Project Censored

The top 10 stories that didn't make the news

From carcinogenic toothpaste to lost plutonium to America's global arms sales, a lot of big stories never get reported. The award-winning media-watch program Project Censored has just finished its 22nd annual search for the most significant stories ignored by the mainstream press.

The top 25 censored or underreported stories of 1997 are fully reported and documented in the project yearbook, Censored 1998: The News That Didn't Make the News.

"These and other stories in our annual yearbook provide continuing and convincing evidence that mainstream media in the United States are failing to provide the public with information it needs in order to function in a democracy," says Project Censored director Peter Phillips, a professor at Sonoma State University, in California.

"[The media] don't like to hear the suggestion that by not covering certain stories they are effectively censoring the news. But that is exactly the case," Phillips says. "Project Censored defines censorship as the interference with the free flow of information in our society." To him, the concept of news censorship is more complicated than a government official or industry "spin doctor" simply stamping CENSORED on information and hiding it from the public.

"There are a variety of factors that go into censorship in an otherwise democratic society, including the tendency to report entertainment, sex, and celebrity news rather than the harder, more serious issues of the day," he says. "Increasingly, we believe the leading factors are the conglomeration of media chains and the ownership and control of media giants like NBC and CBS by corporations like General Electric and Westinghouse.

"A reporter for NBC is less likely to investigate nuclear energy issues when he or she knows the corporate boss is chairman of the board of the nuclear energy giant General Electric. That subtle but very effective influence is increasingly the case in newspapers and on television throughout the country."

Project Censored routinely takes a lashing from mainstream media for its allegations of censorship in the United States. Phillips received a double-barreled blast during an hourlong interview on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation last year, when Bernard Kalb of CNN and Marshall Loeb of the Columbia Journalism Review challenged the suggestion that corporate or commercial considerations come into play when editors make decisions. But within weeks of that program, Loeb's own CJR criticized the San Francisco Examiner for killing a column critical of Nike lest it offend that corporate underwriter of an annual Examiner-sponsored run across San Francisco. And Newsweek published a report outlining how Time Warner unsuccessfully leaned on Steven Brill, founder of Court TV and American Lawyer magazine, to kill a profile of a Federal Trade Commission official because of concerns it could damage the Time Warner-CNN merger that was then under FTC review.

Here are Project Censored's top 10 stories for 1998.

1) CLINTON ADMINISTRATION AGGRESSIVELY PROMOTES US ARMS SALES WORLDWIDE

The United States is now the principal arms merchant to the world. US weapons are present in almost every conflict worldwide and exact a devastating toll on civilians, US military personnel, and the socioeconomic priorities of many Third World nations.

The US share of the global arms business has jumped from 16 percent in 1988 to 63 percent today. US arms dealers currently sell $10 billion worth of weapons to nondemocratic governments each year. During Bill Clinton's first year in office, US foreign military aid soared to $36 billion, more than double what George Bush approved in 1992.

Most US weaponry is sold to strife-torn regions such as the Middle East. These weapons sales fan the flames of war instead of promoting stability, and put US troops around the world at growing risk. The last five times US troops were sent into conflict, they found themselves facing adversaries that had previously received US weapons, military technology, or training. Meanwhile, the Pentagon uses the presence of advanced US weapons in foreign arsenals to justify increased new weapons spending -- ostensibly to maintain US military superiority.

It is no small detail that US dominance in the global arms market has been accomplished as much through subsidies as through sales. In return for arms manufacturers' huge political contributions, the US government uses grants, subsidized loans, tax breaks, and promotional activities to help foreign governments buy American-made weapons.

2) PERSONAL-CARE AND COSMETIC PRODUCTS MAY BE CARCINOGENIC

Do you use toothpaste, shampoo, sunscreen, body lotion, body talc, makeup, or hair dye? These and other personal-care products, which the American consumer has been led to believe are safe, are actually contaminated with carcinogenic byproducts -- or contain substances that regularly react to form potent carcinogens during storage and use.

The Food and Drug Administration does not regulate cosmetics. An FDA document posted on the agency's World-Wide Web home page explains that "a cosmetic manufacturer may use any ingredient or raw material and market the final product without government approval." (The only exceptions are seven known toxins, which include hexachlorophene, mercury compounds, and chloroform.)

Among the cosmetic toxins that worry consumer advocates most are nitrosamines, which are found in a wide variety of products. The FDA has long known that nitrosamines in cosmetics pose a risk to public health. On April 10, 1979, FDA commissioner Donald Kennedy called on the cosmetics industry to "take immediate measures to eliminate, to the extent possible, NDELA [a potent nitrosamine] and any other N-nitrosamine from cosmetic products." Since that warning, however, cosmetics manufacturers have done little to remove N-nitrosamines from their products, and the FDA has done even less to monitor the situation.

Examples of potentially carcinogenic products are Clairol Nice 'n' Easy hair color, which releases carcinogenic formaldehyde as well as Cocamide DEA (a substance that can be contaminated with carcinogenic nitrosamines or react to produce a nitrosamine during storage or use), and Vidal Sassoon shampoo (which, like the hair dye, contains Cocamide DEA). Cover Girl makeup contains TEA (which is also associated with carcinogenic nitrosamines); Crest toothpaste contains the known carcinogens titanium dioxide, saccharin, and FD&C Blue No. 1.

Some FDA scientists are speaking out. The agency's Donald Harvey and Hardy Chou have said that the continued use of these ingredients contradicts what should be a social goal: keeping "human exposure to N-nitrosamines to the lowest level technologically feasible, by reducing levels in all personal-care products."

3) BIG BUSINESS SEEKS TO CONTROL AND INFLUENCE US UNIVERSITIES

Academia is being auctioned off to the highest bidder. Increasingly, industry is creating endowed professorships, funding think tanks and research centers, sponsoring grants, and contracting for research. Under this arrangement, students, professors, and universities serve the interests of corporations instead of the public -- selling off academic freedom and intellectual independence in the process.

Although universities often claim that corporate money comes without strings attached, this is not always the case. For example, a British pharmaceutical corporation, Boots, gave $250,000 to the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) for research comparing its hyperthyroid drug, Synthroid, with lower-cost alternatives. Instead of demonstrating Synthroid's superiority, as Boots had hoped, the study found that the other drugs were bioequivalents. This information could have saved consumers $356 million, but Boots took action to protect Synthroid's domination of the $600 million market. The corporation prevented publication of the results in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and then announced that the research was badly flawed. The researcher responsible for the study was legally precluded from releasing her results.

University presidents often sit on the boards of directors of major corporations, inviting conflicts of interest that can undermine academic freedom and interfere with the ability of the university to be independent and objective.

4) EXPOSING THE GLOBAL SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM

The Echelon system, designed and coordinated by the US National Security Agency (NSA), is one of the world's biggest, most closely held intelligence projects. Unlike many of the Cold War electronic spy systems, Echelon is designed primarily to gather electronic transmissions from nonmilitary targets: governments, organizations, businesses, and individuals in virtually every country. The system works by indiscriminately intercepting communications and using computers to identify and extract messages of interest from the mass of unwanted ones. Computers at each secret station in the Echelon network automatically search millions of messages for preprogrammed keywords. For each message containing one of those keywords, the computer automatically notes time and place of origin and interception, and gives the message a four-digit code for future reference. Computers that can automatically search through traffic for keywords have existed since at least the 1970s, but the Echelon system was designed by NSA to interconnect all these computers and allow the stations to function as components of an integrated whole.

Echelon was exposed after more than 50 people who work or have worked in intelligence and related fields agreed to be interviewed by Nicky Hager, a long-time researcher of spying and intelligence. Materials leaked to Hager included precise information on where the spying is conducted, how the system works, what the system's capabilities and shortcomings are, and other details such as code names.

The potential for abuse of Echelon, and the relative lack of restraints on it, have motivated other intelligence workers to come forward. In one example, a group of highly placed intelligence operatives from the British Government Communications Headquarters protested what they called "gross malpractice and negligence," citing cases of intercepted messages from charitable organizations such as Amnesty International and Christian Aid.

5) US COMPANIES ARE WORLD LEADERS IN THE MANUFACTURE OF TORTURE DEVICES

In its March 1997 report Recent Cases of the Use of Electroshock Weapons for Torture or Ill-Treatment, Amnesty International lists 100 companies worldwide that produce and sell instruments of torture. Forty-two of these firms are in the United States. This makes the US the leader in the manufacture of stun guns, stun belts, cattle probe-like devices, and other equipment that can cause devastating pain in the hands of torturers.

The US government is a large purchaser of stun devices -- especially stun guns, electroshock batons, and electric shields. Both Amnesty and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) believe that the devices are unsafe and may encourage sadistic acts by police officers and prison guards both here and abroad. "Stun belts offer enormous possibilities for abuse and the infliction of gratuitous pain," says Jenni Gainsborough of the ACLU's National Prison Project. She adds that use of the belt leaves little physical evidence, which increases the likelihood of sadistic, but hard-to-prove, misuse. American companies sell these devices around the world.

Manufacturers, meanwhile, continue to invent more tools of torture. A new stun weapon may soon be added to police arsenals -- electroshock razor wire, specially designed for surrounding demonstrators who get out of hand.

6) RUSSIAN PLUTONIUM LOST OVER CHILE AND BOLIVIA

On November 16, 1996, Russia's Mars '96 space probe broke up and burned while descending over Chile and Bolivia, scattering its remains across a 10,000-square-mile area. The probe carried about a half-pound of deadly plutonium divided among four battery canisters, and no one seems to know where they are.

This amount of plutonium has the potential to cause devastating damage. According to Dr. Helen Caldicott, president emeritus of Physicians for Social Responsibility, "Plutonium is so toxic that less than one-millionth of a gram is a carcinogenic dose."

On November 17, when the US Space Command
announced that the probe would reenter the earth's atmosphere with a predicted impact point in east central
Australia, President Clinton telephoned Australian prime minister John Howard and offered "the assets the US has in the Department of Energy" to deal with any radioactive contamination. Howard placed the Australian military and government on full alert and warned members of the public to use "extreme caution" if they came in contact with the remnants of the Russian space probe.

Then the major
media in the United States reported that the probe had crashed "harmlessly" into the ocean. On November 18, 1996, the Washington Post ran the headline ERRANT
RUSSIAN SPACECRAFT CRASHES HARMLESSLY AFTER SCARING
AUSTRALIA. But on November 29, the US Space Command completely revised its account. The final report placed the crash site not west of South America, but directly over Chile and Bolivia. Apparently, the Space Command had initially tracked the booster stage of the Russian craft, and not the actual probe itself.

The New York Times mentioned the incident on page seven, under "World Briefs," on December 14, 1996. The Russian government has been uncooperative, refusing even to give Chile a description of the canisters to aid in retrieval efforts.

7) NORPLANT AND HUMAN EXPERIMENTS IN THIRD WORLD LEAD TO FORCED USE IN THE UNITED STATES

Low-income women in the United States and the Third World have been the unwitting targets of a US policy to control birthrates.

A British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) documentary called The Human Laboratory accused the US Agency for International Development of using uninformed women in Bangladesh, Haiti, and the Philippines to test Norplant. Norplant is a contraceptive consisting of a set of six plastic cylinders, implanted under the skin, that contain a synthetic version of a female hormone. It is intended to prevent pregnancy for five years. Surgery is required for removal.

Many of these women were subjects in pre-injection drug trials that began in 1985 in Bangladesh. Women interviewed by the BBC said they had been told that the drug was safe and not experimental. Implantation was free. One woman said that after implantation, she became so weak that she couldn't get up, look after her children, or cook. Other women reported similar problems, stating that when they asked to have Norplant removed, they were told it would ruin the study. According to the documentary, when one woman begged to have the implant removed -- saying, "I'm dying, please help me get it out" -- she was told, "Okay, when you die, inform us; we'll get it out of your body." Many women who participated in the trials have suffered from eyesight disorders, strokes, persistent bleeding, and other side effects.

Now Norplant is figuring in reproductive-rights policies in the US as well. A bill under consideration in the state of Washington would require "involuntary use of long-term pharmaceutical birth control" (Norplant) for women who give birth to drug-addicted babies. Under this proposal, a woman who gives birth to a drug-addicted baby would get two chances -- the first voluntary, the second mandatory -- to undergo drug treatment and counseling. Upon the birth of a third drug-addicted child, the state would force the mother to undergo surgery to insert the Norplant contraceptive.

State Medicaid agencies often generously cover the cost of Norplant insertion but don't pay for removal before the full five years are up. Although Medicaid policy may cover early removal "when medically necessary," medical necessity is determined by the provider and the Medicaid agency, not the patient.

8) LITTLE-KNOWN FEDERAL LAW PAVES THE WAY FOR NATIONAL IDENTIFICATION CARD

Big brother is on the march. In September 1996, President Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act. Buried at approximately page 650 was a section that creates a framework for establishing a national ID card for the American public. This legislation was slipped through without fanfare or publicity.

Among other things, the law establishes a "Machine Readable Document Pilot Program" requiring employers to swipe a prospective employee's driver's license through a special reader linked to the federal government's Social Security Administration. The federal government would have the discretion to approve or disapprove the applicant for employment. This would turn the driver's license into a national ID card. The government would have comprehensive files on all American citizens' names, dates and places of birth, mothers' maiden names, Social Security numbers, driving records, and child support payments, as well as gender, race, divorce status, hair and eye color, height, weight, and anything else they may dream up in the future.

The author of the national ID law, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California), told a Capitol Hill magazine that it was her intention to see Congress immediately implement a national ID system whereby every American would be required to carry a card with a "magnetic strip on it on which the bearer's unique voice, retina pattern, or fingerprint is digitally encoded." Congressman Dick Armey (R-Texas), among others, has denounced the new law, calling it "an abomination, and wholly at odds with the American tradition of individual freedom."

9) MATTEL CUTS US JOBS TO OPEN SWEATSHOPS IN OTHER COUNTRIES

Thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), US toy factories have cut a one-time American work force of 56,000 in half and sent many of those jobs to countries where workers lack basic rights.

Mattel, the maker of Barbie, bought out six of its major competitors in the last decade, making it the largest toy manufacturer in the world. With 25,000 employees worldwide, Mattel now employs only 6000 workers in the US. NAFTA has freed Mattel to further reduce its American work force and take advantage of repressive labor laws in other countries.

In the Dynamics factory just outside of Bangkok, Thailand, 4500 women and children stuff, cut, dress, and assemble Barbie dolls and other toys. Many of the workers have respiratory infections, their lungs filled with dust from fabrics in the factory. They complain of hair and memory loss, episodes of vomiting, irregular menstrual periods, and constant pain in their hands, necks, and shoulders. Metha is a militant woman in her 20s who tried to start a union at the Dynamics plant. She claims the company not only fired her but threatened to shut her up "forever." She developed respiratory problems and was hospitalized. Afraid to talk to a reporter, she said, "Barbie is powerful. . . . If they kill me, who will ever know I lived?"

Though separated by distance, these Mattel workers are intimately connected by experience. So are countless other abused workers in toy factories across Thailand and China, where Mattel now produces the bulk of its products.

Under pressure, the industry has adopted a code of conduct that calls upon companies to monitor themselves. But according to authors Anton Foek and Eyal Press, there's little evidence of any changes in these abusive practices.

10) ARMY'S PLAN TO BURN NERVE GAS TOXINS IN OREGON THREATENS COLUMBIA RIVER BASIN

Despite evidence that incineration is the worst option for destroying the nation's stockpile of obsolete chemical weapons at the Umatilla Army Depot near Hermiston, Oregon, the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission (EQC) gave the green light to the United States Army and Raytheon Corporation to spend $1.3 billion of taxpayer money to construct five chemical-weapons incinerators. On February 7, 1997, in the face of strong protests, the EQC made its final decision to accept the Army's application to build the incineration facility.

Chemicals to be incinerated include nerve gas and mustard agent; bioaccumulative organochlorines such as dioxins, furans, chloromethane, vinyl chloride, and PCBs; metals such as lead, mercury, copper, and nickel; and toxins such as arsenic. These represent only a fraction of the thousands of chemicals and metals that will potentially be emitted throughout the Columbia River watershed and from toxic ash and effluents.

Contrary to what incineration advocates claim, there is no urgent need to incinerate these toxic substances. A 1994 General Accounting Office report estimates that chemical weapons can be stored safely for 120 years rather than the 17.7 years originally estimated by the National Research Council. Thus, the time line for action could conceivably be lengthened until all the alternatives -- such as chemical neutralization, electro-chemical oxidation, and solvated electron technology (SET) -- are considered. A delay was also supported by a report from the National Academy of Sciences.

Project Censored's top 10 stories were drawn from a variety of alternative news sources.

1. "Costly Giveaways," by Lora Lumpe, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, October 1996; "Guns `R' Us," by Martha Honey, In These Times, August 11, 1997.

2. "To Die For," by Joel Bleifuss, In These Times, February 17, 1997; "Take a Powder," by Joel Bleifuss, In These Times, March 3, 1997.

3. "Phi Beta Capitalism," by Lawrence Soley, Covertaction Quarterly, Spring 1997; "Big Money on Campus," by Lawrence Soley, Dollars and Sense, March/April 1997.

4. "Secret Power: Exposing the Global Surveillance System," by Nicky Hager, Covertaction Quarterly, Winter 1996/1997.

5. "Shock Value: U.S. Stun Devices Pose Human-Rights Risk," by Anne-Marie Cusac, the Progressive, September 1997.

6. "Space Probe Explodes," by Karl Grossman, Covertaction Quarterly, Spring 1997.

7. "The Misuses of Norplant: Who Gets Stuck?" by Jennifer Washburn, Ms., November/December 1996; "Norplant and the Dark Side of the Law," by Rebecca Kavoussi, Washington Free Press, March/April 1997; "BBC Documentary Claims That U.S. Foreign Aid Funded Norplant Testing on Uninformed Third World Women," by Joseph D'Agostino, Human Events, May 16, 1997.

8. "National I.D. Card is Now Federal Law and Georgia Wants to Help Lead the Way," by Cyndee Parker, Witwigo, May/June 1997.

9. "Barbie's Betrayal: The Toy Industry's Broken Workers," by Eyal Press, the Nation, December 30, 1996; "Sweatshop Barbie: Exploitation of Their World Labor," by Anton Foek, the Humanist, January/February 1997.

10. "Army Plan to Burn Surplus Nerve Gas Stockpile," by Mark Brown and Karyn Jones, Earth First, March 1997.