Interesting letter in today’s WM from Cllr. Graham Simmonds......
On the subject of the incineration debate taking place in your newspaper, in 1959 Dr Friedrich Hoffman, a chemical warfare specialist and chief of the United States Army Chemical Corps’ Agents Research Branch at the Edgewood Arsenal, was sent to Europe to scout for potential chemical warfare agents.
In his trip report, Dr Hoffman noted that he had received “startling information” about the toxicity of dioxin, including the fact that it had been linked to severe and sometimes fatal liver damage.
Dr Hoffman reportedly told the army that dioxin was too deadly to be used for chemical warfare purposes.
Dioxin is perhaps best known as a contaminate of the herbicide Agent Orange, used in the Vietnam War to kill foliage. It is a recognised carcinogen, causing cancer in every species ever tested.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency believes it is responsible for 100 cancer deaths every day in the US. It causes Vitamin K deficiency in babies, disrupts the immune system, mimics hormone function, and interrupts the thyroid, which in turn causes developmental and neurological problems in children.
It has been calculated that up to 8,000 cancer cases will result in Belgium due to the dioxin food contamination that took place there in 1999. Now, in the UK we are building roads and houses with it and spreading it on our vegetable patches.
To date the Welsh Assembly has spent over £3m on Prosiect Gwyrdd, years have been spent by executive and scrutiny panels.
No inquiry has been carried out to determine the safety of public health from incineration fallout, only a “position statement”, underpins the millions of pounds and thousands of hours spent by officials.
With incineration, the only thing being disposed of is the truth.
GRAHAM SIMMONDS
Blackwood, Gwent
