7 ms·

"Because the investigators' symptoms improved soon after they left the area, the incident was not reported to the public" .... This is a rather Orwellian statem

"Because the investigators' symptoms improved soon after they left the area, the incident was not reported to the public" .... This is a rather Orwellian statement. Don't worry everyone, the CDC workers symptoms improved as soon as they got the hell out of East Palestine, therefore East Palestine must be completely healthy.

dmix 4y ago
People were evacuated for a reason?
- darth_avocado 4y ago
  And cleared to return? These people got sick doing door to door surveys, meaning people were back at home. This is ridiculous. Even with the above, they are “unsure” if it was related to anything else like “fatigue”. Like come on.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    Human health is a complicated thing. Talk to people all day about symptoms they're experiencing and you can develop psychosomatic effects. Especially if you're over-worked and that kind of censusing isn't your day-to-day. Not to say nothing happened to them. Just that medical causality is really complicated.
    - junofan 4y ago
      The CDC is full of shit. It’s not complicated.
      - shadowgovt 4y ago
        What does the CDC have to gain by downplaying the seriousness of this disaster?
        throw_m239339 4y ago
        > What does the CDC have to gain by downplaying the seriousness of this disaster? Don't you remember what happened to 9/11 workers who then died of specific forms of cancer? The US government fully knew that working there was dangerous for their health due to the toxic dust. What executive working at the CDC now will still be there in 15 years? That won't be their problem...
        shadowgovt 4y ago
        9/11 was an unprecedented event; nobody had been exposed to that level of powdered modern-constructed building before in the US. Not in those population numbers. Vinyl chloride exposure risk, in contrast, is pretty well understood; we've been working with it for over 100 years (and crashing trainloads of it for about that long). I agree the EPA (not CDC) made errors after 9/11, but they were working with a novel threat.
        gregw2 4y ago
        “Novel threat?!” Just “Errors?” You underplay this, however unwittingly. (Sorry for the long post here.) I lived in New York suburbs and had a firefighter friend who by his commanding officers was encouraged not to go down there (reasons unknown to me) despite being willing. I was glad for him (and his family) because the risk of spending days/weeks in that strange smelling smoke were pretty obvious. Common sense isn’t “science” but the Bayesian priors for the risk given what we knew about asbestos, asbestos in office buildings, other chemicals in plastics in office buildings, the prolonged period people were working in the smoke, the lack of leadership demanding masks due to the discomfort/heat and the great strange stench of the smoke were all pretty obvious to anyone following the news in the area. Amidst very reasonable questioning and concern for first responder heros spending large amounts of time in the smoke (and after it was clear there were no more survivors to be found), while smoke was still abundant, the EPA literally declared it was “safe” during public questioning about it and in very strong terms, when it was clear there could be no such scientific basis to conclude a statement as strong as that. I was shocked at the time and I hold their previously respectable but politically-oriented leader Christine Todd Whitman personally responsible for the lie and injury to 1000s of people so that the capitalist system could rebuild as fast as possible at the expense of first responder suckers who trusted the elite all the while praising them for their sacrifice. (I don’t usually view the world in such terms but in this particular circumstance I completely do.) The way people clearing the site as fast as possible were lied to was unconscionable. I am sure Ms. Whitman was pressured from above her, but I consider it one of the most obvious blatant political economically-driven hypocritical lies to come out of my government, a complete self-betrayal of the EPA in fulfilling their core mission purpose and values, and a dark disgrace upon all involved. Looking back, I don’t think I misremembered the EPA characterization of it as “safe”. They did declare it safe per Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_Protection_Agency_September_11_attacks_pollution_controversy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_... Per Wikipedia, Ms Whitman claims the agency statement of “safe” was never about ground zero, just lower manhattan, which I will concede may be true, but ground zero was a super obvious concern at the time amidst press questioning and even if I should be charitable and not claim it was a bald face lie, it was a lie by omission, misdirection, etc. The lack of clarity on the risks to ground workers or public concern or advocacy for them by the agency with the most expertise and pertinent mission was and is a betrayal. They couldn’t have added a qualifying statement of concern with whatever degree of uncertainty they had at the time about ground zero at the time? “There are risks/unknown here but not here?” I don’t mind also blaming local political officials also for using/misusing/twisting EPA words for their agendas and on behalf of are business owners small or large, or national security officials playing psychological or political games at the requests of their leadership, but I came away with the a stench of deception. I try to tell myself “Deception? Couldn’t it have been just ordinary incompetence, a failure of leadership, scientific uncertainty?” But the silence about the risks to first responders and cleanup teams —all the while while the entire culture was voluminously heroizing them, to me, speaks volumes. This was a completely predictable tragedy which, while perhaps not completely avoidable, would have been much more morally defensible if the risks and unknowns would have been openly acknowledged and disclosed responsibly to the people who put their lives and health on the line to accelerate economic recovery so they could make an informed decision or requested at least hazard pay before taking the risks. But no. They were deceived and lied to. All while being praised for their sacrifice. Makes me sick.
    - ALittleLight 4y ago
      Truly the mind and body are mysterious things. For example, if you walk around in an area where toxic chemicals are burning you can also feel ill. We have no way of knowing what the causes are.
      - shadowgovt 4y ago
        But toxic chemicals weren't burning at the time they walked around, right?
        bavell 4y ago
        Right, just the toxic combustion byproducts.
        shadowgovt 4y ago
        Air quality sampling indicates they had dissipated if I understand correctly.
        revelio 4y ago
        [flagged]
        Sheboopi 4y ago
        [flagged]
        revelio 4y ago
        The funny thing is, later down in the thread someone says the EPA already admitted their instruments can't detect toxin levels that are already known to be hazardous to health. So indeed their sampling method is wrong (or at least inadequate).
        goodSteveramos 4y ago
        You do not. Even weeks after people were kicked out of the temporary accommodations and told to go back to their homes the smell of chlorine was omnipresent across the town. What congressman Johnson claimed at the townhall was that the levels were safe which appears to be based on acute rather than long-term exposure data.
  - datavirtue 4y ago
    The CDC is awful secretive for a public organization working on public health. Sigh.
    - jjeaff 4y ago
      I get where they are coming from. The pundits and the public at large are not very good at digesting nuanced data. Just look at how much conspiracy the open VAERS database has fueled.
LewisVerstappen 4y ago
The CDC's handling of COVID was also just a complete and utter joke. Frankly, one big reason why COVID was so bad in the US was because of how terribly the CDC fucked up testing. They banned every test that wasn't their flawed one. NPR did a good article on how massive the fuck up was - https://www.npr.org/2020/11/06/929078678/cdc-report-officials-knew-coronavirus-test-was-flawed-but-released-it-anyway https://www.npr.org/2020/11/06/929078678/cdc-report-official...
- mandmandam 4y ago
  It's wild that you're being downvoted for true facts, sourced by NPR. The CDC also knowingly advised against masks, for months, claiming that they wouldn't help and could even hurt despite knowing better. And that wasn't the only time they kept quiet with information that would have benefited Americans - this well sourced article points out a few of the more egregious incidents. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/07/31/cdcr-j31.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/07/31/cdcr-j31.html
  - stormfather 4y ago
    Completely genuine question here. Have masks actually been shown to help or not help? We must have learned something about it during all this.
    - ninjagoo 4y ago
      This study from the CDC website indicates masks have benefits, with increased benefits from certain types of masks - N95 masks seem to be the most effective. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm Yes, I know, the irony!
      - thisisdumb93 4y ago
        [flagged]
phendrenad2 4y ago
"Symptoms resolved for most team members later the same afternoon, and everyone resumed work on survey data collection within 24 hours" (Note the "everyone resumed work on survey data collection" part) I take that to mean the opposite of the quote you gave. So it's unclear which is true.

dmix 4y ago

People were evacuated for a reason?

darth_avocado 4y ago
And cleared to return? These people got sick doing door to door surveys, meaning people were back at home. This is ridiculous. Even with the above, they are “unsure” if it was related to anything else like “fatigue”. Like come on.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  Human health is a complicated thing. Talk to people all day about symptoms they're experiencing and you can develop psychosomatic effects. Especially if you're over-worked and that kind of censusing isn't your day-to-day. Not to say nothing happened to them. Just that medical causality is really complicated.
  - junofan 4y ago
    The CDC is full of shit. It’s not complicated.
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      What does the CDC have to gain by downplaying the seriousness of this disaster?
      - throw_m239339 4y ago
        > What does the CDC have to gain by downplaying the seriousness of this disaster? Don't you remember what happened to 9/11 workers who then died of specific forms of cancer? The US government fully knew that working there was dangerous for their health due to the toxic dust. What executive working at the CDC now will still be there in 15 years? That won't be their problem...
        shadowgovt 4y ago
        9/11 was an unprecedented event; nobody had been exposed to that level of powdered modern-constructed building before in the US. Not in those population numbers. Vinyl chloride exposure risk, in contrast, is pretty well understood; we've been working with it for over 100 years (and crashing trainloads of it for about that long). I agree the EPA (not CDC) made errors after 9/11, but they were working with a novel threat.
        gregw2 4y ago
        “Novel threat?!” Just “Errors?” You underplay this, however unwittingly. (Sorry for the long post here.) I lived in New York suburbs and had a firefighter friend who by his commanding officers was encouraged not to go down there (reasons unknown to me) despite being willing. I was glad for him (and his family) because the risk of spending days/weeks in that strange smelling smoke were pretty obvious. Common sense isn’t “science” but the Bayesian priors for the risk given what we knew about asbestos, asbestos in office buildings, other chemicals in plastics in office buildings, the prolonged period people were working in the smoke, the lack of leadership demanding masks due to the discomfort/heat and the great strange stench of the smoke were all pretty obvious to anyone following the news in the area. Amidst very reasonable questioning and concern for first responder heros spending large amounts of time in the smoke (and after it was clear there were no more survivors to be found), while smoke was still abundant, the EPA literally declared it was “safe” during public questioning about it and in very strong terms, when it was clear there could be no such scientific basis to conclude a statement as strong as that. I was shocked at the time and I hold their previously respectable but politically-oriented leader Christine Todd Whitman personally responsible for the lie and injury to 1000s of people so that the capitalist system could rebuild as fast as possible at the expense of first responder suckers who trusted the elite all the while praising them for their sacrifice. (I don’t usually view the world in such terms but in this particular circumstance I completely do.) The way people clearing the site as fast as possible were lied to was unconscionable. I am sure Ms. Whitman was pressured from above her, but I consider it one of the most obvious blatant political economically-driven hypocritical lies to come out of my government, a complete self-betrayal of the EPA in fulfilling their core mission purpose and values, and a dark disgrace upon all involved. Looking back, I don’t think I misremembered the EPA characterization of it as “safe”. They did declare it safe per Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_Protection_Agency_September_11_attacks_pollution_controversy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_... Per Wikipedia, Ms Whitman claims the agency statement of “safe” was never about ground zero, just lower manhattan, which I will concede may be true, but ground zero was a super obvious concern at the time amidst press questioning and even if I should be charitable and not claim it was a bald face lie, it was a lie by omission, misdirection, etc. The lack of clarity on the risks to ground workers or public concern or advocacy for them by the agency with the most expertise and pertinent mission was and is a betrayal. They couldn’t have added a qualifying statement of concern with whatever degree of uncertainty they had at the time about ground zero at the time? “There are risks/unknown here but not here?” I don’t mind also blaming local political officials also for using/misusing/twisting EPA words for their agendas and on behalf of are business owners small or large, or national security officials playing psychological or political games at the requests of their leadership, but I came away with the a stench of deception. I try to tell myself “Deception? Couldn’t it have been just ordinary incompetence, a failure of leadership, scientific uncertainty?” But the silence about the risks to first responders and cleanup teams —all the while while the entire culture was voluminously heroizing them, to me, speaks volumes. This was a completely predictable tragedy which, while perhaps not completely avoidable, would have been much more morally defensible if the risks and unknowns would have been openly acknowledged and disclosed responsibly to the people who put their lives and health on the line to accelerate economic recovery so they could make an informed decision or requested at least hazard pay before taking the risks. But no. They were deceived and lied to. All while being praised for their sacrifice. Makes me sick.
  - ALittleLight 4y ago
    Truly the mind and body are mysterious things. For example, if you walk around in an area where toxic chemicals are burning you can also feel ill. We have no way of knowing what the causes are.
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      But toxic chemicals weren't burning at the time they walked around, right?
      - bavell 4y ago
        Right, just the toxic combustion byproducts.
        shadowgovt 4y ago
        Air quality sampling indicates they had dissipated if I understand correctly.
        revelio 4y ago
        [flagged]
        Sheboopi 4y ago
        [flagged]
        revelio 4y ago
        The funny thing is, later down in the thread someone says the EPA already admitted their instruments can't detect toxin levels that are already known to be hazardous to health. So indeed their sampling method is wrong (or at least inadequate).
        goodSteveramos 4y ago
        You do not. Even weeks after people were kicked out of the temporary accommodations and told to go back to their homes the smell of chlorine was omnipresent across the town. What congressman Johnson claimed at the townhall was that the levels were safe which appears to be based on acute rather than long-term exposure data.
- datavirtue 4y ago
  The CDC is awful secretive for a public organization working on public health. Sigh.
  - jjeaff 4y ago
    I get where they are coming from. The pundits and the public at large are not very good at digesting nuanced data. Just look at how much conspiracy the open VAERS database has fueled.

LewisVerstappen 4y ago

The CDC's handling of COVID was also just a complete and utter joke. Frankly, one big reason why COVID was so bad in the US was because of how terribly the CDC fucked up testing. They banned every test that wasn't their flawed one. NPR did a good article on how massive the fuck up was - https://www.npr.org/2020/11/06/929078678/cdc-report-officials-knew-coronavirus-test-was-flawed-but-released-it-anyway https://www.npr.org/2020/11/06/929078678/cdc-report-official...

mandmandam 4y ago
It's wild that you're being downvoted for true facts, sourced by NPR. The CDC also knowingly advised against masks, for months, claiming that they wouldn't help and could even hurt despite knowing better. And that wasn't the only time they kept quiet with information that would have benefited Americans - this well sourced article points out a few of the more egregious incidents. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/07/31/cdcr-j31.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/07/31/cdcr-j31.html
- stormfather 4y ago
  Completely genuine question here. Have masks actually been shown to help or not help? We must have learned something about it during all this.
  - ninjagoo 4y ago
    This study from the CDC website indicates masks have benefits, with increased benefits from certain types of masks - N95 masks seem to be the most effective. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm Yes, I know, the irony!
    - thisisdumb93 4y ago
      [flagged]

phendrenad2 4y ago

"Symptoms resolved for most team members later the same afternoon, and everyone resumed work on survey data collection within 24 hours" (Note the "everyone resumed work on survey data collection" part) I take that to mean the opposite of the quote you gave. So it's unclear which is true.