The Highwire with Del Bigtree - PFIZER’S POLLUTION PROBLEM

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

A chemical spill at Pfizer’s Michigan plant is another example of the long line of environmental disasters stemming from Pfizer’s corporate practices.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

The Department of Agriculture released basically a study looking at foreign holdings of U.S. agricultural land. And we go to a chart that was produced in here just to really put a point on it. And you can see here that blue line, the one that jumped the most, that is cropland. So cropland is, this is a trend in foreign holdings of agricultural land over basically the last 10 years. And the rest of those, forests, pasture, non-agricultural land, I mean, somewhat steady. But now you're looking at since 2018, this jump in cropland being owned by foreign holdings. This is a gigantic issue.

And we go to the companies as well. Everyone probably remembers Smithfield Foods. This is a major, the world's largest pork producer. Here's the headline here. China makes biggest U.S. play. And you look in the article, China's largest meat processor struck a surprise $4.7 billion agreement to acquire Smithfield Foods Incorporated deal that would mark the big of biggest Chinese takeover of an American company underscores the Asian nation's renewed determination

to scoop up overseas assets. So hold on for a second. We were just told China is a national security threat working through TikTok, but taking ownership over the largest meat producer in the world on American soil, which also owns over 500 U.S. farms. No big deal. Help me understand the logic in that. I don't really understand it.

And now to think that they can come in here to line up, take our lane, and then just start hiring, you know, migrants to work it, you know, a total just devastation of the American dream. And also let's talk, we're going to go into a segment in a second, but let's talk environment as well. China has very different views of the environment than the U.S. does. So does this company respect the U.S. environmental laws, respect the environment and trying to protect it here? Because there's a Chinese health company. Who knows? So now, Now, let's talk about actual farms, like small working farms in America here. The U.S. Department of Agriculture put out a report called the Census of Agriculture.

They do this every five years. This report was just released. And this is the headline that was produced from that report. Over 140,000 farms lost in five years. So it says in this article reporting on this, between 2017 and 2022, the number of farms in the U.S. declined by 141,733 or 7 percent, according to the USDA's 22 Census of Agriculture released on February 13th. Acres operated by farm operations during the same time frame declined by 20.1 million or 2.2%, a loss equivalent to an area about the size of Maine. Now, in that

report, it makes another shocking statement. It says that farms that are earning over a million dollars, so large, gigantic farms, those grew by 36%. But the small farms, those were almost about 10% that had dropped. So this is a gigantic deal in American. You can see all of these moving parts coming together. They're not, it doesn't bold well for America, it appears. And, you know, on the back of that, I'm just going to add this here because it really bears mentioning. You have all of these issues. And then you have this headline, how Bill Gates came to own America's heartland.

Gates is one of the largest private owners of American farmland. He has about 260,000 acres in 18 states. And so you have Bill Gates, who's supporting instance. insect protein, fake meat, obviously the race to net zero that's shutting down farms, but yet here he is buying farmland in the United States. It doesn't really make sense unless you look at it through a certain lens that we've reported on quite a bit in this show. Yeah. Yeah, it's really, and as a part of that globalist system, pushing immigration, the George Soros is, I mean, this whole thing is something that we've got to keep our eye on. And remember, and we've reported on so much,

It's just these types of decisions that have tractors blocking highways, you know, in Europe right now. You know, you're destroying our farms. You're destroying our ability to make food. But then you're supporting all of, you know, the immigration principles. We can't protect our border, but we can keep you from growing, you know, the food for the people. It's just such a weird. I mean, it really is. It's hard to wrap your head around these decisions.

And especially when you think these are like, you know, America's the leader of the world, how would you as leaders decide, you know what, let's just farm out everything. Let's just bring in, let's just give everybody else our jobs. Let's just give everybody else our land. Right. Very interesting. We report, you know, we've reported quite a bit, speaking of the environment on Pfizer, let's say, and Pfizer's products and their injectable products and a lot of the issues that there is valid scientific evidence showing harm from a lot of their products. especially their COVID-19 vaccine. So what about their environmental footprint? What about what they're doing to the environment?

Well, a story just came out from Michigan, Kalamazoo, Michigan, just last week, which was very interesting. And here's the local reporting on this. Take a look. Okay. Leaders in Kalamazoo were warning people to stay away from the Kalamazoo River

after a chemical spill involving a substance known as methylene chloride. The city is currently running testing to determine the exact level of chemical that leaked into the water. The city of Kalamazoo estimates that up to 1,057 gallons of methylene chloride spilled into the Kalamazoo River just a few days ago. The Kalamazoo Water Reclamation plant is permitted and designed to treat up to 291 gallons per day.

For reference, just to show you how big of a difference that is, here is 291 gallons inside of 157 gallons. Methylene chloride is an odorless, colorless liquid that is often used as a solvent in the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals. Marcus Wasellovich, a toxicologist at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, says high concentrations of methylene chloride can be harmful if people were to come in contact with it. It can be absorbed into the human body through three routes of exposure. It can be absorbed through the skin. It can be inhaled and it can be absorbed into your digestive tract if you were to swallow it. According to Wassilovich, methylene chloride is a very volatile chemical.

It gets into the air easily, making it easy to breathe in. And inhaling it in large quantities can leave the central nervous system conditions such as dizziness, nausea, ingling, and the fingers or toes. Low-level inhalation of methylene chloride can lead to a lack of attention or hard-to-do hand-eye-ordinated tasks. The city of Kalamazoo has released a no-contact advisory from the Patterson Street Bridge to the D Avenue Bridge. In a statement released in News Channel 3, Pfizer says no public health threat is imminent. I love how it's just like when we're reporting on the train crash in Ohio, like, oh, there's no public health threat. Don't worry, the government's been there. You're good to go.

I also, I mean, I don't know if I heard that news piece, right? But it sounds like we're fine with like, you know, over 200 gallons of this toxic chemical on the river per day. It's just, it just really went overboard with the thousands. I mean, it just, this is the world we live in. Like, okay, you know, just keep it down to 200 gallons a day of toxic chemicals in our favorite. in our water and God forbid someone goes swimming in it or our dogs or that is getting into our well water systems. I mean, this is where I'm just really over it in the United States of America. And frankly, I get a little bit testy with people like, we shouldn't have any regulations.

Can you imagine what this world looks like when people like Pfizer have no regulations whatsoever? We're open for business and we're open to contaminate whoever we want whenever we want. And this speaks to a greater idea of, remember the classic environmentalism? This is what it was all about. Humanity's been off-ramped, especially over the last decade, onto a net zero push to try to keep, you know, temperatures from going up two degrees for some reason that science can't really put a finger on, but you've got to stop it someday. Let's be honest. Let's stop wasting your time with global warming right now. Can you keep the 200 gallons of toxic poison out of my lake and river right now?

That's all I'm world. Let's just do that. Let's start there. Forget about the ocean's going to be a foot deeper 50 years from now. I don't care about that. I want to go fishing today. Fix my river. Exactly. Exactly. So here's the headlines. You heard it in that piece right there. Pfizer assures. Anytime you see this, Pfizer assures. That's where you start your investigation. Pfizer assures no health risk after methylene chloride spill in Kalamazoo. Another one chemical spill possibly affected portion of Kalamazoo River. No contact order issued. And remember in that piece, it said about 1,057 gallons. Seems like a lot. Well, I started researching this story and I came across a headline and I said, wait a minute, this is the same headline, but it was from 2019.

Toxic chemicals enter Kalamazoo River from Pfizer wastewater. What? Okay, so let's go. I went into this, I went into this article. I started reading it says documents show Pfizer was unable to determine the amount of methylene chloride release or the exact location where it was discharged. Great. The city estimates 2,693 pounds of methylene chloride as a release. It's like almost dull. level what was released just about last week. But here's the best part of this article. 2019. Pfizer spokesperson Sally Buddy said the company completed corrective actions required by the city of Kalamazoo, including an explanation of actions taken to prevent further violations and additional monitoring. Betty said employees will be trained and protocols will revise to make sure this won't

happen again. Well done, Betty. Nice work. Yeah. You made it a whole, you know, four years or whatever. Right. They held it off through the pandemic just the time. So we probably didn't have anybody to look at it, right? We're all messed up and, you know, stuck in our houses. Had no idea. They're just probably releasing tens of thousands of gallons while you're locked at home. Now's the time. So we start looking into Pfizer as a company and what it's really been doing in the environment. And we see stuff like this, 2011, Pfizer, others to shell out $6 million for Superfund Cleanuck.

that was in Puerto Rico. And then 2016, stat news. Pfizer fined again for violating environmental law at Puerto Rican plant. Serial offenders, apparently. But, you know, they're going to protect our air, right? It's not just water and land that they're having some issues with. But here, 2008 is in Connecticut. Pfizer to pay $975,000 for clean air violations.

And then finally, this one, this is actually the EPA's own website. This is from 2013. Case summary, agreement reached for cleaning up the American cyanide superfund site in New Jersey. It says the EPA entered into a legal agreement with Wyeth Holdings corporations. People that have watched the show may know that. A subsidiary of Pfizer Corporation performed pre-construction design work, an initial step in the cleanup of the American cyanamide superfund site in Bridgewater Township,

New Jersey. It says for nearly 100 years prior owners used the location for manufacturing chemicals and disposed of chemical sludge and other wastes on the property. the soil, groundwater, and waste disposal areas called impoundments were contaminated with volatile organic compounds, VOCs, semi-VOCs, metals and other harmful chemicals. The groundwater underlying the site is highly contaminated with benzene. And this illustrates that pollution is actually part of their business. It's not just an accident. This is actually something they budget in and they say, whoops, just show us the fine, we'll pay it. We've made record amounts of money. And so this is

how we do business here in America and Puerto Rico, Jersey, Connecticut, wherever our plants are, this is what we're going to do. Right. And let's be clear, they don't budget in disposal. They don't budget in ways to handle it. What they budget in is the legal cost when you find out you're dying of cancer, finally do an investigation, and find out that this superfund site has been, you know, killing everybody for 100 miles. I mean, this is, This is where I'm still an environmentalist, right? This is like what I tried to make clear to this audience is I'm not into authoritarianism. I'm not into, you know, mysterious carbon credit scores decided by, you know, some group of people that want to control my every step in life.

I believe that environmentalism really should be focused on the industries themselves, on these giant corporate behemoths that have no reason to protect us. They don't care about us. I personally, this is my personal feeling, believe that corporations have no heart, they have no soul, they don't naturally care about people. They care about one thing, their bottom line. And so when we say we want to roll back the regulations so we can go to business, what are you talking about? What we need to roll back is regulators that work for the corporations that are poisoning us, go out of their way to protect them, tell us when they show up to the site, oh, it's perfectly safe. as usual, like they're doing right now in East Palestine, where people are getting sick to this day but being told by the EPA, nothing to see here. That's what has to change. But we need

regulatory agencies. We need these corporations to not just fund the lawsuits when they're caught with their hand in the cookie jar, but actually being forced to dispose of their waste properly so that nobody gets sick. That is a cost to you. And instead, you're making it a cost. costs on us. We pay for it with our tax dollars through health care problems. We're the sickest nation in the world because we're being poisoned from every single direction there is. Our pregnant women have over 260 toxic chemicals in their umbilical cord. That's what happens when you don't have regulatory agencies protected you. So let me be clear. I'm not anti-government. I'm not anti-regulatory agencies. What I want is what the dream was.

which is regulatory agencies that work for us, we, the people, protect us and make us the most important priority, not the bottom line of Pfizer.