agency estimated that more people will get more cancer from dioxins than any other chemical on earth. it all signs up there are the dow property again this all doubt property. dioxin is a molecule it's a byproduct of chemical processing it is a known carcinogen although i will dispute that tao has been able to manufacture so

much uncertainty about this chemical that if you look around the west rest of the world nobody else is debating the toxicity of dioxin except that michigan. in fact. said that this is perhaps one of the most toxic materials he's ever seen. why do you think be disputed now. because there's a financial implication you know there's a pending class action lawsuit against chemicals from residents on the river. and i think the implications for. denying the toxicity of the chemical now has bigger broader implications worldwide i mean there are a lot of dioxin contaminations around the country that you know not responsible for that could be saddled or you know could have. from the settlement or agreement on the toxicity of dioxin or on the subtle but of a class action lawsuit here i think the ramifications are huge for the chemical

industry. we came here it was like an ideal spot the only thing we didn't realize in one thousand nine hundred sixty seven when we bought it we were three miles downriver from the chemical plant. i have five children and three of them have immune disorders and my husband when he was diagnosed with colon cancer. my sister in law when i called her to tell her she said oh no i i would expect diabetes or heart disease not cancer we don't have

any cancer in the family and he actually died into a pilot's study that the health department in michigan was doing and they came out and took his dioxin levels on the thursday before he died and he . and he was really pretty weak but he said that he would do anything if it would help. prove that you know there were problems with. living here and the chemical contamination in the area he had a high level of different dioxin contaminants in it's ball of. high for his age level like in the ninety five percentile my husband died at seventy eight his uncle's lived to be in their ninety's and as i said he wasn't

sick so you know you say well of seventy that's a good life but if there were twenty more years. i would have liked if i had twenty years i living a corporate jet for dow could be interesting and rewarding for a ticket when it's an angel. corporate angel network uses empty seats on company business trips to fly cancer patients who need special ice treatment patients like christy this company does great things this is one. tao declined to be interviewed for this film if given the opportunity we would have been curious to know what that little girl's dioxin levels were.

you know we've heard people say i don't see dead bodies floating down the river is that what it takes to get a response from the public health officials from elected officials i don't know but again cancer is very ubiquitous in our area we have you know these two months cancer rates and it's dioxin responsible for all of it no part of it all probably but we have p.c. bees we have many many other contaminants out there in our environment that could be responsible for this the dioxin is just a part of it one hundred percent of cancers are genetically determined which means that for does sell to become cancerous need to have a genetic change in the it's. ok it doesn't mean that one hundred percent of

cancers are retired completely different story so even so i wonder percent of cancer so it's going to be determined only five to ten percent of cancers are there at the time. the importance of so knowing this is that a lot of people say oh my god nobody with cancer in my five therefore i protect falls because ninety to ninety five percent of cancers occur among people with family history of cancer childhood cancer has increased thirty percent in the past two decades testicular cancer cancer of young men has increased fifty percent in every industrial country that's not because of aging and we are seeing an increase in cancer in the elderly adjusted for the fact that there are more of them yes we have more cancer because we are living longer and there are more older

people but that does not explain all of the increase in cancer that we're seeing today the romans any foundation is the only research facility in the world to perform full lifespan rodent studies on the carcinogenic potential of chemical substances for the foundation is also unique in that it does pathological screening of every organ in every road in tested. long term health studies of this kind which can cost about a million dollars are not required by companies wishing to license a new synthetic chemical drug or genetically modified crops. or two thousand and five study on aspartame the artificial sweetener involved one thousand eight hundred rodents previous experiments on aspartame had had twenty rodents per group or forty rodents per group and so when we came in and did one hundred fifty rodents per sex per group it was very important results as a rule the us and t.p.

sacrifices their rodents aster two years of life so their experiments are usually take one hundred ten weeks that's considered the gold standard. whereas our experiments are lifespan and rather than interrupted the experiment and sacrificing the animals at one hundred ten weeks are our rodents live out their natural lifespan about fifty percent of what they have studied has proven to be carcinogenic and about fifty percent of what we have steady there is data that shows that we actually only have scientific information hard data about two percent of all chemical known chemical substances so it is a huge discrepancy between what we know and what we don't know unfortunately we as citizens tend to confuse the absence of evidence with the absence of

risk that is an agent has not been adequately studied adequately and i would add independently study it does not mean that it is safe. joe demand of regulation about chemical agent chemical compounds you know industry used to do the work and it is understandable what does not understand the boat. doesn't do that i work and that is why most of the. independent they are sponsored by industry and most of the they don't claim it's a conflict of interest.