The Allegheny County Board of Health addressed the issue of very high levels of lead in Pittsburgh drinking water in what one local legal authority called “an unmitigated public relations disaster”.
In a embarrassing display of contempt for reality, members of the Board called upon local experts on who similarly showed an abject disregard for public safety.
The moment, captured on video by WPXI, was apparently an attempt to assuage the public after a number of news reports brought the issue to light.
What the Board of Health tried to convince the Public:
- Parents should be more concerned about paint chips and soil
- The data they have now does not provide a “representative sample” – which means they do not have a random sample across the city of lead levels in children
- They will be seeking funds to analyze existing data
- The half-life of lead in the body doesn’t matter
The press conference came on the heels of a scathing audit by County Controller Chelsea Wagner. The 34-page audit found that the health department failed to appropriately monitor PWSA, who changed the chemical used to control pipe corrosion in April 2014.
Wagner told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “This is a question of priorities and will, and perhaps casting an eye on agencies that have traditionally not come under much scrutiny.” She also said “This is too big a question and concern to continue to be left to localities that lack the wherewithal to truly confront this issue or unaccountable authorities that are content to point fingers elsewhere.”
What the Board of Health did NOT tell the Public:
- The problem of lead exposure from water, paint chips and soil is cumulative. ACBH Director Karen Hacker was quoted here claiming that lead from paint chips is “a more substantial risk”. This demonstrates either a fundamental lack of understanding of, or a callous disregard for, the basic concept of cumulative risk from cumulative exposure.
- The half-life of lead in the body is 25-30 years (bone), and it leaches back from the bone to re-toxify the brain. Exposure is associated with decreased IQ. Read more: The Health Hazards of Lead
- Even low levels of exposure to lead can lead to problems with intellectual functioning in both children and adults, and that school-age lead exposure is thought to PREDICT young adults’ IQ. See: Mazumdar, M, et al. 2011. Low-level environmental lead exposure in childhood and adult intellectual function: a follow-up study. Environmental Health
- Hacker also reported at the press conference that the available data on lead testing levels in the blood of children was not a “representative sample”. A 2014 a Health Department Report of lead testing in children in PA entitled “Childhood Lead Surveillance Annual Report” used data from 140,524 children under the age of seven. In Allegheny County, over 15% of children under the age of seven had been tested, over 1,000 of which were 5 ug/dL or higher. That’s 7.33 percent of kids in Allegheny County. Flint had 4% of kids with test result that high. Why would Hacker claim to not have sufficient data when 15% of all kids in the county have been tested? (See “Report: 18 Cities In Pennsylvania, Including Pittsburgh, Have Higher Lead Exposure Than Flint“)
- The report found that across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 13,171 (9.37% of children under seven) tested for blood levels of five micrograms/dL. An additional 1,486 children exceeded that level.
- The ACBH knew about this problem and did nothing until after the audit. In October, 2016, WPXI ran a story on the issue in which it revealed that the levels of lead found in some homes in Pittsburgh were similar to levels found in Flint, MI. Dr. Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech professor who helped expose the water crisis in Flint, Michigan: “The levels in Pittsburgh are comparable to those reported in Flint, Michigan”
- Dr. Edwards ha also said at that time that no one in the Pittsburgh region who has lead service lines should be drinking tap water. (see “It’s A Public Health Crisis” – Is Pittsburgh The Next Flint? ” and Wall Street Journal: “Pittsburgh Tries to Avoid Becoming the Next Flint“
- Instead of focusing on the question of water quality, the ACBH spent time attempting to mandate the HPV vaccine for all children in Allegheny County who were entering in seventh grade. The HPV vaccine has more serious adverse events reported per year than all other vaccines combined, and has been rejected by Japan due to safety concerns and allegations of fraud in the science reported to government agencies in the EU and Japan. The bid for mandated HPV vaccine was tabled after objective science and informed parenting came together.
- PWSA tests done in June 2016 found lead at 22 parts per billion or higher, far exceeding the state and federal limits of 16 ppb
- About 20,000 homes are serviced by lines that leach lead directly into the drinking water – that’s 1 in 4 that get water from PWSA
- As a result of these levels, they are required to replace 7% of the lead-leaching lines each year. That will be a 15 year process
- Between June 2016 and January 2017, PWSA replaced 240 lead service lines
- The cost of removing the lead lines is estimated at $25 million
- Lead exposure is thought to have contributed to the downfall of Rome
- The city originally said they will provide filters to 1 in 4 homes serviced by PWSA to reduce lead levels
- (The city is no longer providing filters to new requests) (Linked to Sunday, June 23, 2017)
- PWSA is the second largest U.S. water system exceeding federal lead level – servicing over 100,000 homes
- The PWSA agency has over $1 billion in debt.
There will a vote related to lead in drinking water at an upcoming Allegheny County Board of Health meeting. Votes made by the Board require unrestricted public comment periods. Parents are expressing outrage in public comments. The email address to request information on the upcoming meeting and to register to make unrestricted public comments is publichealthcomment@alleghenycounty.us
There are signs that the ACBH’s next move will be to change the math used to calculate percentages of kids with levels near or exceeding federal levels. When this is done AFTER the stats already showed excesses, it’s fraud. The ACBH needs to held accountable IMMEDIATELY before they do more damage to the public health.
Parents – you can protect your child’s brain – and your brain – using some water filters.
ZEROWATER Water Filter removes lead, and also removes 100% of aluminum from your drinking water. Aluminum is a serious neurotoxin.
Share link: http://amzn.to/2sg4gAS
More CLEAN LIVING products here
Coupons for Zero Water Filters Distributed by City
FREE WATER TESTING FOR LEAD here.
Watch the WPXI Video here.
Join the Our Water Campaign to establish a Water Safety Oversight Committee.
Dr. Lyons-Weiler is the CEO and Director of The Institute for Pure and Applied Knowledge a pure public charity research institute located in Pittsburgh, PA. He is the author of three books. His latest book, “The Environmental and Genetic Causes of Autism“, is based on over 2,000 research studies and is available on Amazon, at your local Barnes and Noble, and at your local indie bookseller.
To interview Dr. Lyons-Weiler, email: jim [at] ipaknowledge.org
Scary!
Ray
You need to look carefully at some of the studies you use for tying schizophrenia into the gene/environment mess. The drugs used to “treat” schizophrenia can cause nerve, brain, and cardiovascular damage. They may be gene toxic as well. But look at the difference between studies done on the brains of schizophrenics that have been “treated” and those that have not been. If you do read that book I have mentioned before you will notice that untreated schizophrenics do not have the brain abnormalities that those that have been treated do.
Thank you, dude.
Hey, is the age of autism site down?
This is all I get when I go there “2017 Copyright. All Rights Reserved.
The Sponsored Listings displayed above are served automatically by a third party. Neither Parkingcrew nor the domain owner maintain any relationship with the advertisers.
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Their FB page says “UPDATE! We’re OK. Content is intact. AgeofAutism is safe and sound. Site broke from the content host. and we’re having to create a new link. It’s taking a bit of time. Thanks for your patience. KIM
Hi friends – we’re down but not to worry. We’re OK. Content is intact. We have a tech issue related Dan’s passing – I’m working on it now – and we should be back live within 24 – 36 hours. Thanks for the emails and texts and messages. So go enjoy a summer day! Thanks! Kim”
Ah, okay. I wont even visit facebook so didn’t see it.
Please read that book, and I will stop this, but… (the below is a bit messy. There is simply too much to write on this subject. Please get and read that book.)
1) Fluoxetine is Prozac. IIRC it took 6 studies to find one showing positive effects on depression. Plus it is shown to induce agression. As in Colombine style aggression. It causes a whole host of other problems too that I cannoy fit here. ESPECIALLY READ THE BOTTOM PRARGRAPH OF PAGE 171 about a boy who becomes apathetic to what goes on around him.
Page 169 includes and challenge, dechallenge, rechallenge, where fluoxetine (prozac) caused a boy to have Colombine style nightmares and desires to kill. He goes off the Prozac and this goes away. He goes back on and says he wants to commit suicide. Very very very bad stuff.
Just because some quack said this garbage reduces reptitive motor behavior doesn’t mean it should be used. These “psychiatric” drugs are in reality nothing more than brain damaging/numbing garbage. And the idea of using them on autists is no better than the idea of using them on elderly people to get them to “sit still and shut up”. You might as well recommend electroshock because that has a great effect of getting people to sit still and shut up.
These drugs cause generalized effects such as mania and apathy. Even talking about them for any kind of “treatment” should include at least a dissclaimer about the dangers of them. They do not treat autism. They cause brain disabling effects that lead to things like apathy, depression, suicide, violence whether by rage or by loopy-ness, or manias. These drugs have as much or more lying surrounding them than vaccines do.
2) Risperidone has generalized brain disabling effects and achieves the sit still and shut up effect in this way… at least until the tardive dyskinesia kicks in. Then there is irreversible involuntary movement for the rest of the subjects life. And it is a lot worse than hand flapping.
3) Adenosine receptor agonists: I am not sure exactly what drugs you were referencing here, but the Benzodiazepines have some severe issues too.
4) Aripiprazole aka Abilify… this is one extemely dangerous drug.
Read page 78 on their ability to produce autistic type effects and NMS (neuroleptic malignant syndrome) “Zarrouf and Bhanot (2007) confirmed that NMS often leads to irreversible brain damage in the form of various manifestations of tardive dyskinesa; ataxia and balance problems: abnormal movements of the trunk and limbs; speech abnormalities; and violent, unilateral outbursts of movement (hemiballismus). NMS also left patients suffering multiple cognitive disabilities including difficulties comprehending commands, attention problems, and persistent amnesia. Postmortem studies revealed “cerebellar degeneration, reduction of the Purkinje and granule cells, AND GLIOSIS IN THE DENTATE NUCLEUS” (p. 93).”
“Reasearch indicates that typical and atypical neuroleptic drugs increase the vulnerability of neurons to cell death and even kill brain cells and that the risk increases in patients already suffering from brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s (chapter 5). Consistent with this, Sechi et al. (2000) reported on a case of NMS following exposure of a patient with familial dementia with Lewy bodies to low doses of risperidone.”
Please redact the parts of the book that speak of psycbiatric drugs as “treatments”. They cause brain damage. They are not reasonable to consider as “treatments”.
Dude – I do appreciate your perspective – if you read my chapter on ADHD in “Cures vs. Profits” you’ll see that I have no tolerance for indiscriminate use of psychotropic drugs, esp. in children. I wrote the ADHD chapter before I wrote the chapter on vaccines, and with vaccines, called things as I found them.
I won’t redact the sections of the book, but instead will modify the text to reflect what is know about side effects, especially in autism. I cannot make claims about side effects that are not fully documented, so you have given me some additional work to do for the Second Edition of “Causes”, and for your input and feedback, I am grateful.
Read page 81 at the bottom. Risperdal acutally causes children to be more autistic and more irritable.
“The only way Riperdal can reduce this so-called extreme irritability (anger and temper tantrums) is by deactivating the frontal lobes, limbic system, and reticular activating system, causing a chemical lobotomy with emotional blunting. Since Risperdal is a potent dopamine blocker it has this capacity.
A primary effect will be the further impairment of the autistic child’s already limited ability to care about and relate to other people. Risperdal will make children more autistic. In many cases, it will also worsen the child’s so called irritability by causing agitation and akathisia. But in yhe process of making children more robotic, it will make some seem less troublesome.”
I will personally add that reducing their so called irritation by lobotomizing them in this way can be exceedingly dangerous. Especially with gastrointestinal problems and maybe also sensory irritations.
If they are irritated due to intestinal issues, the intestinal issues must be fixed. Risperdal gives parents a way to ignore the issue. Which could lead to something bad as a perforated bowel and thus death.
Thank you very much for the information, I sincerely appreciate it. I’ll look into primary sources for confirmation as well.
Dude – thank you again for staying on this issue w/me. What are your thoughts on this blog article?
Risperidone use in children with autism carries heavy risks
https://spectrumnews.org/news/risperidone-use-in-children-with-autism-carries-heavy-risks/
Thank you for looking into this issue.
1) “More worrisome, however, are the side effects, the most significant of which is weight gain from an increased appetite. ”
Is complete bull. The biggest threats are brain damage, which the autist certainly does not need more of, cardiovascular risk, shortened life span, nervous damage leading to uncontrollable movements, death, agitation, and more that I cannot recall. It looks like garbage designed to sell drugs. The pharma complex is attempting to cash in on it is my perspective. Tbis will simply pile more harm on top of an already harmed brain. What is needed are detox therapies, nutritional therapies, interpersonal therapies, and maybe gene therapies. This psychiatric dope pushing is not a treatment. It is just a chemical lobotomy being passed off as beneficial.
2) “Risperidone is an antipsychotic”
It is not. All it does is induce a lobotomy like apathy so that people no longer react to what ails them. This is particularly dangerous if it allows a medical condition, such as bowel issues, to be ignored. Too many times these drugs will be used to simply shut a person up with no attention being given to the underlying problems. This is very dangerous.
3) “This January, researchers published a new analysis of the 2002 data, in which they classified the participants by the type of aggressive behavior they showed — hotheaded aggression in response to provocation versus unprovoked aggression, for example. Risperidone significantly improved symptoms in all these subgroups, the researchers found4.”
and
“In October 2006, the FDA approved risperidone to treat irritability in children with autism between 5 and 16 years of age.”
This will lead to disregard of the child’s best interests. Take for example a child with high functioning autism who has sensory sensitivities. Lets say they complain about noise and throw a fit about it. Instead of simply providing an equitable solution, such as providing a quiet place in the home for the child, the child will now be more likely to be drugged up on something that has extremely health damaging qualities.
Or lets take a case I once read about. It involved a little girl that would throw up everytime she smelled diesel fumes. Her mom would yell and scream at her for this (notice that it will be okay for the neurotypical to throw their temper tantrums, as many people with Asperger’s have noticed). So, now if this situation were to occur how likely would it be that this little girl would be put on these brain damaging Risperdone to see if it would calm down her tendencies to puke everywhere? And why don’t we put neurotypicals on Risperidone when they throw temper tantrums?
Then we have other cases where this mind numbing drug can be used to force a child to endure abuse/sexual abuse. Let’s take another example I recently read about in a comments section where an autistic girl tried to stab her care taker. There is a high likelyhood this care taker is sexually abusing her and this is her only way lf communicating it to her parents. But do you think these parents will think to install a nanny cam and catch the creep and stop this? No. They’ll just drug her into compliance. Note that this same issue occurs in senior centers and nut houses. They are druged into compliance and then abused.
So blunting a child’s defensive insticts, however convenient it may be is exceptionally dangerous.
Or what about the case of this boy name Logan who slapped someone who pushed him? Autists tend to be bullied a lot and if they do defend themselves they are punished discouraged from self defense which leads to more bullying which leads to emotional damage and potentially life and health endangerment. And of course the bully gets off scott free. I have seen then and have heard many people speak of the same exact issue. How many times will this drug be used to blunt defensive responses and encourage the continuation of bullying? A lot is my bet. Autists don’t look normal and the neurotypical pathology tends to predate on those who don’t look normal. Just look at the history of minorities in this country. The autisitc experince is quite similar.
4) Real nice how they just casually blow past tardive dyskenisia without full explaining the severity of it.
5) “Disclosure: The reporter holds stock in Johnson & Johnson, the parent company of Janssen Pharmaceuticals.”
I had suspected that as I read it. This is what big pharma is going to push. Dope, electroshock and more dope. None of it will solve a thing and it will make each unfortunate autist caught up in the web of psychiatric intervention a life time source of profit, while forcing ever more dysfunction upon them.
The “cures” (or closest possibilities to cures) will be effective detox, nutrition, interpersonal education, neurotraining, reduction of toxins, and maybe gene therapies and certainly genetic screening.
Those will not be pushed anytime soon. Not profitable enough. Stigmatization and psychiatric dope will reign as they are profitable.
And of course, we will depend on people like you and Peter Breggin to make effective cases against this dope pushing.
On yout second edition, please write it more in the format of “Brain Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry”. It is a PITA to look up citations online. You book comes off as a hard backed rough draft. I need the citations list in the book. Also, take care to read all the criticisms on Amazon, and make a debunking list at the beggining of the book with page number and references to challenge the straw men being thrown at you on Amazon. It is sickening to look through the biased anti vax safety “reviews”. They must be addressed. And please do not make the book cost $80. Try to keep it around $30 or less.
Also, please refrain from bringing popular figures and sources into the issue. Whether Wakefeild was wronged or not, I don’t know and haven’t looked into it and probably won’t, he is somewhat irrelevant. It is pointless to bring a pariah into the issue.
Also, one review mentioned you used a study from a father son duo that
advocated sterilizing autists. I haven’t gotten to that point to see how you used that reference, but be careful of such people.
You will be attacked from every angle. Make the new book like a tank.