While The Rest Of Us Die 2x4

1. We are exposed to toxic chemicals all day, every day.

2. They're in the air, the water, and in our bloodstream.

3. They're inescapable.

4. For decades, companies have put the health of their

5. bottom line, above the health of citizens.

6. You don't see a concern for the public.

7. You only see them talk about a concern for profit.

8. Farm trials with Roundup made up to 12 more bushels an acre.

9. while censoring and harassing

10. anybody who gets in their way.

11. We don't want your toxic...

12. The public demands action to stem the toxic tide.

13. Your heart is black, you can have your oil back.

14. The founding of the EPA came about because the nation

15. realized that there wasn't anyone

16. protecting the environment.

17. But its secret history reveals how the

18. Environmental Protection Agency became more about

19. the protection of big business.

20. It is astonishing how closely the EPA works

21. to protect the interests of these companies.

22. For over 70 years, our leaders have told us one thing

23. under the bright lights...

24. The protection of the lives and property of Americans

25. is the responsibility of all public officials.

26. I care, we're trying.

27. We have it so well under control.

28. Help is here and we will not stop working for you.

29. But for decades, America's shadow government and

30. its powerful friends have spent trillions of dollars

31. on an agenda that serves their interests, not ours.

32. You guys paid for all this.

33. So, when the shit really hits the fan,

34. we're on our own.

35. This is not science fiction.

36. This is reality in America right now.

37. The truth is, the rich and powerful will do

38. whatever it takes to save themselves...

39. While The Rest of Us Die.

40. April 20th, 2010.

41. In the Gulf of Mexico, a fireball lights up

42. the night sky, visible from 40 miles away.

43. An explosion has ripped apart the Deepwater Horizon,

44. a massive oil rig in the Gulf.

45. First responders begin battling the blaze and evacuating crew.

46. But eleven rig workers are lost at sea.

47. As the oil inferno burns on into the next day,

48. a man identifying himself as a BP official reports

49. everything is under control.

50. It would turn out to be the largest marine

51. oil spill in history.

52. You have information now that this, this rig has gone under?

53. Uh it has gone under the surface.

54. At about 10:21 this morning.

55. We've got...

56. the potential 336,000 gallons of crude oil per day

57. coming out of that well.

58. After two days, the Deepwater Horizon sinks,

59. rupturing its connection at the sea floor.

60. The spill grows.

61. It's now a blob the size of Delaware and

62. Rhode Island, combined.

63. The nation watches in horror on live TV as millions of gallons

64. of crude oil spew into the Gulf

65. threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs and

66. an entire marine ecosystem.

67. What made Deepwater Horizon so unique was the way that it made

68. so painfully clear the moral hazard that these companies

69. took on, that they were extracting the wealth and

70. the fossil fuels.

71. And yet, if anything went wrong,

72. it was going to be the US government and the US taxpayer

73. that stepped in to try to solve the catastrophe afterwards.

74. Frustration over the spill has been simmering for weeks,

75. even in the Oval Office.

76. We learned today that in the first days of this crisis,

77. an angry President Obama snapped at a meeting,

78. Plug the damn hole.

79. It takes 87 days before the Deepwater well

80. is finally capped.

81. By that time, more than 200 million gallons of oil

82. have spilled into the sea.

83. BP, your heart is black! You can have your oil back!

84. BP is eventually forced to pay more than $20 billion

85. in damages to the families of the dead,

86. and to clean up the Gulf.

87. That settlement shifts blame away from the US government

88. department responsible for keeping this from

89. ever happening: The Department of Interior and

90. its Minerals Management Service.

91. Rather than checking out the rig independently,

92. they simply took BP and its partners at their word

93. that the project was safe.

94. But for the Interior Department,

95. being in the pocket of companies like BP and helping

96. them extract oil and gas isn't the image it likes to project.

97. - Mm, it's pretty out here. - Sure is.

98. We're lucky, Candy. Not only us,

99. but millions of other folks all over the country.

100. Able to enjoy the forest, trees, water.

101. In the eyes of the public, the Interior Department is

102. a folksy bureaucracy responsible for conserving

103. forest land and running national parks.

104. Smokey!

105. While most Americans think of the Department of the Interior

106. as park rangers and Smokey the Bear hats,

107. it is really the Mineral Management Service that

108. is in many ways the heart of that department.

109. It is a little-known agency with a far outsized impact

110. on our daily life.

111. It is the agency in charge of helping industry maximize the

112. wealth and extraction of fossil fuels and minerals

113. from across the nation's public lands.

114. !

115. The Department of Interior's role has been

116. quite explicitly to...

117. make the resources of the United States available

118. to big business.

119. The Department of Interior has opened forests to

120. lumbering interests, and public lands

121. to mining and drilling.

122. Yet, we, the taxpayers, lose money in allowing

123. these corporate interests to have our resources.

124. But this goes back to the founding of the country.

125. In 1776, the United States was just 13 eastern colonies.

126. But from the very first days of independence,

127. each colony had its eyes set on westward expansion.

128. And they all have these western land claims that extend

129. as far as they can imagine.

130. America's land claims include vast swaths of land

131. inhabited by people who'd been there for millennia.

132. But none of that mattered.

133. In the eyes of the federal government,

134. all that territory represented a virtually endless source of

135. natural resources, ripe for exploitation.

136. A series of wars and broken treaties keep pushing the

137. country's borders outward.

138. There's the, the Louisiana Purchase.

139. That more than doubles the size of the US.

140. Then, the Mexican American War.

141. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona,

142. Nevada, Utah, California,

143. all taken from Mexico by force.

144. A big part of the story of the expansion of the United States

145. has always been the rush for natural resources.

146. It's the rush for new forms of energy and land, for lumber.

147. And this has been a key part of

148. the Department of the Interior's

149. mission since the earliest days of the department.

150. Today the job of building this nation geographically

151. is completed.

152. There are no new frontiers within our borders.

153. To what new horizons can we look now?

154. As the 20th Century dawns, the US government expands

155. its push for natural resources around the world

156. all with the help of the Department of the Interior.

157. Guam, Puerto Rico are acquired in 1898.

158. That's the point where a kind of formal imperial project

159. gives way to informal empire.

160. US corporations go abroad, but the US doesn't seek to

161. establish dominion over new places.

162. It realizes that financial control, military control,

163. diplomatic control can be exercised without

164. the formal trappings of possession.

165. And this desire to control the resources of other countries

166. goes into overdrive when the Cold War competition with

167. the Soviet Union for global supremacy becomes

168. a national obsession.

169. So much of the Cold War was really a battle for natural

170. resources and fossil fuels around the world.

171. And while spy thrillers play up the CIA's role in

172. battling communism, few realize the shadowy role

173. the Department of the Interior plays in this

174. planetary game of thrones.

175. You would often see engineers and scientists from the

176. Department of the Interior, helping to identify the targets

177. for diplomatic interventions, for covert actions,

178. for the desire to bring in the CIA.

179. One of those targets is Iran.

180. The Shah who had fled to Rome, comes home.

181. After its elected government nationalizes its lucrative

182. western-controlled oil industry in 1953,

183. the CIA works behind the scenes to overthrow it.

184. Iranian oil may again flow westward.

185. The American hunger for oil in the 50s and 60s

186. was unparalleled in world history.

187. This was a moment when the US desperately needed

188. more oil wherever it could be found.

189. In its crude state, just as it comes out of the ground,

190. oil is a useless mixture of very useful substances.

191. Oil, the mineral on which the whole world depends,

192. and which is won with so much effort

193. in so many distant places.

194. Abroad or back in the States,

195. America's insatiable appetite for oil needs to be fed.

196. So, the federal government claims new territory for

197. exploitation, on the continental shelf off the coast.

198. Lyndon Johnson greatly expanded at huge environmental risk,

199. the nation's exploration of the continental shelf,

200. which turned out to be rich for oil.

201. And so, the Department of the Interior opened up offshore

202. drilling in a way that America had never seen before.

203. And soon after,

204. what some people feared would happen, happens.

205. In 1969 off the coast of Santa Barbara, a massive oil spill...

206. an explosion as part of an oil exploration project,

207. left oil gushing into one of the most pristine

208. natural environments in the country.

209. The spill exposes the Department of the Interior's

210. willingness to let big oil engage in dangerous drilling.

211. Now, a nation galvanized by protests against the

212. Vietnam War, turns its attention to saving

213. the environment, and demands action.

214. So, this culminates with the Nixon administration,

215. believe it or not, a very right-wing president,

216. presiding over the creation of the

217. Environmental Protection Agency.

218. Signing into law the Clean Air Act,

219. the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act.

220. The great question of the 70s is,

221. shall we surrender to our surroundings?

222. Or, shall we make our peace with nature and begin to make

223. reparations for the damage we have done to our air,

224. to our land, and to our water?

225. The founding of the EPA really came about because the nation

226. realized that there wasn't anyone paying attention to

227. the needs of protecting the environment.

228. But as the Deepwater Horizon event will demonstrate,

229. laws are one thing and enforcement is another.

230. They're some of the most powerful environmental

231. regulations in the world.

232. The fact is that they're just very often ignored,

233. and the laws broken.

234. The EPA, which begun under such promise and with such

235. bipartisan enthusiasm, in the decades since,

236. has become one of the most partisan tools and

237. weapons of modern American politics.

238. And where you live, and the color of your skin will help

239. determine when those regulations are enforced.

240. It's the poor and those who are racially excluded and

241. targeted who suffer the most.

242. I know I live at the back end of town,

243. and I should just be quiet, and not make a sound.

244. You might even find this a little profound,

245. but me and my neighbors are a light and dark shade of brown.

246. And you see this where there's lots and lots of oil refineries

247. and just enormous amounts of cancer.

248. Today's date is September the 19, 2017.

249. I get a call saying there's been some kind of explosion.

250. It looked like a storage tank of some sort just blew up.

251. Maybe in the Valero tank yard.

252. Port Arthur lies just 90 miles east of Houston...

253. on the Texas Gulf coast.

254. It's surrounded by a gauntlet of

255. petrochemical and hazardous waste facilities,

256. a lasting legacy of the role the city played in Texas history.

257. We have the Motiva oil refinery. We have Valero oil refinery.

258. And we also have Chevron Chemical,

259. and we have Oxbow Calcined Petroleum Coke facility

260. on the west side.

261. Veolia Chemical Incineration facility.

262. And on the east end of our town,

263. we have Total Oil Refinery,

264. the French owned company. Chemical,

265. a German owned company.

266. And we have Indorama, a chemical facility as well.

267. Along with a few other smaller refineries and chemical plants.

268. Here in east Texas, the petrochemical companies

269. have been earning vast sums of money for nearly a century,

270. while the residents of Port Arthur

271. and some more than others

272. have been paying a very high price.

273. The American Lung Association

274. gives Port Arthur's air quality an F.

275. Asthma rates for children are more than double

276. the national average.

277. And cancer rates are about 40% higher in the Black community

278. than in the rest of the state.

279. Well, on the west side of Port Arthur,

280. you have a disproportionate number of individuals that

281. suffer with respiratory issues.

282. One out of every five households have someone in it

283. that have to use a nebulizer to clear their,

284. their breathing passage.

285. Or they take breathing treatments before

286. they go to bed at night.

287. In Port Arthur, like in many southern communities,

288. the historical line dividing Black and white is a set of

289. railroad tracks that cuts across the town.

290. It's the legacy of Jim Crow, the set of racist laws that

291. enforced segregation in the South after the end of slavery.

292. Black citizens were forced to live on the

293. wrong side of the tracks',

294. right up until the end of the 1960s.

295. Where we're at now is the divide.

296. To my right, this is where white folks lived and

297. where we are turning now,

298. this is where all Black people had to live.

299. We are literally about to cross the railroad track and head

300. into the African American community.

301. I left Port Arthur when I was 18 years old.

302. I joined the United States Navy.

303. And, I decided to stay in California

304. when I got out of the service.

305. In 2000, Hilton Kelly came back home,

306. for what was supposed to be a short stay.

307. Every time I went home, somebody had died.

308. And it was always cancer related.

309. I noticed that the air still smelled kinda like rotten eggs.

310. It was real foul.

311. And so, May of 2000, I ended up moving back to Port Arthur,

312. and I started my mission with fighting

313. for environmental justice.

314. Right now, we're right next to the Motiva oil refinery.

315. They put out 633,000 barrels of oil per day.

316. Many times, when you have a power failure, those derricks,

317. those tall structures there.

318. Well, they have a flare coming off the tip of them,

319. 40 feet up in the air.

320. And you have this black smoke pouring off the tip of it.

321. And that's particulate matter.

322. In 2020, the three big petrochemical companies

323. in Port Arthur earned over $300 billion dollars

324. in revenue...

325. while the average income of people living in the shadow of

326. their facilities was under $20,000 a year,

327. with more than one in four living under the poverty line.

328. Meanwhile, in 2019,

329. the top four petrochemical companies in

330. Port Arthur released over a million pounds of pollutants.

331. Toxic, cancer-causing chemicals like benzine are often released

332. in these so-called "upset" events.

333. Many times, what you'll find is that the refineries get a

334. slap on the wrist from the state regulatory agencies

335. when it comes to actual fines.

336. And many times, the fine does not fit the crime.

337. 500,000 dollars, maybe a million dollars.

338. Even multi-million-dollar fines don't have much impact on a

339. company like Valero, with $102 billion in earnings and

340. a CEO that reportedly makes over 20 million a year.

341. And the fines often don't go to help the people injured

342. by the illegal activities.

343. Even when the Valero oil refinery had a major

344. federal fine posed against them, we had to

345. petition the Environmental Protection Agency

346. in Washington, D. C., and ask them to allow

347. some of that money to come back to the community

348. that was harmed by those emissions instead of

349. just putting it all in the treasury.

350. After a major fine was imposed by the federal government,

351. the offending company was also ordered to build a non-profit

352. healthcare center to serve low-income patients

353. they'd helped to make sick, on Port Arthur's west side.

354. And over here, what you see at the Gulf Coast Health Center,

355. the Valero oil refinery contributed to that

356. to the community.

357. I mean, everything that our community has gotten from the

358. oil and gas industries, we had to fight for it.

359. A lot of people are probably walking around here sick and

360. don't even know that they're sick.

361. But the cycle of contamination and fines

362. doesn't address the real problem.

363. Even if all the refineries shut down today,

364. west side residents are stuck living in a community that

365. has been permanently poisoned.

366. And stuck' is the right word.

367. Packing up and leaving is not a viable option.

368. You'd get maybe, for one of those houses on the

369. west end of town, you're looking at maybe $65,000.

370. You move across the railroad track that,

371. you just that's just a down payment on a house

372. on the other end of town.

373. And so, this is why you see so many Black and Brown people

374. living in heavily industrialized areas,

375. because we were forced to live there,

376. great-great grandmother started off there.

377. She passed a property on to your grandmother.

378. Your grandmother passed it on to your mom,

379. and your mom passed the property on to you.

380. Now, that's all they have.

381. So, systemic racism continues to keep

382. Black and Brown people stuck in low lying,

383. polluted communities.

384. Today about 70 million People of Color live in counties that

385. received a failing grade for ozone and particle pollution.

386. Wherever these big polluters are,

387. you will find predominantly Black people.

388. But it's very difficult to pull yourself up by your bootstraps

389. if you don't even have enough money to buy boots

390. to put on your feet.

391. I see your smoke rising in the air.

392. Two or three in the morning when you think no one is there.

393. In the still of the night, my child starts to sneeze.

394. In the still of the night, the other starts to wheeze.

395. Your bright, bright torch, it burns all night.

396. To find my way through the house,

397. I don't even need a light.

398. I know I live at the back end of town,

399. and I should just be quiet, and not make a sound.

400. You might even find this a little profound,

401. but me and my neighbors are a light and dark shade of brown.

402. But if you die tonight, would your killers confess to the

403. poisoning put inside you that laid you down to rest?

404. Would your family have to fight to pay your doctor bills,

405. as you lay six foot under up on a grassy hill?

406. Now your job is gone, and your company grievance has faded.

407. Your spouse and kids tried to collect from them,

408. but they said your death was not job related.

409. My toxic reality.

410. And for many of us, our toxic reality is on display

411. at the local hardware store.

412. Roundup herbicide by Monsanto.

413. You only see them talk about a concern for profit.

414. And keeping these products on the market at all cost and,

415. silencing and censoring and harassing

416. anybody who gets in their way.

417. Lee Johnson was a groundskeeper for the

418. Benicia School District in California.

419. His main job was spraying Roundup or Ranger Pro,

420. these products that were developed by Monsanto.

421. And he would spray them around the areas of the school

422. where children would congregate and play.

423. Johnson had a large tank filled with the chemical

424. mounted on the back of his truck.

425. He was wearing protective gear, but the tank sprayer broke off

426. from the hose and a large fountain of the

427. chemical exploded up into the air.

428. Lee is soaked to the skin.

429. And it was a few months later that he noticed a lesion

430. develop on his on his leg a little bit above his knee.

431. And over time, these lesions took over his whole body.

432. And he eventually was told he had a form of non-Hodgkin

433. lymphoma that was terminal, and he was given

434. about 18 months left to live.

435. I will now read the verdict in the matter of Dewayne Johnson,

436. plaintiff, versus Monsanto Company, defendant.

437. Was the Roundup Pro or Ranger Pro

438. a substantial factor in causing harm to Mr. Johnson?

439. yes.

440. Did Monsanto fail to adequately warn of the potential risks?

441. yes.

442. August 10, 2018. At age 46

443. four years after being diagnosed with terminal cancer

444. Dewayne Anthony Lee Johnson is handed

445. an historic victory in a landmark case.

446. The verdict makes headlines across the country.

447. A jury has just decided that agriculture giant Monsanto

448. is liable for allowing a cancer-causing chemical

449. in its products.

450. Today's jury awarded $289 million to Dewayne Johnson,

451. a school groundskeeper in northern California who says

452. use of Roundup led to a diagnosis of terminal

453. Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

454. So, to have the verdict of $289 million was just stunning.

455. One of the most important aspects of the Lee Johnson

456. trial and the trials that followed,

457. was the discovery of the internal Monsanto papers,

458. the documents, the emails, the records,

459. the memos, the reports...

460. that documented and showed that for,

461. you know, 40 some years, basically,

462. Monsanto had been working really hard to deceive

463. the public and to deceive regulators about

464. the risks of its products.

465. Roundup is better!

466. It goes through the plant to kill it.

467. But is it worth it?

468. Farm trials with Roundup made up to 12 more bushels an acre.

469. You don't see them talk about a concern for the public.

470. You only see them talk about a concern for profit.

471. It's the early 2000s.

472. Genetically modified crops may be heartier,

473. and more productive.

474. But to grow them, you need to buy the seeds,

475. then kill the weeds that root on their turf.

476. Conveniently, the same company that sells the seeds also sells

477. the herbicides that kill those weeds but leave

478. your super-plant standing.

479. Roundup Herbicide by Monsanto.

480. There's never been a herbicide like it before.

481. The key to unlocking the power of the pesticide

482. is a chemical called glyphosate.

483. Monsanto's seeds are genetically manipulated to be

484. resistant to the chemical, the key ingredient in

485. Roundup and Ranger Pro.

486. Why is your head in the ground?

487. I'm gonna watch Roundup kill these roots!

488. Hey, this is Spike's area!

489. Bob, Roundup can be used where kids and pets will play and

490. breaks down into natural material!

491. Come on down and take a peek.

492. Monsanto started out really as a chemical company,

493. but more of an industrial chemical company.

494. They actually were involved in the manufacturing of

495. Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.

496. Agent orange is Round Up on steroids an herbicide

497. developed to kill not just weeds but to wipe out

498. whole swaths of the Vietnamese jungle.

499. After the war, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese

500. citizens and American service members developed cancers.

501. And in Vietnam, an entire generation suffers

502. horrific birth defects.

503. But that didn't stop the company from promoting its new

504. patented chemical, glyphosate, as a high-tech miracle that

505. would degrade and disappear after it did its job.

506. Except, it didn't.

507. One - kills weeds to the roots. Two - forms a barrier,

508. preventing new ones for up to four months.

509. Roundup Extended Control.

510. While Lee Johnson was the first plaintiff to sue Monsanto for

511. causing his Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma,

512. 100,000 have followed since.

513. Monsanto's lawyers provided thousands of pages of data

514. to back-up their claim that their products

515. don't cause cancer.

516. One of the things that stood out to me the worst is that

517. when they told me that it was safe enough to drink.

518. It became a joke almost like, it was like, What?

519. Monsanto's defense has always been that,

520. while they feel great sympathy for people who suffer from

521. non-Hodgkin lymphoma, their products, you know,

522. are proven safe, and that it is simply, you know, junk science,

523. politically motivated scientists who say otherwise.

524. But internal documents uncovered by Carey Gillam show

525. that in 1983, a study funded by Monsanto and submitted to the

526. EPA, found glyphosate was causing cancer in mice.

527. Monsanto protested.

528. Monsanto then brought in an expert to look at the data

529. again and to give the EPA a new authoritative analysis.

530. The internal Monsanto documents show that the company

531. knew in advance that this scientist that they hired

532. was going to find a loophole.

533. If he could find a tumor in the control group mice,

534. then that would invalidate this cancer finding.

535. He did in fact, find a tumor, and that changed the

536. classification from possibly causing cancer to, you know,

537. doesn't cause cancer.

538. Like big oil and the Department of the Interior,

539. Monsanto figured out how to wield its power over the agency

540. that's supposed to keep it in check.

541. It is astonishing when you look at the EPA history,

542. and you look at how closely the EPA works to

543. protect the interests of these companies.

544. You see time and time again, EPA scientists,

545. the working guys and gals inside the agency,

546. really trying to do their jobs and raise their hands and say:

547. Hey, this looks like it could be dangerous.

548. You see the higher ups pushing down and censoring.

549. On the eve of the Lee Johnson verdict,

550. aspirin giant Bayer buys out Monsanto,

551. and in 2020 agrees to pay $11 billion

552. to settle other lawsuits.

553. But neither Lee nor his lawyers will see his $289 million.

554. The amount gets reduced on appeal

555. by more than 90 percent to $20.5 million.

556. And that was largely because Lee was expected to die so soon.

557. He was not expected to live a long life with a lot of

558. medical bills and a lot of suffering.

559. And under California law,

560. that reduces the damages that you can receive.

561. A large chemical corporation is found guilty,

562. then thrown a life preserver by the courts for the very same

563. reason they were held accountable to begin with:

564. their products were killing Lee Johnson.

565. Meanwhile, thousands of other sick plaintiffs

566. wait for their day in court.

567. The company maintains that they're just doing this,

568. you know, as a cost of business,

569. and it is no admission that their products are dangerous.

570. But as you'll see, Monsanto is not the only

571. multi-billion-dollar corporation battling the EPA

572. to keep its toxic chemicals on the market.

573. I just want to say one word to you.

574. - Just one word. - Yes, sir?

575. - Are you listening? - Yes, I am.

576. Plastics.

577. In The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman is pulled aside.

578. And the advice he's giving him, is that this is the future

579. that he should invest in.

580. There's a great future in plastics.

581. Think about it. Will you think about it?

582. Yes, I will.

583. And many, many people did.

584. In 1960s America, industrial chemistry and

585. its prized creation petroleum-based plastics

586. seemed to be the answer to

587. every problem posed to modern society.

588. Here's a scene that has long-since ceased

589. causing any surprise.

590. The womenfolk washing dishes made of plastic.

591. Dishes that bounce when they drop to the floor.

592. Around that time, science was really king.

593. Here we see coasters being packed for shipment.

594. And in a matter of minutes, the line could

595. be producing water tumblers or tomato slicers,

596. bread boxes or pitchers.

597. The future of plastics is bright indeed.

598. Science had helped end the war.

599. There were a lot of miraculous things invented,

600. including for example, penicillin.

601. So, people were not at all critical,

602. and there was not regulation.

603. People wanted to have this modern life.

604. What it comes down to is that the oil industry has to please

605. Mrs. Martin and millions just like her.

606. Already today, she's used some 87 petroleum products,

607. including the plastic bacon wrapper and

608. the wax of the milk carton.

609. These ads, for example...

610. better living through chemistry.

611. For this is the age of industrial chemistry.

612. All around us are the products of modern chemistry.

613. Plastic, an important part of your diet!

614. Babies being delivered in plastic.

615. This fit very well with the growth of the petrochemical

616. industry because the byproducts of the petrochemical industry

617. could be used to make these plastics,

618. which we're now facing damages from.

619. As America's post-war prosperity was producing

620. a baby boom, the big chemical companies

621. were cashing in. The Du Pont family,

622. founders of the chemical giant,

623. are still one of America's richest families,

624. worth over 16 billion today.

625. But the boom in chemicals was beginning, silently,

626. to poison future generations.

627. The new petrochemical titans had products that

628. reached into every corner of American life.

629. At this point, we are exposed to toxic chemicals

630. all day, every day.

631. The idea that you can escape them, at this point that,

632. you know, it's just not true. They're inescapable.

633. We drink lots of different contaminants in our water.

634. We breathe chemicals in dust.

635. And they're also coming through our skin.

636. The body is very permeable.

637. And so, these things will come in through

638. all of these entry points.

639. Unfortunately, unlike drugs and say, vaccines,

640. which we know have to be tested for safety and efficacy before

641. they're used, there wasn't that kind of regulation

642. in the United States.

643. In 1971, in response to public pressure,

644. Congress proposed the Toxic Substances Control Act.

645. But when the law was finally passed five years later later,

646. the chemical giants had found a way to keep

647. doing their toxic business as usual.

648. Industry knew that there were 62,000 chemicals

649. on the market at the time.

650. And they were worried that all of those chemicals

651. would have to undergo some sort of review.

652. So, in order to appease industry,

653. they allowed these chemicals to be grandfathered in.

654. And the coup of the chemical industry,

655. which was heavily involved in the writing of the legislation,

656. is that companies don't have to give the EPA data

657. on the safety of their chemicals.

658. Government gives the company the responsibility

659. to do their own testing. But it doesn't verify this,

660. and even when a company releases a product

661. that's found to be harmful, government has

662. very little authority to remove it from the market.

663. The EPA began with these lofty intentions, but all along,

664. they have been tasked with regulating industries that have

665. so much more money than they do,

666. and so much more power.

667. When you're flooded with dollars that can lobby,

668. that can influence senators, that can spend and spend and

669. spend and still not fully, you know,

670. erase the profits they're making,

671. you have an agency that's cowed by industry,

672. and they're scared in many cases.

673. So, by 2005, there were 82,000 chemicals

674. registered for use on the market.

675. And only 5 had been flagged as needing extra regulatory review.

676. The level of evidence that's required to convince regulators

677. to restrict a chemical is so high that

678. it very rarely happens.

679. In the rare case when a chemical is banned by the EPA,

680. there are no rules governing the replacement.

681. Nothing is done to make sure that the substitute chemical

682. is safer than the previous chemical.

683. One step forward and one step back.

684. It's a pattern that keeps consumers locked in

685. a dangerous status quo.

686. It's different from how Europe deals with the chemical

687. regulation, which is to use this precautionary principle

688. that we have to assume, if we don't know,

689. that it could potentially cause dangers.

690. The way we've done it is, to kind of flip that and to say,

691. We need to prove the risk to get it off the market.

692. We need a program like that so that a chemical is tested

693. before it's put into commerce. Otherwise, it's tested on us!

694. Right? We're the guinea pigs then.

695. Waiting till they're in the public and then doing studies

696. to figure out what harms they did, is just not sustainable.

697. You know, you pay for the costs of pollution by fighting

698. your personal battle with illness, right?

699. But it's not just a personal battle.

700. The toxic chemicals that surround us may be threatening

701. our very ability to survive as a species.

702. There did, indeed, seem to be a very significant

703. decline in sperm count over the prior 50 years.

704. This is a crisis.

705. A health alert tonight regarding sperm count.

706. Male sperm count has plummeted by 50% since the 1970s.

707. But why?

708. And this morning researchers are sounding the alarm.

709. It was a study that made headlines around the world and

710. left the scientific community struggling to make sense of

711. why it was happening.

712. If this trend continues, some epidemiologists predict

713. that sperm counts could reach zero by the year 2045.

714. The chemicals that were threatening the health of the

715. average person seemed to be posing an even bigger danger:

716. jeopardizing our future as a species.

717. The paper that really started the discussion claimed that

718. sperm count had declined significantly worldwide

719. over the prior 50 years.

720. I see a very concerning picture about the reproductive health

721. of our planet.

722. Shanna Swan is one of the world's leading environmental

723. and reproductive epidemiologists.

724. After confirming the results of the original study,

725. she was compelled to find out why it was happening.

726. Her findings were unsettling:

727. Americans, at large, were being poisoned.

728. The why is the big question.

729. I spent many years looking at how

730. environmental chemicals affect sperm count.

731. I focused on one particular class of chemicals: Phthalates.

732. They're in so many of our daily products.

733. They make plastic soft and flexible.

734. They are in shower curtains. They're in our cosmetics.

735. Because they help retain scent and color,

736. the chemicals are used in nail polish, lipstick and hairspray.

737. Phthalates also increase absorption,

738. so they're found in hand creams,

739. suntan lotions and even pesticides.

740. Phthalates are part of a group of chemicals known as

741. endocrine disruptors.

742. Endocrine disrupting chemicals can interfere with

743. the body's natural hormone system.

744. So, the effect of these chemicals on birth,

745. and birth rate, is huge.

746. But there's no doubt that the entire organism is affected.

747. We have really an epidemic of particularly endocrine related

748. problems that we know are linked to chemical exposure.

749. The declining sperm counts are one signal that we get about

750. the reproductive health of the planet.

751. Most of us have these within our bodies.

752. We've been altered, and that was not a decision

753. that we were allowed to make.

754. It was a decision that was essentially made

755. by these corporations.

756. Every living creature on the planet has been found with

757. plastic in their bodies, when it's been looked for.

758. And of course, we use these animals for food.

759. In order to really protect yourself from chemicals,

760. you would have to, in a sense, live in a bubble,

761. where you're exposed to only those things that you have

762. direct control over.

763. And the truth is, no one can do that.

764. It's really frustrating to be someone who has spent

765. so many years now interacting with and

766. studying the EPA, the USDA, the FDA,

767. to see how manipulated and how corrupt...

768. and how much collusion goes on within the agency.

769. And it really shouldn't be that way.

770. They should be implementing policies to protect.

771. And they have not been doing that.

772. We keep coming back to the power of profit.

773. And that sounds like there's someone, you know,

774. really evil in a back room surrounded by bags of money

775. that doesn't care about human well-being.

776. But in the end, profit is a powerful motivator.

777. And, the truth is, reforming our regulatory system

778. is gonna take so much work,

779. and it's really going to require the

780. industry does business very differently.