You may not have heard much of anything about it, but millions of New Yorkers who use the Big Apple's underground public transit system recently become the victims of a major chemical attack -- no, not an attack by some unknown terrorist cell from the Middle East, but one initiated by the New York Police Department (NYPD).
According to new reports, the NYPD, in conjunction with a prominent federally-run laboratory, blasted plumes of a chemical gas known to cause respiratory problems and lung injury into the New York City subway system as part of a coordinated "attack drill." The purpose of the drill, as officially stated, was to assess how terrorists might try to disburse more harmful chemicals into a public place as part of a future biological attack.
After placing a number of air-sampling devices both inside subway tunnels and at ground-level entryways all around the city, NYPD officers working together with officials from the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island proceeded to pump tracer gases known as perfluorocarbons into subway tunnels during people's morning commute. They then tested how the gases spread throughout the day.
NBC New York explains that the chemical gas, which is derived from the waste of aluminum processing plants, was sprayed into subway tunnels at such low concentrations that nobody was expected to become injured by them, at least according to the so-called experts. In fact, most of the mainstream media sources reporting the story have declared the gas to be "safe."
PFCs linked to a host of chronic health problems in humans
But numerous safety data sheets on perfluorocarbons tell a much different story, as do various studies that have evaluated the chemical's effects on mammals over the years. As it turns out, perfluorocarbons have been shown in at least one randomized trial to cause respiratory distress syndrome, acute lung injury, and other health problems when inhaled.
Other studies have linked perfluorocarbon exposure to early menopause in women, as well as endocrine disruption, liver damage, reproductive problems, and cancer in the general population. The chemical is also exceptionally pervasive, and a major contributor to greenhouse gas buildup in the atmosphere.
And yet both the NYPD and the Department of Justice (DOJ), which heavily backed the project, continue to insist that people's worries are unwarranted. Concentrations of perfluorocarbon used in the study were too low to cause harm, they claim. And once the gas mixes with the general atmosphere, it will be virtually undetectable, or so goes the argument.
$3.4 million study conducted for no specific reason, admits police commissioner
Interestingly, funding for the study came from taxpayers in the form of a $3.4 million federal grant, which was apparently given for no specific reason. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, as quoted by NBC New York, told the media that "there was no specific event" that led up to the study, and that it is just part of the "overall plan to help protect the city."
With massive unemployment and ever-tightening budgets, $3.4 million is quite a bit of money for the federal government to just hand out on a whim to pump fluoride-based chemical gases into subway tunnels. There appears to be a much more sinister agenda at work here, and it is one where the people being exposed to the chemicals involved do not get much of a choice in whether or not to participate.
"I object to the fact that there have not been any public hearings on the health and environmental risks of perfluorocarbons, which are also greenhouse gases," explains an "I Do Not Consent" letter posted at WashingtonSquareParkBlog.com. "I object to the fact that the names of the specific 7 perfluorocarbons to be used will not be made public."
Sources for this article include:
http://www.myfoxny.com
http://www.nbcnewyork.com
http://www.ec.gc.ca
http://washingtonsquareparkblog.com
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