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Toxics killing and putting us at risk

We are supposed to be living in an enlightened world - with knowledgeable people able to determine what is safe for the people of the globe. No so, as this piece on Inter Press Service about toxins around the world so graphically and tragically details:

"The health of roughly 100 million people is at risk from pollution in developing countries," said Richard Fuller, president of the Blacksmith Institute, a small U.S. environmental group that worked with Green Cross to conduct the world's first detailed inventory of polluted sites.

Their findings are based on data from over 1,000 risk assessments conducted by Blacksmith Institute investigators at polluted sites over the past two years.

"These toxic sites are rarely caused by large multinational corporations. It is usually local business, former government industries or the informal, artisanal industry like gold mining or lead battery recycling," Fuller said.

In one of the more shocking cases of toxic pollution, doctors from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) visiting the northwest Nigerian state of Zamfara early this year discovered villages with hardly any children. More than 400 children had died from acute lead poisoning, they later learned. The remaining 2,500 children in the district had toxic levels of lead in the blood and needed emergency treatment called chelation therapy to reduce these levels."

The culprits?

"Top Six Toxic Threats and Number of People Affected

1. Lead: 18-22 million

2. Mercury: 15-19 million

3. Chromium: 13-17 million

4. Arsenic: 5-9 million

5. Pesticides: 5-8 million

6. Radionuclides: 5-8 million

*Estimated global impact is extrapolated from current site research and assessment coverage."

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