(See what happens when local media take matters into their own hands and ask questions about the EPA and big industry)

On August 25, reporters from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published the results of their investigation of chemicals U.S. regulators had promised to screen for health effects 10 years ago but failed to do even now.

The newspaper reviewed more than 250 scientific studies written over the past 20 years; examined thousands of pages of regulatory documents and industry correspondence; and interviewed more than 100 scientists, physicians, and industry and government officials.

The investigation reveals millions of dollars have been spent on the EPA testing program without a single screening being done. Due to this delay and lack of testing, scientists and doctors must rely solely on animal data to study the health effects of chemicals on humans.

Further angering health advocates, the Food and Drug Administration recently pronounced the chemical BPA safe in food containers (such as water bottles and baby bottles) and not a threat to infants or adults despite numerous contrary studies. In April The Washington Post reported that the FDA has relied on studies funded by the plastics industry over dozens of studies independently published by researchers.

 

"Despite more than 100 published studies by government scientists and university laboratories that have raised health concerns about a chemical compound that is central to the multibillion-dollar plastics industry, the Food and Drug Administration has deemed it safe largely because of two studies, both funded by an industry trade group."

 The lack of EPA testing and conflicting FDA advice on BPA confirm a pattern of government failure eerily evidenced by the EPA's repeated failure to protect the public from flame retardant chemicals throughout the years. PBDE's are chemically similar to PCB's, which were banned in the U.S. over 20 years ago, according to Environment California, a state based citizen environmental organization. The group reported that PBDE's are increasingly found in breast milk in U.S. mothers in levels that could cause significant developmental delay in children and infants.

Rank and file members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which includes some 25,000 men and women, took matters into their own hands on Thursday to protest the war in the largest one day strike since the invasion of Iraq. All along the West Coast, ILWU members shut down the ports, grinding business to a halt.

J.B. Powell at The Huffington Post described today the estimated effect on business.

"A spokesperson at the Port of Oakland citing John Martin and Associates economic analysis, said that $1.2 trillion in business activity flows from West Coast ports each year. She reported that it costs between $50,000 and $100,000 for each ship delayed for a day from docking. Officials, she said, planned for the strike and diverted ships, but the action kept at least one ship from docking in Oakland. There are 29 ports up and down the coast."

Acting on a motion from a a recent caucus of members, the workers defied the wishes of even their own International union's officials who argued against the strike, but said they supported the members' right to protest.

Jack Heyman, a local officer of the ILWU who wrote the resolution to strike, said in a Democracy Now broadcast Thursday the action of the ILWU members directly demonstrates the power of resistance workers possess.

"Well, what this action was was raising the level of struggle from protest to resistance, and we’re hoping that these kinds of actions will resonate to other unions and workers.

It’s already catching on with some of the port truckers. Actually, they’ve been doing actions for quite awhile. While it’s not mainly based on the war—I think they’re very much affected by the high price of fuel—they’ve been shutting down ports over that issue, but also immigrant rights, because many of them are immigrant workers.

And I hope that this will be an example to other workers that we have the power, we’ve got to use it. And that’s how we can bring this war to a halt."

Telling of the committment to speak out, ILWU member Angela Benjamin, brought her 8 year old son, George, to the rally, missing a day's pay to show her support for the war opposition.

"My father was a Vietnam Vet and he died in 1969," Benjamin said. "So it's important for me to be here to protest this war. I have a personal idea about what's going on."

The AP reports that for two months in a row U.S. employers have cut jobs, a situation that hasn't occurred since May and June 2003, when the effects of the 2001 recession still remained.

It appears we may already be in a recession, and if not currently, factors now exist to show we are well on on our way to one soon.

"Employers slashed jobs by the largest amount in five years and hundreds of thousands of people dropped out of the labor force — ominous signs that the country is falling toward a recession or has already toppled into one."

"The shower of pink slips was widespread. Factories, construction companies, mortgage brokers, real-estate firms, retailers, temporary-help firms, child day-care providers, hotels, educational services, accounting firms and computer designers were among those shedding jobs. All those cuts swamped job gains at hospitals and other health care sites, bars and restaurants, legal services and the government."

According to the article,a general rule for defining a recession is that the economy would have to shrink for 6 months for the country to actually be considered in a recession.

After vetoing a bill that would have expanded Family and Medical Leave to military families last fall, Bush recently signed the Department of Defense Authorization Conference Report on January 28. The expansion extends unpaid family and medical leave for up to six months for the families of wounded military personnel.

But the Department of Labor wants some changes made to the current law, 500 pages of them to be exact, changes that some say will put control into the hands of employers over workers.