Nurse Speaks Out on Biomass Health Threats

- by Deb­bie Mar­tinez, RN, Gainesville, Florida

As a reg­is­tered nurse I find it alarm­ing that Alachua County’s huge med­ical com­mu­ni­ty has remained silent on dan­ger­ous smoke­stack emis­sions as more research now demon­strates that air pol­lu­tion from the city’s planned bio­mass incin­er­a­tor will pose a sig­nif­i­cant health risk to adults, chil­dren and the unborn with­in a 200 mile radius of GRU’s Deer­haven site.

On April 4, pedi­a­tri­cian Bill Sam­mons came to Gainesville to present grow­ing data that describes how tiny nano-par­ti­cles of numer­ous tox­ic incin­er­a­tor emis­sions can trav­el through the lungs, into the blood­stream and lodge in vital organs — includ­ing the brain. The con­se­quence of breath­ing these par­tic­u­lates is increased inci­dence of heart dis­ease, can­cer and neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­or­ders like autism.

Go to the Face­book group page Gainesville Bio­mass Plant Issues to hear Dr. Sam­mons’ inter­view and find out more.