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Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.



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SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris




SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018



SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018




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SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017



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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.


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Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

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"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.





Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.


JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

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Recent Health Studies Point to Link Between Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining and Human Illness

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Posted Sept. 5, 2012

Interview with Michael Hendryx, professor of health policy management and leadership at West Virginia University, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

MTR

Residents of communities near mountaintop removal coal-mining operations in southern Appalachia suffer higher levels of many kinds of health problems than those living further away from such sites. Mountaintop removal is a mining method where millions of tons of dynamite are used to blast the tops off mountains in order to extract the coal seams beneath, dislodging rocks and earth which are dumped into the valleys below. Thus far, these operations have destroyed 500 mountain ridges and buried 2,000 miles of fresh water streams.

While local residents can't prove their ailments are the result of mountain top mining operations, they believe there is a direct connection. A score of scientific studies seem to back them up, and residents are now coming together to support legislation in Congress that would halt new permits for the mining practice until thorough health studies are conducted.

Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Dr. Michael Hendryx, professor of health policy management and leadership at West Virginia University, who was the lead author on recent mountain top mining health studies. He explains what he and his co-authors’ research revealed, and what conclusion he's come to about whether mountaintop mining should be allowed to continue.

MICHAEL HENDRYX: We've done this research over the last six years or so, and it documents that people who live in mining environments in AP experience health problems at higher rates than people in non-mining environments, and these health problems cross many different diagnostic groups, so we see that people in mining environments are more likely to have some forms of cancer, types of cardiovascular disease, lung disease, birth defects, lower birth weight babies, poorer health-related quality of life. ... We found these effects are present for different outcomes for men, women and children -– so it's not just a problem for men who are coal miners, it's a larger problem for the community in general. We found that the health problems become more severe as the levels of mining increase; so the problems are worst where the mining levels are heaviest and they're intermediate where the mining is intermediate and they're best where mining is absent. We find that the problems persist after controlling for the effects of other risk factors, so it's not because of smoking or poverty or age or education or obesity or other types of risks that also are related to these health problems; it's an independent effect. And more recently, we've found that these problems are most pronounced and most concentrated specifically in areas of central Appalachia where mountaintop mining takes place. We don't yet have the direct evidence that links environmental conditions in a mining area to the specific health problems experienced by individuals. So we don't know yet that a particular disease outcome is related to environmental exposures, we know only that the people that live in these communities are at higher risk after controlling for other risks.

So one of the things we're doing right now to try to carry that forward is that we are starting to collect that direct environmental data in residential communities in MTR environments where people live. We're taking water samples and air samples right in people's yards, right in their homes, and we are finding evidence that dust levels are significantly higher in the mining communities compared to the control communities; estimates of the amount of dust that's deposited into the human lung are higher in the mining communities. We're seeing that the contents of the dust that are collected from the mining environments are primarily things like silica, aluminum, sulfur, organic carbon –things that you would expect, in retrospect, to find related to mountaintop removal. So we're seeing evidence that what's in the air is the coal itself and the over-burden from the mountaintop removal mining, from the dust that's raised by the explosives, by the heavy machinery that removes hundreds of feet of soil and rock to get to the coal. That's what's in the air. So we know that the environmental conditions are impaired; we know the health problems exist; but we haven't yet studied air and water quality for the same people in the same households hat we're studying health outcomes for. That's the missing piece; that's harder to do, it's more expensive, more time-consuming, but that's where we're trying to go next.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Is that the thing that could prove the connection to MTR?

MICHAEL HENDRYX: That's the piece that could provide the evidence, yeah. The evidence that we have so far, even though it's still indirect, it's so substantial, that to try to argue that we just have to study it more, we don't really know, we don't have good evidence – personally, I think we've crossed that line. I think we have enough indirect evidence. Personally, I think we've crossed that line. I think we have enough indirect evidence that we know that MTR is damaging to the environment. That is a fact. And we know that people who live in these environments have health problems that are not explained by other risk factors – that is a fact. For us to argue that all we have to do is to continue to study is an excuse to do nothing, and that we should take responsible steps now to eliminate those environmental consequences from MTR.

BETWEEN THE LINES: And, Mike Hendryx, how would that happen? Do you have specific ideas in mind? Do you mean just stop it?

MICHAEL HENDRYX: MTR mining should be stopped – the evidence for it is overwhelming, just in terms of environmental impacts. Put health impacts aside, if you don't believe the evidence for that is convincing enough yet. The evidence is compelling that water pollution alone that's coming off the mining sites, is in violation of existing law.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Sometimes researchers find what they're looking for, do you know what I mean? So how did you get involved in this research?

MICHAEL HENDRYX: I'm trying to provide the best evidence I can, but I'm not working for any particular advocacy group or providing them with information or anything like that. The information I provide is published in peer-reviewed journals and then people do with it what they will. When I started this research in 2006, I'd just moved to West Virginia at that time, and I hadn't done any research related to coal prior to that. And I started hearing some of the concerns, some of the stories people would say about the health problems. But I didn't know if there was anything to it or not, and when I started to look into it, as they say, I didn't have any dog in the hunt. I wasn't trying to show either for or against it. I just wanted to show what the evidence was. And the more I've looked, the more I've seen, so I am convinced now that MTR mining is harmful to human health, but I've come to that position based on the evidence, based on what I've worked on for the past six years, not because I'm supported by some advocacy group or I have some hidden agenda. That is what the evidence tells me.

For information on the Appalachian Communities Health Emergency, or ACHE Act, visit www.stoptheache.org or for more information on the Michael Hendryx's health studies, visit http://crmw.net/resources/health-impacts.php.

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