Project Censored for 1998

compiled from Project Censored's release notes by Ellen Sander

Censored or underreported news stories are published in the newly released Project Censored yearbook, Censored 1998: The News that Didn't Make the News. In addition to top stories missed by mainstream media in 1997, the yearbook contains timely articles and reviews on the media, the continuing conglomerization of news and information industries in the U.S., a review of the status of previously cited underreported stories, and resource guides to mainstream and alternative media.

Project Censored is based at Sonoma State University in Northern California. It identifies stories about significant issues that are not widely publicized by the national mainstream news media. The annual project is conducted by more than 125 faculty, student researchers and interns, and community experts. The final 25 censored stories are ranked in order of significance by a panel of national judges including members of the media, authors and educators.

Censored 1998: The News That Didn't Make the News, is published by Seven Stories Press, 212-995-0908. For additional information contact Peter Phillips at Project Censored 707-664-2500 or e-mail phillipp@sonoma.edu

How Stories Are Selected

Selection of the "most censored" stories of the year is a complex task involving hundreds of people nationally. This year, close to 1,000 nominated news stories were screened by Project Censored staff. The nominations came to us from supporters all over the world. In addition, we, in cooperation with the Data Center in Oakland, California, monitored over 700 alternative/independent media sources, looking for important under-covered stories.

After screening, (we set aside purely op-ed items and news stories not fitting our October 15th annual cycle), we referred 610 stories to 68 faculty and community evaluators, using a standardized grading sheet to weigh the story for importance and credibility. The 160 highest-rated stories are researched by Sonoma State University students for levels of coverage in the mainstream press. The top fifty stories with the highest importance rating and lowest coverage levels are read by faculty and students, and, in November, the vote is tallied. Finally, the top 25 stories are ranked by our national judges for their national significance.

Here is a synopsis of 5 of the articles from the yearbook. We strongly recommend you read the whole book.

CENSORED: PERSONAL CARE AND COSMETIC PRODUCTS MAY BE CARCINOGENIC

Do you use toothpaste, shampoo, sunscreen, body lotion, body talc, makeup, or hair dye? These are among the personal care products the American consumer has been led to believe are safe but that are often contaminated with carcinogenic byproducts, or that contain substances that regularly react to form potent carcinogens during storage and use.

Consumers regularly assume that these products are not harmful because they believe that they are approved for safety by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). But although the FDA classifies cosmetics (dividing them into 13 categories), it does not regulate them. An FDA document posted on the agency's World Wide Web home page explains that "a cosmetic manufacturer may use any ingredient or raw material and market the final product without government approval." (This is with the exception of seven known toxins, such as hexachlorophene, mercury compounds, and chloroform). Should the FDA deem a product a danger to public health, it has the power to pull a cosmetic product from the shelves, but in many of these cases the FDA has failed to do so, while evidence mounts that some of the most common cosmetic ingredients may double as deadly carcinogens.

Examples of products with potential carcinogens are: Clairol "Nice and Easy" haircolor, which releases carcinogenic formaldehyde as well as Cocamide DEA (a substance which can be contaminated with carcinogenic nitrosamines or react to produce a nitrosamine during storage or use); Vidal Sassoon shampoo (which like the hair dye, contains Cocamide DEA); Cover Girl makeup contains TEA (which is also associated with carcinogenic nitrosamines); Crest toothpaste which contains titanium dioxide, saccharin, and FD&C Blue # 1 (known carcinogens).

One of the cosmetic toxins that consumer advocates are most concerned about are nitrosamines, which contaminate a wide variety of cosmetic products. In the 1970s nitrosamine contamination of cooked bacon and other nitrite-treated meats became a public-health issue, and the food industry, which is more strictly regulated than the cosmetic industry, has since drastically lowered the amount of nitrosamines found in these processed meats. But today nitrosamines contaminate cosmetics at significantly higher levels than were once contained in bacon.

The FDA has long known that nitrosamines in cosmetics pose a risk to public health. On April 10, 1979, FDA commissioner Donald Kennedy called on the cosmetic industry to "take immediate measures to eliminate, to the extent possible, NDELA [a potent nitrosamine] and any other N-nitrosamine from cosmetic products." Since that warning, however, cosmetic manufacturers have done little to remove N-nitrosamines from their products, and the FDA has done even less to monitor them.

Individual FDA scientists are speaking out. The FDA's Donald Harvey and Hardy Chou proclaimed that the continued use of these ingredients contradict what should be a social goal: keeping "human exposure to N-nitrosamines to the lowest level technologically feasible, by reducing levels in all personal care products."

Sources: In These Times, February 17, 1997, "To Die For" by Joel Bleifuss; In These Times, March 3, 1997, "Take a Powder" by Joel Bleifuss

CENSORED: UNITED STATES COMPANIES ARE WORLD LEADERS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF TORTURE DEVICES FOR INTERNAL USE AND EXPORT

In its March 1997 report entitled "Recent Cases of the Use of Electroshock Weapons for Torture or Ill-Treatment," Amnesty International lists 100 companies worldwide that produce and sell instruments of torture. Forty-two of these firms are in the United States. This places the U.S. as the leader in the manufacture of stun guns, stun belts, cattle probe-like devices, and other equipment which can cause devastating pain in the hands of torturers.

According to the Amnesty International report, the following are some of the American companies currently engaged in the production and sale of such weapons: Arianne International of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida; B-west Imports Inc., of Tucson, Arizona; and Taserton, of Corona, California. Arianne International makes the "Myotron," a compact version of the stun gun. B-West joined with Paralyzer Protection, a South African company, to produce shock batons that deliver a charge of between 80,000 and 120,000 volts. Taserton was the first company to manufacture the taser, a product which shoots two wires attached to darts with metal hooks. When these hooks catch a victim's skin or clothing, the device delivers a debilitating shock. Los Angeles police officers used the device against Rodney King in 1991.

These weapons are currently in use in the U.S. and are being exported to countries all over the world. The U.S. government is a large purchaser of stun devices--especially stun guns, electroshock batons, and electric shields. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Amnesty both claim the devices are unsafe and may encourage sadistic acts by police officers and prison guards--both here and abroad. "Stun belts offer enormous possibilities for abuse and the infliction of gratuitous pain," says Jenni Gainsbourough of the ACLU's National Prison Project. She adds that because use of the belt leaves little physical evidence, this increases the likelihood of sadistic, but hard-to-prove, misuse of these weapons. In June 1996, Amnesty International asked the Bureau of Prisons to suspend the use of electroshock belt, citing the possibility of physical danger to inmates and the potential for misuse.

Manufacturers of electroshock weapons continue to denounce allegations that use of their devices is dangerous and may constitute a gross violation of human rights. Instead, they are making more advanced innovations. A new stun weapon may soon be added to police arsenals--the electroshock razor wire, specially designed for surrounding demonstrators who get out of hand.

Sources: The Progressive, September 1997, "Shock Value: U.S. Stun Devices Pose Human-Rights Risk." by Anne-Marie Cusae.

CENSORED: RUSSIAN PLUTONIUM LOST OVER CHILE AND BOLIVIA

On November 16, 1996, Russia's Mars 96 space probe broke up and burned while descending over Chile and Bolivia, scattering its remains across a 10,000-square-mile area. The probe carried about a half pound of deadly plutonium divided into 4 battery canisters, and no one seems to know where they went! Gordon Bendick, Director of Legislative Affairs for the National Security Council, states there are two possibilities. Either the... "canisters were destroyed coming through the atmosphere [and the plutonium dispersed], or the canisters survived re-entry, impacted the earth, and...penetrated the surface...or could have hit a rock and bounced off like an agate marble."

This amount of plutonium has the potential to cause devastating damage. According to Dr. Helen Caldicott, president emeritus of Physicians for Social Responsibility, "Plutonium is so toxic that less that one millionth of a gram is a carcinogenic dose." She states: "One pound, if uniformly distributed, could hypothetically induce lung cancer in every person on earth." Dr. John Gofman, professor emeritus of radiological physics at the University of California, Berkeley confirms the increased hazard of lung cancer which would occur if the probe burned up and formed plutonium oxide particles.

On November 17, when the U.S. Space Command announced the probe would re-enter the earth's atmosphere with a predicted impact point in East Central Australia, President Clinton telephoned the Australian Prime Minister John Howard and offered "the assets the U.S. has in the Department of Energy," to deal with any radioactive contamination. Howard placed the Australian military and government on full alert and warned the public to use "extreme caution" if they came in contact with the remnants of the Russian space probe.

In the first of a series of blunders, the day after the space probe had fallen on South America, the Space Command remained focused on Australia. Later they reported the probe had fallen in the Pacific, just west of South America. A Russian news source put the site in a different patch of the Pacific altogether. Major media in the United States reported the probe as having crashed "harmlessly" into the ocean. On November 18, 1996 The Washington Post ran the headline: "Errant Russian Spacecraft Crashes Harmlessly After Scaring Australia."

On November 29, U.S. Space Command completely revised its account. It changed not only where, but also when the probe fell. The final report placed the crash site not west of South America, but directly on Chile and Bolivia. The date of the crash was also revised from November 17 to November 16, the night before. Apparently, U.S. Space Command had initially tracked the booster stage of the Russian craft, and not the actual probe itself.

The New York Times mentioned the incident on page 7 under "World Briefs" on December 14, 1996. The Russian government has been uncooperative, still refusing to give Chile a description of the canisters to aid in retrieval efforts.

Source: CovertActionQuarterly, Spring 1997, "Space Probe Explodes", by Karl Grossman.

CENSORED: NORPLANT AND HUMAN EXPERIMENTS IN THIRD WORLD LEAD TO FORCED USE IN THE UNITED STATES

Low-income women in the United States, and in the Third World, have been the unwitting targets of a U.S. policy to control birth-rates. Despite continuous reports of debilitating effects of the drug Norplant, women here and in the Third World, who have received the implantable contraceptive, have had difficulty making their complaints heard, and in some instances have been deceived, according to our resources.

Joseph D'Agostino reports on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) documentary "The Human Laboratory" which accused the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), of acting in conjunction with the Population Council of New York City, to use uninformed women in Bangladesh, Haiti, and the Philippines for tests of Norplant. Many of these women were subjects in pre-injection drug trials that began in 1985 in Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest countries. Norplant is a set of six plastic cylinders containing a synthetic version of a female hormone. It is intended to prevent pregnancy for five years. Surgery is required for removal--at a cost far beyond the reach of low-income women, whether in Bangladesh or the United States if the removal is not subsidized.

The BBC documentary said the women stated that they had been told that the drug was safe and not experimental. Implantation was free. One woman interviewed in the documentary said that after implantation, suddenly her body became weak, and that she couldn't get up, look after her children, or cook. Other women reported similar problems, stating that when they asked to have Norplant removed, they were told it would ruin the study. The Narrator of the documentary, Farida Akhter, recounted that when another woman begged to have the implant removed--saying "I'm dying, please help me get it out"--she was told, "Okay, when you die, inform us, we'll get it out of your body." Many women who were used in the trials have suffering from eyesight disorders, strokes, persistent bleeding and other side effects.

Now Norplant devices are figuring in reproductive rights policies in the U.S. as well. Journalist Rebecca Kavoussi reports that the reproductive rights of women addicted to drugs or alcohol have once again become the focus of legislation. Senate Bill 5278, now under consideration in the state of Washington, would require "involuntary use of long-term pharmaceutical birth control" (Norplant) for women who give birth to drug-addicted babies. Under this proposal, a woman who gives birth to a drug-addicted baby would get two chances--the first voluntary, the second mandatory--to undergo drug treatment and counseling. Upon the birth of a third drug-addicted child, the state would force the mother to undergo surgery to insert the Norplant contraceptive.

Jennifer Washburn focuses on Medicaid rejection of Norplant removals in the U.S. State Medicaid agencies, for example, often generously cover the cost of Norplant insertion but don't cover removal before the full five years. Although Medicaid policy may cover early removal "when determined "medically necessary, " medical necessity is determined by the provider and the Medicaid agency, not the patient.

Sources: 7. November/December 1996, "The misuses of Norplant, Who Gets Stuck?" by Jennifer Washburn; Wahington Free Press, March/ April 1997, ":Norplant and the dark Side of The Law" by Rebecca Kavoussi; Human Events, May 16, 1997, "BBC Documentary Claims That U.S. Foreign Aid Funded Norplant Testing On Uninformed Third World Women" by Joseph D' Agostino.

CENSORED: LITTLE KNOWN FEDERAL LAW PAVES THE WAY FOR NATIONAL IDENTIFICATION CARD

In September 1996, President Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act of 1996. Buried at approximately page 650 was a section that creates a framework for establishing a national ID card for the American public. This legislation was slipped through without fanfare or publicity. This law has various aspects: It establishes a "Machine Readable Document Pilot Program" requiring employers to swipe a prospective employee's driver's license through a special reader linked to the federal government's Social Security Administration. The federal government would have the discretion to approve or disapprove the applicant for employment. In this case, the driver's license becomes a "national ID card." The government would have comprehensive files on all American citizens' names, dates and places of birth, mothers' maiden names, Social Security numbers, gender, race, driving records, child support payments, divorce status, hair and eye color, height, weight, and anything else they may dream up in the future."

Another part of the law provides $5 million-per-year grants to any state that wants to participate in any one of three pilot ID programs. One of these programs is the "Criminal Alien Identification Program," which is to be used by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to record fingerprints of aliens previously arrested.

The author of the national ID law, Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), stated in a Capitol Hill magazine that it was her intention to see Congress immediately implement a national ID system whereby every American would be required to carry a card with a "magnetic strip on it on which the bearer's unique voice, retina pattern, or fingerprint is digitally encoded." Congressman Dick Armey (R-TX), among others, has strongly denounced the new law, calling it "an abomination, and wholly at odds with the American tradition of individual freedom."

Source: Witwigo, May/June 1997, "National I.D. Card is Now Federal Law and Georgia Wants To Help Lead The Way" by Cyndee Parker.