Hi Friends
I've posted before about the effects of Minamata in the Grassy Narrows community.(Post Tilted: Then and Now) This is my up-date. It sickens me to have to say that not much has been done nor does it look like, will ever be done for this community. Even the compensation for these victims is heart breaking. Were you one of the few judged to be effected and thusly able to get compensation that is.
Like the the climate deniers of today and the tobacco companies of yester-year the Canadian government has found pseudo scientific evidence to refute the claims of the victims. My question is who are they consulting? Not Dr.Masazumi Harada for sure. He is THE expert on mercury poisoning who came from Minamata Japan 35 years ago to aid the residents of the two reserves, and is back today to stand up for them once again. Dr. Masazumi Harada has sited the cumulative effects of mercury poisoning, passed from mother to fetus as a possible culprit for the high mercury readings in the youngest victims. All of the first diagnosed sufferers have since passed away.
yet Primeare Mcguinty is asking for further studies Does this sound like perhaps more of the same.
This in the year of the G8 summit here in Canada, where our Prime Minister has put child/ maternal health on the agenda.
Now I don't have anything against the mothers and children of the third world, and anything that the richer nations can do to ease their plight I'm all for,..but, Canada...can we please,...pleease...pleeease clean up our own back yard first?
Our northern Nations and staggering under massive tuberculosis rates,not to mention that diabetes is three to five times higher in aboriginal communities and heart disease is one and a half times more prevalent, leading to shortened life expectancy and a poorer quality of life. These are the medical concerns of the Indigenous leaders and of course the mothers in these underserviced communities.
Then, of course, there are all the left over ills of the colonization legacy that Mr. Harper so eloquently apologized for in 2008.
My only other question is; when is enough,... enough?
regards Debra
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why say the name of your post? why not link to it, it's hard to find something from september 2009 on your site - also, why didn't you just update the original post and use that?
ReplyDeleteMy idea i just doing a repost was to illustrate the fact that these issues in our communities are left to fester with little or no attention from the agencies involved.
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