EYEWASH STATION – After 9/11, the fear of another attack on U.S. soil cleanly supplanted the fear of having one’s penis chopped off by a vengeful lover in the pantheon of irrational American fears. While we’re constantly being told that another attack is imminent and that radical Islamic fundamentalists are two steps away from establishing a caliphate in Branson, Missouri, just how close are they? How do the odds of dying in a terrorist attack stack up against the odds of dying in other unfortunate situations? Well, let’s take a look.

The following ratios were compiled using data from 2004 National Safety Council (NSC) Estimates, a report based on data from The National Center for Health Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau. In addition, 2003 mortality data from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) was used.

You are 13 times more likely to die in a railway accident than from a terrorist attack

You are 12,571 times more likely to die from cancer than from a terrorist attack

You are six times more likely to die from hot weather than from a terrorist attack

You are eight times more likely to die from accidental electrocution than from a terrorist attack

You are 11,000 times more likely to die in an airplane accident than from a terrorist plot involving an airplane

You are 87 times more likely to drown than die in a terrorist attack

You are 404 times more likely to die in a fall than from a terrorist attack

You are 17,600 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack

You are 1048 times more likely to die from a car accident than from a terrorist attack

You are 12 times more likely to die from accidental suffocation in bed than from a terrorist attack

You are nine times more likely to choke to death on your own vomit than die in a terrorist attack

You are eight times more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist

COMMON DREAMS– A coalition of communities in six Midwestern states filed a federal lawsuit Monday seeking to force the manufacturer of a widely-used herbicide to pay for its removal from drinking water.

Atrazine, a weed-killer sprayed primarily on cornfields, can run off into rivers and streams that supply municipal water systems. As the Huffington Post Investigative Fund reported in a  series of  articles last  fall, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency failed to notify the public that atrazine had been found at levels above the federal safety limit in drinking water in at least four states.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois by 16 cities in Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, and Iowa.  The communities allege that Swiss corporation Syngenta AG and its Delaware counterpart Syngenta Crop Protection, Inc. reaped billions of dollars from the sale of atrazine while local taxpayers were left with the financial burden of filtering the chemical from drinking water.

Many water utility managers  told the Investigative Fund that they could not afford the expensive carbon filters that are needed to remove atrazine.

Syngenta spokesman Paul Minehart told the Investigative Fund that the company had not yet received word of a federal action, but said that current levels of atrazine in drinking water are safe.

“What Syngenta can say is that EPA re-registered atrazine in 2006, stating it would cause no harm to the general population,” Minehart said. “In the current economy many organizations, including water systems, are looking for additional sources of revenue.  It is not surprising that some water systems would say they cannot afford additional filtering but, for atrazine, there is no need.”

Atrazine has long been a controversial product. The European Union in 2004 banned its use, saying there was not enough information to prove its safety. The EPA recently  announced that it would be re-evaluating the herbicide’s ability to cause cancer and birth defects, as well as its potential to disrupt the hormone and reproductive systems of humans and amphibians.

Last week, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science  reported that male frogs exposed to levels of atrazine below federal limits could become functional females, with the ability to mate and lay eggs.

Citizens in all sixteen of the cities named in the lawsuit get their drinking water from sources next to or surrounded by agricultural fields where farmers use atrazine. Some of these cities sell their water in bulk to other nearby towns.

Lawyer Stephen Tillery, who is representing the sixteen cities in this complaint, said that these cities alone have spent upwards of $350 million trying to filter atrazine from their drinking water.

by Danielle Ivory

Investigative Fund reporter Danielle Ivory discussed atrazine last fall on the TV program Democracy Now. To watch, click here.