Well the United States, and I'm sure many other industrialized nations out there (if there are any of note besides the US), had such a plan. You see starting back in the 1940s--aka the "Tupperwarezoa Era"--government, businesses and anti-hobo militias all over America began mass producing piles of useless crap like home appliances, cars, The Devil's national chain of power plant emporiums, Nalgene bottles, toxic waste dump daycare centers, SUVs that eat hippies and rainforest tears for fuel, and the always popular "Sweet-n-Low and Twinkie" TV dinners. All of course with a coating of cherry-flavored lead paint and Berry Blast Bisphenol A aka BPA aka the stuff that turns your gonads into curdled lumps of jelly. These things were made from all kinds of awesome chemicals that we can't pronounce and created while stoned out of our fucking minds. These so-called innovations in high techniness made civilized adults could look really smart, and the way they just let these bad-ass chemicals just leak, seep, and steep into the environment just made them so fucking cool! C'mon, isn't confident indifference the sexiest thing EVER? Seriously, they were like, "dude, like if any of this wicked shit we just made is bad for us, it's just going to disappear into the sky and if some of it gets in the ground or ocean, who fucking cares? The Earth is pretty fucking big ya know."
In addition to this widely accepted, completely understandable indifference there has also always been a small subset of the population who actually believed that the raping our environment at the expense of common sense could also be a GOOD thing for our civilized civilization. Yes, I'm finally getting back to the super-powered ogre children.
Since the first child crawled into the carburetor of a 1953 Starliner Coupe, scientists have hypothesized that someday, these man-made chemicals would begin to morph human babies into the ultimate human fighting machines that could rid this plant of bothersome life forms such as the aforementioned hippies and hobos, as well as common household communists, garden snakes, rattlesnakes, cobras, anacondas, and Gingko trees. (FFS those trees stink!!)
The plan seemed to be working until recently a bunch of uppity scientist hobos released a series of reports that said the kids are in fact NOT going to arm wrestle Stalin, but they are sick and will grow up hating you for driving 500 miles to go hiking for 2 days with a Nalgene bottle.
According to several studies published in the journal Health Affairs, "even minute exposures to toxic chemicals — at levels that would have no impact on an adults — can harm children, leading to diseases like asthma, mental retardation, and possibly cancer." WHAT?! The chemicals don't just evaporate or make our developing kids more menacing to crotalids? Fucking hellballs.
Wait it gets better. Apparently our attempts to sneak out over 60 years of deadly air biscuits when no one is looking and to chemically enhance our kids is also costing us a lot of coin. In the US in 2008,
- Lead poisoning cost $50.9 billion.
- Autism cost $7.9 billion.
- Intellectual disability cost $5.4 billion.
- Exposure to mercury (methyl mercury) cost $5.1 billion.
- Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder cost $5.0 billion.
- Asthma cost $2.2 billion.
- Childhood cancer cost $95.0 million.
That's a lot of fucking money and a lot of really sick kids. For fucking fuck's sake, they have to grow up listening to Justin Bieber* AND put up with this shit?! I really feel sorry for the little fuckers and all the parents out there buying $15 jugs of organic milk and juice from magical golden oranges in vain attempts to clean out their insides.
Seriously friends and hippies, this really sucks and blows. I can't believe how much we diss our own planet sometimes. Anyway, here's more information about these seriously hideous environmental issues, probably without all the f-bombs (from http://phpartners.org/cehir/index.html):
Center for Children's Health and the Environment (CCHE) - (Mount Sinai School of Medicine (MSSM)) - The Center for Children's Health and the Environment's mission is to promote the health of children by conducting environmental health and policy research. This site contains fact sheets, reports, testimony, and press releases on a variety of children's environmental health issues.
Children's Environmental Health Network (CEHN) - CEHN is a national multidisciplinary project dedicated to protect the fetus and the child from environmental hazards and promote a healthy environment. This site provides an overview of children's environmental health issues, a Training Manual on Pediatric Environmental Health, and a resource guide of related programs, projects and organizations.
Children's Health Protection - (Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) U.S.) - This site contains information on environmental factors in childhood cancers, developmental and neurological programs, and health effects of pesticides, metals and other hazardous substances. The site also focuses on current EPA activities in these areas on the local, state, federal, and international levels.
So keep your kids away from radioactive ooze as it is no guarantee they will end up being a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, and join me next week as I explore the healing power of Hostess Snack Cakes.
*Used for blog SEO purposes only.
Just Brilliant! :)
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