I spent nearly 20 years cashing in my paycheck from commercial TV.
It seems that day has come.
But it’s nothing like what I imagined. It’s an advertising break waiting for nature in abundance to make us rich, healthy or kill us.
- Money: Hollywood geeks like William Devane sell us for money in TV ads. Gold is a very safe investment and has been locked underground for a long time. Gold is said to be a hedge against global instability. By the way, modern gold mining often uses cyanide to leach gold flakes.
- Glyphosate: After a $275 million jury verdict in a 2019 lawsuit over a gardener’s health hazards, the interest of barristers rose from flock to flock. A much larger class action lawsuit has emerged with billions of dollars in potential payouts. Broadcasters and website operators generally don’t disclose ad sales, but the American Tort Reform Association says glyphosate law firms have sold 131 million to 625,000 ads since 2015. He said he spent millions of dollars.
- Mesothelioma: With an estimated 3,000 new cases per year in the United States, the actual number of cases for this disease may be lower than the ubiquitous TV advertisements. For years, viewers have heard sad voices pushing free information on www.mesobook.com about this asbestos-related illness. His law firm, Maune Raichle Hartley French & Mudd, distributes the book, promising that Meso cases are “everything we do,” but many other large corporations also deal with Meso clients.
- talc: The link between talc (a.k.a. good old baby powder) and asbestos-related diseases has sparked an ad frenzy for whiplash lawyers.
- Camp Lejeune: For more than 30 years, the sprawling North Carolina Marine Corps Training Base has supplied contaminated water to its military, support staff and neighbors. When President Biden signed into law a bill offering victims his more than $2 billion settlement in August, trial lawyers went on a rampage of advertising, reportedly on local TV shows and late-night TV. The show bought at least $45 million to market its services on pollution cases.
- oil: But maybe the real benefit lies not in how much harm is done to lawyers touting the risks of pesticides and cosmetics, but to petrochemical manufacturers who ultimately tell us they are really good citizens. Maybe. The American Petroleum Institute, a trade group, and major oil companies run ads on their news and publicity programs about their clean energy efforts. Drexel University Professor Emeritus Bob Brülle estimates that Big Oil’s remittances to Big Broadcast amounted to “billions of dollars” over the years.
The airwaves this month are very rotten with cash from both parties. Few of these ads discuss broader visions and aspirations. They focus overwhelmingly on the moral failures of their opponents, with viewers concluding that both major parties are hopelessly corrupt. But it doesn’t leave many of us hopeful that climate change can be tackled anytime soon.
And those ads reporting staggering bounties for several victims of mesothelioma or glyphosate? be diverted.
And who walks away cleanly from all this? Broadcasters and web operators who sell airtime and webspace for those billions of dollars.
Peter Dykstra is Weekend Editor and Columnist.You can contact him at pdykstra@ehn.org or @pdykstra.
His views do not necessarily represent those of Environmental Health News, The Daily Climate or publisher Environmental Health Sciences.
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