considering palestine's bid for full state recognition with the vote on the motion expected as early as next week palestinian president abbas is likely to forge ahead with the attempt which will force on insta justify their decision the application to the un by abbas last september was greeted with joy in the territories despite washington promising to veto. the next we report on the claims major pharmaceutical manufacturers who make cancer fighting drugs are also thought to be responsible for producing over decades pollution that calls us cancer 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 yet she was diagnosed with the disease what caused her cancer no one could say i kept wondering

why. 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.

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. it's.

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 so. 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 reason our concerns with respect to. you know all. experiencing the they don't want to use concern. they just don't want to use

concern so therefore be commuting off actually and that's how almost every one of our meeting with the government has been the no one at that stage for the industry we're. out there we're trying to tell the industry that they have to name all the chemicals to them and they said they already do to that n.p.r. i but they only report what is it over ten thousand tons of chemicals that are believed and the industry has kind of set because they don't want to give away the trade secrets in all this and they say they do sell before you're talking about who's going to actually pull the phone. now you just let industry police them follow him or her does that mean 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 to sell the land and i don't know how much land that they ended up selling to them. i have asked our elders and they said that they were told that there was going to be chemical chloroform what did they tell you about chemicals that their chemical. lab oh did they didn't really tell me a whole lot more. and then everybody at that time i guess they must have been looking at thinking of dollar signs that they're going to get some money. i don't know 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 and it burns and then they have all these little walkways around here they have

a coming from sarnia and they want to put it through chemical value and why it's going to kill everybody. every single facility that does any any kind of culture come on refining and it's fancy i'll 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 and if you go and you dip into your videos and see there are many more and we are that they should clean up the mess we have all kinds of evidence that our emissions have been it 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 a companies have. looked at the responsible care ethic and decided well this we

can't do it this way this is cedar 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 we ship it off to california and then they've 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 stronghold people just us and that they love the standards in canada or terrio or whatever. but they're finding that there is a lot of there is no standards for a lot of these chemicals here soledad it's one day when there are shortages there are slides. or showing all the chemicals that are produced and how they affect your body and as i was looking at data oh my god 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 adult she discovered severe chronic headaches chronic respiratory problems severe skin problems. near logical problems infertility and miscarriages birth defects

cancers and loss of children till miss. 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 emissions 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 die because 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 if she's 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 past sites and the science behind that i have master's degree in science so reading this stuff again other persecuting now became very interesting in my life to learn what actually happens to chemicals when they hit our body so and then what has been working in chemical valley 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 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.

milind 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 dioxin and 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 more details while forest fires and volcanoes do produce dioxins they are not the same dioxins created during chemical processes men made out since also a number of the natural variety by a hundred to one. litter 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 dial 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 the pending class action lawsuit against. 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 just responsible for that could be saddled or you know could have. from the settlement or agreement on the toxicity of dioxin or on the subject of a class action lawsuit here i think the ramifications are huge for the chemical

industry. but. 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 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 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 his ball of. high for his age level like in the ninety five percentile my husband died at seventy eight his uncles 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. that i would have liked if i had twenty years i would ring a corporate jet for tao can be interesting and rewarding for a ticket only 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.

now 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 tremendous 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 can 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 general ok it doesn't mean that one hundred percent of

cancers are retiring completely different story so even so hundred percent of cancers are genetics going to be determined only five to ten percent of cancers are here at the time. the importance of so knowing this is that a lot of people say oh my god i'm nobody with cancer in my family therefore i protect falls because ninety to ninety five percent of cancers occur among people without 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're 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 or 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 in constitute 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 for a group it was very important results as a rule the u.s. in 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 spare moments are lifespan and rather than interrupt the experiment and sacrificing the animals 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 and fortunately 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. a job demand of regulation about chemical agent chemical compounds you know industry used to do the work and understandable what does not understand the boat. shanties doesn't do that i work and that is why most of the charities are not independent they are sponsored by industry and most of the time they don't claim it's a conflict of interest. italy's

senate passes the most severe austerity measures so far in an effort to stem the tide against spiraling debt that could destroy the economy and take the euro with it. and the effects of the euro zone debt looks set to play a major role at the asia pacific economic cooperation summit in hawaii leaders from the twenty one biggest pacific rim economies pledged to foster strong economic growth as yet another recession looms over world markets. the u.n. security council is considering palestine's bit for full state recognition with a vote on the motion expected as early as next week. and to the victors go the spoils with the fighting over in libya western companies are lining up to exploit the country's rich oil and gas reserves.