You were not born to please.
You were brought here to disrupt, awaken and speak truth,
to ease the pain scattered around ​and so when you are told to quiet down,
I hope you grow louder.
You are an entire symphony that needs no applause.

AIJA MAYROCK
This site aims to expose how government and industry are contributing to poor human health outcomes while trashing our environment through poor regulatory frameworks and inaction. CoM covers many topics in Gippsland and around Australia networking to reduce pollution to our air, land and water. The website is still building pages related to water mismanagement, outdated regulatory frameworks, mining & gas expansion. Current main focus is PFAS contamination exposing the cover up from all levels of governments disregarding the health of our families and future generations.
​You need to get angry and grow your voice at this injustice.

Exposing the deception

​Everyday too many people, especially pregnant women and children, are exposed to pollutants via the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink and the products we use. Ongoing chemical exposures leads to increased toxicity in the person's organs with links to cancers and chronic diseases. Worse, is pregnant women unknowingly passing these toxic chemicals via their blood to the unborn child with evidence of birth defects. When we know this is occurring through government mismanagement, this is social injustice with the person and taxpayers bearing the ongoing health costs. Without a healthy environment, there cannot be a sustainable economy and equitable society.

Evidence

Web pages, PFAS food safety and PFAS livestock, provide the evidence of the cover up including updated international changes in PFAS management, regulation and the all important lowering of PFAS levels.
Take note of the PFAS measurement webpage for an explainer on how PFAS is measured & comparisons.
Make sure you read the FSANZ letter to the Board and their response - no other country in the world would dare assert PFAS, at certain levels, are safe for human consumption but the all-powerful FSANZ has enabled every other weak and gutless government departmental bureaucrats and powerful industry players to default back to FSANZ. Reminiscent of the tobacco industry and asbestos deception.
All other pages provide the how and whys based on deliberate mismanagement.
  • What are PFAS and its toxicity?​
  • Why PFAS are called 'forever chemicals'?
  • How PFAS moves through the environment?
  • How we are exposed to PFAS chemicals?
  • What are the range of serious health problems linked to PFAS, and;
  • the all-important evidence - how government is manipulating evidence to undermine the danger of PFAS to support their 'do-nothing' mantra?

pfas overview

​The PFAS information and fact sheets provided by the Australian Government and responsible authorities, including Victorian EPA are shamefully outdated and misleading. Therefore, most external links provided are to credible international websites/PDFs with the most up-to-date or relevant information exposing the proof Australia and all states have been effectively manipulating and undermining the seriousness of PFAS contamination.
​Federal government department heads are dangerous, reckless and should be called out for misconduct of public office. Throughout many federal government website pages covering PFAS there is consistent evidence of factually incorrect or misleading information on so-called updated pages. These pages should be information portals to protect public health not used as a tool to reduce government liability.
Instead, our federal and state governments continue to do nothing while they FEED YOU LIES!
Read the irresponsible information on Victorian EPA webpage here.​

Where is PFAS found

There are hundreds of sites around Australia contaminated by PFAS compounds where Aqueous Film Forming Foams have been used (AFFF) at airports, gas plants, Defence bases & military sites, metro and country fire service training sites. The uncontained PFAS foam have since moved into the environment with these 'forever' chemicals contaminating farmland, surface and ground waters, including drinking water. Some of these contaminated areas are now toxic chemical minefields but also food producing areas. Government have made the choice to put economics over welfare of men, women, children and pregnant women to protect our clean, green image. Worst, is the chemical industry's indiscriminate use of PFAS compounds in thousands of everyday consumer products like food packaging, pet food bags, makeup, dental floss, menstrual products and dishwashing rinse aids that our governments irresponsibly downplay. EPA and government also do not believe they need to improve labelling and disclosures of PFAS in products because that would be admitting that micro-dosing of PFAS is dangerous to human health! See US webpage on how to avoid PFAS from ConsumerNotice.org, a consumer advocacy organisation.

pfas health effects

PFAS exposure has not been shown to cause disease in humans. However, it has been associated with mildly elevated levels of cholesterol, effects on kidney function and effects on the levels of some hormones. The differences reported for these associations have generally been small AND UNLIKELY to be important to health outcomes. 
Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care 
https://pfas-1.itrcweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/HH_Eco_PFAS_Fact-Sheet_082422_508.pdf

SCIENCE VS REGULATION

​The issue for scientists is black & white - does PFAS cause health impacts and is PFAS associated with health impacts?
​​Science is based on different types of evidence that Australia chooses not to collect.
  • PFAS research is a complex field of study constantly evolving ​
​Regulation is about using legislative powers to manage the risks to the people via a duty of care but if Government do not collect the data they can't manage the problem through statutory obligations - that's avoidance and our system of governance.
  • Monitor, manage, and remove the risk to the person under statutory obligations
Famous American environmental attorney, Robert Bilott, who bought the first PFAS civil action against PFAS contamination recently stated in a Guardian news article -
'What I came to understand after dealing with this for so many decades is that we have a real systemic problem with the way our regulatory system is set up, the way in which science is generated, the way in which papers are published, peer reviewed, how that all interacts with our legal system, who has the burden of proof, who is being told they have to prove whether a chemical is safe versus whether it is harmful. All that creates a perfect storm of inaction.'
Keep an eye on Rob Bilott's Facebook page.

our rights or lack thereof

​Australia is the only liberal democracy in the world that does not have a national act or charter of rights that explains what people’s basic rights are and how they can be protected. However, 'common law courts have power to provide significant protection of human rights principles including the rule of law, except where legislation specifically overrides this power.'
Government is ignoring heavily contaminated communities, living with uncertainty, unable to sell their property and feeling trapped on their own land. 
What right have government got to ruin your asset and make your life savings worth nothing? 
These people are exposed to PFAS every day accumulating in their body. Communities are told not to eat the meat, eggs or any food produced on their lands but, on government's own agricultural departments advice, farmers can 'legally' sell the contaminated food.
The government are telling people to not only break a federal law but break a state law as well. 
​So how is government facilitating not complying with their own laws under the Food Safety Act?
Has the federal government enacted a new piece of law that overrides the Food Safety Act? 
And why does the consumer not have the right to know they are eating PFAS contaminated food? 
​In state and federal based laws, the person should have the right to make informed choices for the food they buy to be free from misleading and deceptive conduct

Australian free trade agreements

How can our State and Federal Agriculture departments be so deceptive with the Australian public? And what of our international free trade agreements - is Australia declaring PFAS contamination of red meat for export?
Government have been ignoring consistent advice over the years from Australian beef industry advocates and cattle breeders' association, and again last year, to remove food producing people out of PFAS contaminated areas.
Separate the food from the risk.
This is a national issue with impacted farmers being screwed over by utter mismanagement of how to resolve PFAS contamination to food producing areas. Now that Europe and US have stricter controls on PFAS for food safety, how will Australia react? 
​Australia now realises it needs to have inter-jurisdictional consistency on PFAS with the new Industrial Chemicals Environmental Management Standard -  IChEMS roadmap.
​BUT, and this is where Australia will have a problem, it also realises the need to have inter-global consistency otherwise Australia will be left behind at the negotiating table for chemical management and securing export agreements on food and agribusiness.
​Decisions made by the IChEMS Advisory Committee will reveal if there is a genuine intent to strengthen chemical management laws to protect our land, air, water and health.
More importantly, is how this committee interacts with health messaging advice and management to match our international contemporaries so Australia stops being so contradictory and irresponsible.
Watch this space.

The ability of the law to be corrupted

How government controls information and society is how it maintains their power. The fact that the law can be corrupted or is corruptible is the real issue here. At the heart is government’s own non-compliance of its own Acts, regulatory guidelines and policies with a total absence of accountability to its legislative goals and objectives. 
  • So, what happens if government doesn’t comply with its own code?
  • Who wears the brunt and who pays for the fallout? 
  • You lose your rights and the community always pay in the end for we suffer the harm.
Read the economic report - Societal cost of ‘forever chemicals’ about $17.5tn across global economy.
​Until the government stand up and say PFAS is a dangerous chemical and legislate the need to take it out of our products like cosmetics and separate food producing areas from PFAS contamination they can't say our meat and produce are being sold as safe because government cannot prove that they are with the mounting evidence.

What's being done about PFAS contamination

Move on 5 years and Australia is still making the same statements from 2018 along with the same lack of data collection to identify there are significant health effects in high PFAS contamination zones.
People are still stuck on contaminated land. 
While America and the EU are increasing human health protective measures, the Australian govt play the 3 monkeys - hear nothing, see nothing, do nothing! 
AT SOME POINT Australia must fall in line with international standards.
WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE & OUR MEDIA STORY on Australian Government 'DO NOTHING' focus while the rest of the world is trying to reduce PFAS exposures TO PROTECT THEIR CITIZENS.
​The Australian government maintains there is limited to no evidence that exposure to PFAS significantly harms human health. However, other world governments have delivered stark warnings about the health dangers.
'In Europe, authorities have declared the chemicals can cause health problems such as liver damage, thyroid disease, obesity, fertility issues and cancer.'
'In the United States, the EPA has found high levels of exposure may raise cholesterol, interfere with hormones, the reproductive and immune system, increase the risk of some types of cancers and lead to developmental effects in children.'
Having a political will to improve and update standards, regulation, enforcement and targeted strategies would go some way to reduce PFAS contamination impacting the general population but the main focus is to address the health issues in highly contaminated areas to protect and remove people from ongoing toxic exposures. All levels of government are providing pseudo precautionary advice in the absence of evidence.
​This is nothing more dangerous and discriminatory than management of risk applying
​discretionary policy and regulation were all levels of government see fit.
​THAT'S ABUSE OF POWER!
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This page last updated 7 February 2024

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