February 3 was the one-year anniversary of the Norfolk Southern train derailment and the subsequent toxic explosion and fire in East Palestine, Ohio. Pacifica’s Thomas O’Rourke spoke to Dr. Beatrice Golomb. Dr. Golomb heads the Golomb Research Group at the School of Medicine at UC San Diego, which is currently studying the health effects on volunteers recruited from the region. For more information and/or to enroll in their on-going studies visit www.golombresearchgroup.org.
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Piketon, Ohio has been a nuclear processing site for over 60 years. The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, now run by Martin Marietta, has poisoned tens of thousands of workers and residents during that time.
Vina Colley was a union electrician at the plant for many years. She now reports that despite the continuing contamination, cancers, and deaths, they want to build more nuclear plants and bring in nuclear waste from throughout the world. She is president of Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety and Security and co-founder of National Nuclear Workers For Justice. She spoke at the East Palestine, Ohio worker, environmental, and community conference on March 23rd.
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The attack on French workers is escalating, with capitalists wanting to privatize their public train system. At the same time, President Emmanuel Macron is threatening to send French troops to Ukraine. Pacifica’s Steve Zeltzer spoke with French railway worker and CGT unionist Axel Persson about both issues.
And that concludes today’s edition of Capitalism, Race & Democracy. We thank all of Pacifica’s sister stations and affiliates who contribute to the production of this show. Today’s program was produced by the Capitalism, Race & Democracy collective, with contributions from Steve Zeltzer, Thomas O’Rourke, and Polina Vasiliev.
You can find this and all previous episodes at our website “capitalism race and democracy dot ORG”. Make sure you click the subscribe button. Follow us on X, formerly Twitter, @PacificaCRD. I’ve been your host, Ann Garrison.
Thanks for listening!
Music:
Mike Stout, “Stand up for East Palestine”.
The Pretenders, “My City was Gone”
