So often we are willing to accept that seemingly random tragic events are the result of fate, bad luck, or an act of God. In literature, we find the reoccurring theme of human foibles and the inability to see the error of our ways propagating the source of our own destruction. As Cassius notes in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” Today, we regularly find economic motivation and unrestrained capitalism driving decisions that can have long-term deleterious effects on widely dispersed populations. These choices are also shaped by the reality that we rarely have definitive scientific evidence to support the conclusion that our behavior is dramatically altering our
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Both have roots in the town of Basel, Switzerland which is situated along the Rhine river, straddling the border with Germany. In 1858, Johann Rudolph Geigy-Merian, at the time patriarch of the Geigy corporation, and Alexander Clavel, who started the Ciba Corporation, adopted methods for creating vivid dyes from coal tar; a process first discovered by William Henry Perkin in 1856. Disposal of the byproducts from the aniline extraction of coal tar via the Rhine river, including many chemicals that over one hundred years later were found to be carcinogenic, shortly followed. The dye products created by Geigy and Ciba were massively profitable, leading to the scale-up in production within other countries, including the United States. These companies also expanded their influence by developing other synthetic compounds for use in fertilizers, plastics, and pharmaceutical drugs. In the 1950’s, the US post-war economy began to boom. The town of Toms River was slow to benefit from the new-found prosperity spreading across the United States. Therefore, having a company like the Ciba Corporation (who would merge with Geigy in 1971 creating Ciba-Geigy) build a plant in the community was warmly embraced. Unfortunately, the manufacturing plant’s most prominent and …show more content…
Even today, more than 20 years after the chemical plant closed their operations and more than 40 years after Nick Fernicola’s illegal dumping at Reich Farm ended, the effects of their shoddy waste disposal methods are still overwhelming the residents of this once forgotten part of the country. The town of Toms River has been designated a cluster for several cancers including Leukemia and Neuroblastomas; the association would be shown to be more than just a coincidence. The town has become an example of the devastation that can be incurred from apathy, greed, complicity, and unenforced health policy running amok. One of the most common arguments on behalf of Ciba-Geigy was the preservation of their economic vitality and the contribution that afforded the community. Sadly, this argument was propagated by employees of the company who lived in the community that would ultimately pay the price for this ignorant and short-sighted
Both have roots in the town of Basel, Switzerland which is situated along the Rhine river, straddling the border with Germany. In 1858, Johann Rudolph Geigy-Merian, at the time patriarch of the Geigy corporation, and Alexander Clavel, who started the Ciba Corporation, adopted methods for creating vivid dyes from coal tar; a process first discovered by William Henry Perkin in 1856. Disposal of the byproducts from the aniline extraction of coal tar via the Rhine river, including many chemicals that over one hundred years later were found to be carcinogenic, shortly followed. The dye products created by Geigy and Ciba were massively profitable, leading to the scale-up in production within other countries, including the United States. These companies also expanded their influence by developing other synthetic compounds for use in fertilizers, plastics, and pharmaceutical drugs. In the 1950’s, the US post-war economy began to boom. The town of Toms River was slow to benefit from the new-found prosperity spreading across the United States. Therefore, having a company like the Ciba Corporation (who would merge with Geigy in 1971 creating Ciba-Geigy) build a plant in the community was warmly embraced. Unfortunately, the manufacturing plant’s most prominent and …show more content…
Even today, more than 20 years after the chemical plant closed their operations and more than 40 years after Nick Fernicola’s illegal dumping at Reich Farm ended, the effects of their shoddy waste disposal methods are still overwhelming the residents of this once forgotten part of the country. The town of Toms River has been designated a cluster for several cancers including Leukemia and Neuroblastomas; the association would be shown to be more than just a coincidence. The town has become an example of the devastation that can be incurred from apathy, greed, complicity, and unenforced health policy running amok. One of the most common arguments on behalf of Ciba-Geigy was the preservation of their economic vitality and the contribution that afforded the community. Sadly, this argument was propagated by employees of the company who lived in the community that would ultimately pay the price for this ignorant and short-sighted