Hospital, the chief of staff who so generously allowed us to broadcast from the harlem atrium. Its a wonderful place. It was important because while we usually broadcast from schaumburg it was important to introduce another harlem institution and interestingly enough to have a more literally the harlem hospital live, the schaumburg in another way but i wanted you to just know that harlem is a vibrant community, a community that in many ways sustains not only those who live here but is the idea of harlem and what it represents it sustains us all. So i wanted wanted to thank harlem hospitals. I wanted to thank christopher from the Public Affairs department who i have called too many times and i know he has answered the phone to many times. So thank you christopher. With all that is going on in the nation, i think it is important to begin the harlem book fair with an opening remark and that is, we know what is. My question is, what is the alternative and for me the alternative is for us t
Alone, for sure, we got 80,000 signatures saying we dont experiment on our children and pregnant women in america. This is america. [ applause ] as a result, not only was the study canceled, and by the way, those who got their 750,000 got to keep it. Not only was the study canceled, by senator boxer led the fight on the hill short time after and actually won legislation that went through the house and the senate to stop experiment on children in this country. And im thinking like, yeah, right . Why would we ever do that . Why do we need law that says the Pesticide Industry cannot sit next to and join with the Environmental Protection agency and poison our children . Why do we need a law . But we do. So where are we today . Today, we are in flint, michigan. Where 100,000 people, 100,000 estimated, i think its much more than that. 100,000 people were poisoned by their own government. 100,000 people drank lead contaminated water. 100,000 people, by our own government. Gm, by the way, when
To. A book i am rereading. I am also reading a book at the National Gallery a week or so ago called the accidental masterpiece. It is about how you see art and to me i am a great lover of art, every day objects, everywhere you look. An interesting book i picked up. You see by my office, i do my own art. And keep my day job here. Reading, i want to mention, is foundational. I was not born in this country. English is not my first language. I credit a library and in Elementary School who awakened my love of reading and i remember the book, those who sit at her feet at the library and she read is mary poppins. That brought the love of reading for me which was foundational. You should be a reader. I am a pretty voracious reader. Anything else you are reading this summer . I picked up i read as a new yorker compilation, short stories on the ipad, those are things i can read and when i have time, as i said, i have a number of those books on my ipad. The other thing i want to mention is often
Multisignatumultiagency unit. Larry craig, center from idaho nope for his wide stance, didnt like the information they were putting out, and he reached out and had unit abolished. We were able to sue and get their positions restored. But throughout all of the head of the center asked the question that haunted us, which was, who knew math coulding dangerous . So we employ a number of tools to help scientists suing under statutes where best available science is required, use of scientific integrity policies and even tools like the data quality act and industry sponsored law that allows us to file administrative challenges to Government Agency policies. Recently we were able to use this act to get, again, guided by agency toxicologist, the epa to drop safety assurance for artificial turf made with crumb rubber. We were able to persuade the white house to order overdue multiagency Risk Assessment on using solid waste as a play surface. [ applause ] thank you. And a number of our employees,
We proved 56 of our children, over half of our children were born with birth defects. Over half our children had three ears, extra fingers, extra toes and mentally retarded. We thought thats enough evidence, the United States government, the place that were so proud of, we pay taxes, we go to church, my husbands a union man, i teach sunday school. This has got to work. And it didnt. What they said the reason we had birth defects of that rate is we were a random clustering of genetically defected people. My point of telling you this part of the story is that when i realized that it isnt about science, it isnt about facts, although all those things are critical for making your case and making sure youre right, its about political fight. That was the moment that it dawned on me that we are not going to fight this just proving theres Climate Change because we proved it. It was proven years ago. Decades ago. Were only going to win this if we get involved politically. And for that reason, i