02x05 - Nuke Nightmares

[bunniefuu]

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

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

They're inescapable.

For decades, companies have
put the health of their

bottom line,
above the health of citizens.

You don't see a concern
for the public.

You only see them talk about
a concern for profit.

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

...while censoring
and harassing

anybody who gets
in their way.

We don't want your toxic...

The public demands action
to stem the toxic tide.

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

The founding of the EPA came
about because the nation

realized that there
wasn't anyone

protecting the environment.

But its secret history
reveals how the

Environmental Protection
Agency became more about

the protection
of big business.

It is astonishing how
closely the EPA works

to protect the interests of
these companies.

[Cheering]

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

under the bright lights...

The protection of the lives
and property of Americans

is the responsibility of
all public officials.

I care, we're trying.

We have it so well
under control.

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

But for decades, America's
shadow government and

its powerful friends have
spent trillions of dollars

on an agenda that serves
their interests, not ours.

You guys paid for all this.

So, when the sh*t
really hits the fan,

we're on our own.

This is not science fiction.

This is reality in
America right now.

The truth is, the rich and
powerful will do

whatever it takes to
save themselves...

While The Rest of Us Die.

[Helicopter chuff
& people shouting]

April 20th, 2010.

In the Gulf of Mexico,
a fireball lights up

the night sky, visible
from 40 miles away.

An expl*si*n has ripped apart
the Deepwater Horizon,

a massive oil rig in the Gulf.

First responders begin battling
the blaze and evacuating crew.

But eleven rig workers
are lost at sea.

As the oil inferno burns
on into the next day,

a man identifying himself as
a BP official reports

everything is under control.

It would turn out to be
the largest marine

oil spill in history.

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

Uh it has gone
under the surface.

At about 10:21 this morning.

We've got...

the potential 336,000
gallons of crude oil per day

coming out of that well.

After two days,
the Deepwater Horizon sinks,

rupturing its connection
at the sea floor.

[Reporter]
The spill grows.

It's now a blob the size
of Delaware and

Rhode Island, combined.

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

of crude oil spew
into the Gulf

threatening hundreds of
thousands of jobs and

an entire marine ecosystem.

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

so painfully clear the moral
hazard that these companies

took on, that they were
extracting the wealth and

the fossil fuels.

And yet,
if anything went wrong,

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

that stepped in to try to solve
the catastrophe afterwards.

Frustration over the spill has
been simmering for weeks,

even in the Oval Office.

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

an angry President Obama
snapped at a meeting,

quote: Plug the damn hole .

It takes 87 days before
the Deepwater well

is finally capped.

By that time, more than


have spilled into the sea.

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

BP is eventually forced to pay
more than $20 billion

in damages to the
families of the dead,

and to clean up the Gulf.

That settlement shifts blame
away from the US government

department responsible for
keeping this from

ever happening: The
Department of Interior and

its Minerals
Management Service.

Rather than checking out the
rig independently,

they simply took BP and its
partners at their word

that the project was safe.

But for the Interior
Department,

being in the pocket of
companies like BP and helping

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

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

We're lucky, Candy.
Not only us,

but millions of other folks
all over the country.

Able to enjoy the forest,
trees, water.

[Singing]

In the eyes of the public,
the Interior Department is

a folksy bureaucracy
responsible for conserving

forest land and running
national parks.

Smokey!

While most Americans think of
the Department of the Interior

as park rangers and
Smokey the Bear hats,

it is really the Mineral
Management Service that

is in many ways the heart
of that department.

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

on our daily life.

It is the agency in charge of
helping industry maximize the

wealth and extraction of
fossil fuels and minerals

from across the
nation's public lands.

[Bang]!

The Department of Interior's
role has been

quite explicitly to...

make the resources of the
United States available

to big business.

The Department of Interior
has opened forests to

lumbering interests,
and public lands

to mining and drilling.

Yet, we, the taxpayers,
lose money in allowing

these corporate interests to
have our resources.

But this goes back to the
founding of the country.

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

But from the very first days
of independence,

each colony had its eyes set
on westward expansion.

And they all have these western
land claims that extend

as far as they can imagine.

America's land claims
include vast swaths of land

inhabited by people who'd
been there for millennia.

But none of that mattered.

In the eyes of the
federal government,

all that territory represented
a virtually endless source of

natural resources,
ripe for exploitation.

A series of wars and broken
treaties keep pushing the

country's borders outward.

There's the,
the Louisiana Purchase.

That more than doubles
the size of the US.

Then, the Mexican American w*r.

Texas, New Mexico, Arizona,

Nevada, Utah, California,

all taken from Mexico by force.

[g*nf*re]

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

has always been the rush
for natural resources.

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

And this has been
a key part of

the Department
of the Interior's

mission since the earliest days
of the department.

Today the job of building
this nation geographically

is completed.

There are no new frontiers
within our borders.

To what new horizons
can we look now?

As the 20th Century dawns,
the US government expands

its push for natural
resources around the world

all with the help of the
Department of the Interior.

Guam, Puerto Rico
are acquired in 1898.

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

gives way to informal empire.

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

establish dominion
over new places.

It realizes that financial
control, military control,

diplomatic control can be
exercised without

the formal trappings
of possession.

And this desire to control the
resources of other countries

goes into overdrive when the
Cold w*r competition with

the Soviet Union for global
supremacy becomes

a national obsession.

So much of the Cold w*r was
really a battle for natural

resources and fossil fuels
around the world.

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

battling communism, few
realize the shadowy role

the Department of the
Interior plays in this

planetary game of thrones.

You would often see engineers
and scientists from the

Department of the Interior,
helping to identify the targets

for diplomatic interventions,
for covert actions,

for the desire to
bring in the CIA.

One of those targets is Iran.

The Shah who had fled to Rome,
comes home.

After its elected government
nationalizes its lucrative

western-controlled oil
industry in 1953,

the CIA works behind the
scenes to overthrow it.

Iranian oil may again
flow westward.

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

was unparalleled
in world history.

This was a moment when the
US desperately needed

more oil wherever it
could be found.

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

oil is a useless mixture of
very useful substances.

Oil, the mineral on which the
whole world depends,

and which is won
with so much effort

in so many distant places.

Abroad or back
in the States,

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

So, the federal government
claims new territory for

exploitation, on the
continental shelf off the coast.

Lyndon Johnson greatly expanded
at huge environmental risk,

the nation's exploration
of the continental shelf,

which turned out to be
rich for oil.

And so, the Department of the
Interior opened up offshore

drilling in a way that America
had never seen before.

And soon after,

what some people feared
would happen, happens.

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

an expl*si*n as part of an
oil exploration project,

left oil gushing into one of
the most pristine

natural environments
in the country.

The spill exposes the
Department of the Interior's

willingness to let big oil
engage in dangerous drilling.

Now, a nation galvanized by
protests against the

Vietnam w*r, turns its
attention to saving

the environment,
and demands action.

So, this culminates with the
Nixon administration,

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

presiding over the
creation of the

Environmental
Protection Agency.

Signing into law the
Clean Air Act,

the Clean Water Act, the
Endangered Species Act.

The great question
of the 70s is,

shall we surrender to our
surroundings?

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

reparations for the damage we
have done to our air,

to our land, and to our water?

The founding of the EPA really
came about because the nation

realized that there wasn't
anyone paying attention to

the needs of protecting
the environment.

But as the Deepwater Horizon
event will demonstrate,

laws are one thing and
enforcement is another.

They're some of the most
powerful environmental

regulations in the world.

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

and the laws broken.

The EPA, which begun under
such promise and with such

bipartisan enthusiasm,
in the decades since,

has become one of the most
partisan tools and

weapons of modern
American politics.

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

determine when those
regulations are enforced.

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

targeted who
suffer the most.

I know I live at the
back end of town,

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

You might even find this
a little profound,

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

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

and just enormous
amounts of cancer.

Today's date is
September the 19, 2017.

I get a call saying there's
been some kind of expl*si*n.

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

Maybe in the Valero tank yard.

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

on the Texas Gulf coast.

It's surrounded by
a gauntlet of

petrochemical and hazardous
waste facilities,

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

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

And we also have
Chevron Chemical,

and we have Oxbow Calcined
Petroleum Coke facility

on the west side.

Veolia Chemical
Incineration facility.

And on the east end
of our town,

we have Total Oil Refinery,

the French owned company.
BASF Chemical,

a German owned company.

And we have Indorama,
a chemical facility as well.

Along with a few other smaller
refineries and chemical plants.

Here in east Texas,
the petrochemical companies

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

while the residents
of Port Arthur

and some more than others

have been paying a
very high price.

The American
Lung Association

gives Port Arthur's
air quality an F.

Asthma rates for children
are more than double

the national average.

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

than in the rest of the state.

Well, on the west side
of Port Arthur,

you have a disproportionate
number of individuals that

suffer with respiratory issues.

One out of every five
households have someone in it

that have to use a
nebulizer to clear their,

their breathing passage.

Or they take breathing
treatments before

they go to bed at night.

In Port Arthur, like in many
southern communities,

the historical line dividing
Black and white is a set of

railroad tracks that cuts
across the town.

It's the legacy of Jim Crow,
the set of r*cist laws that

enforced segregation in the
South after the end of sl*very.

Black citizens were forced
to live on the

wrong side of the tracks',

right up until the end
of the 1960s.

Where we're at now
is the divide.

To my right, this is where
white folks lived and

where we are turning now,

this is where all Black
people had to live.

We are literally about to cross
the railroad track and head

into the African American
community.

I left Port Arthur when
I was 18 years old.

I joined the United States Navy.

And, I decided to
stay in California

when I got out
of the service.

In 2000, Hilton Kelly
came back home,

for what was supposed
to be a short stay.

Every time I went home,
somebody had died.

And it was always
cancer related.

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

It was real foul.

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

and I started my mission
with fighting

for environmental justice.

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

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

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

those tall structures there.

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



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

And that's
particulate matter.

In 2020, the three big
petrochemical companies

in Port Arthur earned over
$300 billion dollars

in revenue...

while the average income of
people living in the shadow of

their facilities was under
$20,000 a year,

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

Meanwhile, in 2019,

the top four petrochemical
companies in

Port Arthur released over a
million pounds of pollutants.

Toxic, cancer-causing chemicals
like benzine are often released

in these so-called
"upset" events.

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

slap on the wrist from the
state regulatory agencies

when it comes
to actual fines.

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


maybe a million dollars.

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

company like Valero, with
$102 billion in earnings and

a CEO that reportedly makes
over 20 million a year.

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

by the ill*gal activities.

Even when the Valero oil
refinery had a major

federal fine posed against
them, we had to

petition the Environmental
Protection Agency

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

some of that money to come
back to the community

that was harmed by
those emissions instead of

just putting it all
in the treasury.

After a major fine was imposed
by the federal government,

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

healthcare center to serve
low-income patients

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

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

the Valero oil refinery
contributed to that

to the community.

I mean, everything that our
community has gotten from the

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

A lot of people are probably
walking around here sick and

don't even know
that they're sick.

But the cycle of
contamination and fines

doesn't address
the real problem.

Even if all the refineries
shut down today,

west side residents are stuck
living in a community that

has been permanently
poisoned.

And stuck' is the
right word.

Packing up and leaving is
not a viable option.

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

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

You move across the
railroad track that,

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

on the other end of town.

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

living in heavily
industrialized areas,

because we were
forced to live there,

great-great grandmother
started off there.

She passed a property on
to your grandmother.

Your grandmother passed it
on to your mom,

and your mom passed the
property on to you.

Now, that's all they have.

So, systemic racism
continues to keep

Black and Brown people
stuck in low lying,

polluted communities.

Today about 70 million People
of Color live in counties that

received a failing grade for
ozone and particle pollution.

Wherever these big
polluters are,

you will find predominantly
Black people.

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

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

to put on your feet.

I see your smoke
rising in the air.

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

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

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

Your bright, bright torch,
it burns all night.

To find my way
through the house,

I don't even need a light.

I know I live at the
back end of town,

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

You might even find this
a little profound,

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

But if you die tonight, would
your K*llers confess to the

poisoning put inside you that
laid you down to rest?

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

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

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

Your spouse and kids tried
to collect from them,

but they said your death
was not job related.

My toxic reality.
My toxic reality.

My toxic reality.

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

at the local hardware store.

Roundup herbicide by Monsanto.

You only see them talk about
a concern for profit.

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

silencing and censoring and
harassing

anybody who gets
in their way.

Lee Johnson was a
groundskeeper for the

Benicia School District
in California.

His main job was spraying
Roundup or Ranger Pro,

these products that were
developed by Monsanto.

And he would spray them around
the areas of the school

where children would
congregate and play.

Johnson had a large tank
filled with the chemical

mounted on the
back of his truck.

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

from the hose and a
large fountain of the

chemical exploded
up into the air.

Lee is soaked to the skin.

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

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

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

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

lymphoma that was terminal,
and he was given

about 18 months
left to live.

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

plaintiff, versus Monsanto
Company, defendant.

Was the Roundup Pro
or Ranger Pro

a substantial factor in
causing harm to Mr. Johnson?

Answer: yes.

Did Monsanto fail to adequately
warn of the potential risks?

Answer: yes.

August 10, 2018.
At age 46

four years after being diagnosed
with terminal cancer

Dewayne Anthony Lee
Johnson is handed

an historic victory
in a landmark case.

The verdict makes headlines
across the country.

A jury has just decided that
agriculture giant Monsanto

is liable for allowing a
cancer-causing chemical

in its products.

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

a school groundskeeper in
northern California who says

use of Roundup led to a
diagnosis of terminal

Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

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

One of the most important
aspects of the Lee Johnson

trial and the trials
that followed,

was the discovery of the
internal Monsanto papers,

the documents, the emails,
the records,

the memos, the reports...

that documented and
showed that for,

you know, 40 some years,
basically,

Monsanto had been working
really hard to deceive

the public and to deceive
regulators about

the risks of its products.

Roundup is better!

It goes through the
plant to k*ll it.

But is it worth it?

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

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

You only see them talk about
a concern for profit.

It's the early 2000s.

Genetically modified crops
may be heartier,

and more productive.

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

then k*ll the weeds that
root on their turf.

Conveniently, the same company
that sells the seeds also sells

the herbicides that k*ll
those weeds but leave

your super-plant standing.

Roundup Herbicide by Monsanto.

There's never been a
herbicide like it before.

The key to unlocking the
power of the pesticide

is a chemical called
glyphosate.

Monsanto's seeds are
genetically manipulated to be

resistant to the chemical,
the key ingredient in

Roundup and Ranger Pro.

Why is your head in the ground?

I'm gonna watch Roundup
k*ll these roots!

Hey, this is Spike's area!

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

breaks down into
natural material!

Come on down and take a peek.

Monsanto started out really as
a chemical company,

but more of an industrial
chemical company.

They actually were involved
in the manufacturing of

Agent Orange during
the Vietnam w*r.

Agent orange is Round Up
on steroids an herbicide

developed to k*ll not just
weeds but to wipe out

whole swaths of the
Vietnamese jungle.

After the w*r, hundreds of
thousands of Vietnamese

citizens and American service
members developed cancers.

And in Vietnam, an entire
generation suffers

horrific birth defects.

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

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

would degrade and disappear
after it did its job.

Except, it didn't.

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

preventing new ones for
up to four months.

Roundup Extended Control.

While Lee Johnson was the first
plaintiff to sue Monsanto for

causing his Non-Hodgkin's
Lymphoma,



Monsanto's lawyers provided
thousands of pages of data

to back-up their claim
that their products

don't cause cancer.

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

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

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

Monsanto's defense
has always been that,

while they feel great sympathy
for people who suffer from

non-Hodgkin lymphoma,
their products, you know,

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

politically motivated
scientists who say otherwise.

But internal documents
uncovered by Carey Gillam show

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

EPA, found glyphosate was
causing cancer in mice.

Monsanto protested.

Monsanto then brought in an
expert to look at the data

again and to give the EPA
a new authoritative analysis.

The internal Monsanto documents
show that the company

knew in advance that this
scientist that they hired

was going to
find a loophole.

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

then that would invalidate
this cancer finding.

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

classification from possibly
causing cancer to, you know,

doesn't cause cancer.

Like big oil and the
Department of the Interior,

Monsanto figured out how to
wield its power over the agency

that's supposed to
keep it in check.

It is astonishing when you
look at the EPA history,

and you look at how closely
the EPA works to

protect the interests of
these companies.

You see time and time again,
EPA scientists,

the working guys and gals
inside the agency,

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

Hey, this looks like it
could be dangerous .

You see the higher ups pushing
down and censoring.

On the eve of the
Lee Johnson verdict,

aspirin giant Bayer buys out
Monsanto,

and in 2020], agrees to pay
$11 billion to settle other
lawsuits

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

The amount gets
reduced on appeal

by more than 90 percent
to $20.5 million.

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

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

medical bills and
a lot of suffering.

And under California law,

that reduces the damages
that you can receive.

A large chemical corporation
is found guilty,

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

reason they were held
accountable to begin with:

their products were
k*lling Lee Johnson.

Meanwhile, thousands of
other sick plaintiffs

wait for their day in court.

The company maintains that
they're just doing this,

you know, as a
cost of business,

and it is no admission that
their products are dangerous.

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

multi-billion-dollar
corporation battling the EPA

to keep its toxic chemicals
on the market.

I just want to say
one word to you.

- Just one word.
- Yes, sir?

- Are you listening?
- Yes, I am.

Plastics.

In The Graduate,
Dustin Hoffman is pulled aside.

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

that he should invest in.

There's a great
future in plastics.

Think about it.
Will you think about it?

Yes, I will.

And many, many people did.

In 1960s America,
industrial chemistry and

its prized creation
petroleum-based plastics

seemed to be the answer to

every problem posed
to modern society.

Here's a scene that has
long-since ceased

causing any surprise.

The womenfolk washing dishes
made of plastic.

Dishes that bounce when
they drop to the floor.

Around that time,
science was really king.

Here we see coasters being
packed for shipment.

And in a matter of minutes,
the line could

be producing water tumblers
or tomato slicers,

bread boxes or pitchers.

The future of plastics
is bright indeed.

Science had helped end the w*r.

There were a lot of
miraculous things invented,

including for example,
penicillin.

So, people were not
at all critical,

and there was not regulation.

People wanted to have
this modern life.

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

Mrs. Martin and
millions just like her.

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

including the plastic
bacon wrapper and

the wax of the milk carton.

These ads, for example...

better living through chemistry.

For this is the age of
industrial chemistry.

All around us are the products
of modern chemistry.

Plastic, an important
part of your diet!

Babies being
delivered in plastic.

This fit very well with the
growth of the petrochemical

industry because the byproducts
of the petrochemical industry

could be used to
make these plastics,

which we're now facing
damages from.

As America's post-w*r
prosperity was producing

a baby boom, the big
chemical companies

were cashing in.
The Du Pont family,

founders
of the chemical giant,

are still one of America's
richest families,

worth over 16 billion today.

But the boom in chemicals
was beginning, silently,

to poison future generations.

The new petrochemical titans
had products that

reached into every corner
of American life.

At this point, we are
exposed to toxic chemicals

all day, every day.

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

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

We drink lots of different
contaminants in our water.

We breathe chemicals in dust.

And they're also coming
through our skin.

The body is very permeable.

And so, these things will
come in through

all of these entry points.

Unfortunately, unlike drugs
and say, vaccines,

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

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

in the United States.

In 1971, in response
to public pressure,

Congress proposed the Toxic
Substances Control Act.

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

the chemical giants had
found a way to keep

doing their toxic
business as usual.

Industry knew that there
were 62,000 chemicals

on the market at the time.

And they were worried that
all of those chemicals

would have to undergo
some sort of review.

So, in order to
appease industry,

they allowed these chemicals
to be grandfathered in.

And the coup of the
chemical industry,

which was heavily involved in
the writing of the legislation,

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

on the safety of
their chemicals.

Government gives the
company the responsibility

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

and even when a company
releases a product

that's found to be harmful,
government has

very little authority to
remove it from the market.

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

they have been tasked with
regulating industries that have

so much more money
than they do,

and so much more power.

When you're flooded with
dollars that can lobby,

that can influence senators,
that can spend and spend and

spend and still not fully,
you know,

erase the profits
they're making,

you have an agency that's
cowed by industry,

and they're scared
in many cases.

So, by 2005, there were


registered for
use on the market.

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

The level of evidence that's
required to convince regulators

to restrict a chemical
is so high that

it very rarely happens.

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

there are no rules governing
the replacement.

Nothing is done to make sure
that the substitute chemical

is safer than the
previous chemical.

One step forward and
one step back.

It's a pattern that keeps
consumers locked in

a dangerous status quo.

It's different from how Europe
deals with the chemical

regulation, which is to use
this precautionary principle

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

that it could potentially
cause dangers.

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

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

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

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

Right? We're the
guinea pigs then.

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

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

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

your personal battle
with illness, right?

But it's not just a
personal battle.

The toxic chemicals that
surround us may be threatening

our very ability to survive
as a species.

There did, indeed, seem to
be a very significant

decline in sperm count
over the prior 50 years.

This is a crisis.

A health alert tonight
regarding sperm count.

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

But why?

And this morning researchers
are sounding the alarm.

It was a study that made
headlines around the world and

left the scientific community
struggling to make sense of

why it was happening.

If this trend continues,
some epidemiologists predict

that sperm counts could
reach zero by the year 2045.

The chemicals that were
threatening the health of the

average person seemed to be
posing an even bigger danger:

jeopardizing our future
as a species.

The paper that really started
the discussion claimed that

sperm count had declined
significantly worldwide

over the prior 50 years.

I see a very concerning picture
about the reproductive health

of our planet.

Shanna Swan is one of the
world's leading environmental

and reproductive
epidemiologists.

After confirming the results
of the original study,

she was compelled to find out
why it was happening.

Her findings were unsettling:

Americans, at large,
were being poisoned.

The why is the big question.

I spent many years
looking at how

environmental chemicals
affect sperm count.

I focused on one particular
class of chemicals: Phthalates.

They're in so many of
our daily products.

They make plastic
soft and flexible.

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

Because they help retain
scent and color,

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

Phthalates also
increase absorption,

so they're found
in hand creams,

suntan lotions and
even pesticides.

Phthalates are part of a group
of chemicals known as

endocrine disruptors .

Endocrine disrupting
chemicals can interfere with

the body's natural
hormone system.

So, the effect of these
chemicals on birth,

and birth rate, is huge.

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

We have really an epidemic of
particularly endocrine related

problems that we know are
linked to chemical exposure.

The declining sperm counts are
one signal that we get about

the reproductive health
of the planet.

Most of us have these
within our bodies.

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

that we were
allowed to make.

It was a decision that
was essentially made

by these corporations.

Every living creature on the
planet has been found with

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

And of course, we use these
animals for food.

In order to really protect
yourself from chemicals,

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

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

direct control over.

And the truth is,
no one can do that.

It's really frustrating to
be someone who has spent

so many years now
interacting with and

studying the EPA,
the USDA, the FDA,

to see how manipulated
and how corrupt...

and how much collusion
goes on within the agency.

And it really shouldn't
be that way.

They should be implementing
policies to protect.

And they have not
been doing that.

We keep coming back to
the power of profit.

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

really evil in a back room
surrounded by bags of money

that doesn't care about
human well-being.

But in the end, profit is a
powerful motivator.

And, the truth is,
reforming our regulatory system

is gonna take so much work,

and it's really going
to require the

industry does business
very differently.