News Coverage
Matters of Scale
Chemicals and health
Published June 30, 2003
Maximum safe level of perchlorate, the main ingredient of rocket and missile fuel, in drinking water: 0.03 MICROGRAMS PER KG OF BODY WEIGH
Perchlorate found in leafy vegetables grown in California with irrigation water contaminated by leaks or dumping from military cntractors: 4,490.00 MICROGRAMS PER KG OF PRODUCE
Total weight of chemical weapons in Iraq before the 2003 war, as estimated by the American Federation of Scientists: 3,850 TONS
Total weight of just six of the most dangerous pesticides at larges in the global environment: 7,000,000 TONS
People killed by Iraqi chemical weapons in the six-year period preceding the 2003 U.S. War on Iraq: 0
People killed by pesticides, as estimated by the World Health Organization, during the same six-year period: OVER 1,000,000
Number of deaths in the United States each year for which death certificates list the cause of death as air pollution: 0
Number of U.S. death actually caused by air pollution, as estimated by the Harvard School of Public Health: 60,000
Projected increase in the world's population between 1995 and 2020: 25 PERCENT
Projected increase in the world's chemical production between 1995 and 2020: 80 PERCENT
Sources: Safe level of perchlorate: Draft Risk Assessment, Environmental Protection Agency, January 18, 2003; perchlorate level in lettuce: Environmental Working Group, Washington, D.C., April 29, 2003; weight of chemical weapons in Iraq: Federation of American Scientists, weight of six pesticides ,DDT, chlordane, HCB, toxaphene, aldrin, and dieldrinc>: Paul Johnson, et al., Natural Resources Forum, May 1999; chemical weapons deaths in Iraq: the last known attacks occured in 1988; pesticide deaths: World Health Organization estimate of more than 500 deaths and 8000 nonfatal poisonings per day; air pollution deaths: John Spengler, director of Environmental Science and Engineering program, Harvard School of Public health, cited in Deva Davis, When Smoke Ran Like Water