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Clinic to open near Ohio derailment as health worries linger

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Re: Clinic to open near Ohio derailment as health worries linger

#91

I've posted on Hackernews before mentioning that I grew up in East Palestine and my entire immediate and most of my extended family either live in the town itself or within 20 miles. It's been surreal to see this event unplay in the media. Some things I haven't seen talked about: 1. How desperately poor most of the population in that area is. My fear is that if the crash has long terms effects people will never get j…

An idea I've had for a while now is to put together a site like GoFundMe, specifically to crowdsource funding for people who couldn't otherwise afford legal representation. This is absolutely a good use case for such a project.

People really underestimate how much 2 or 3 community members who don't have to worry about working or making rent and focus solely on this issue can get done

If we could have something like a community strike fund that could be payed back into when/if their case is won, I'd happily donate while I have a stable job.

Who knows, maybe some day I'll be in some affected community that could make use of such a fund

Re: Clinic to open near Ohio derailment as health worries linger

#92
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how many of the symptoms are real and are causing suffering of innocents caught in what's now a political tug-of-war.

What does the derailment have to do with politics? (serious question, I don't follow news or politics)

Well the president just told rail workers they couldn't strike like a month ago. They wanted to strike because of unsafe working conditions and skeleton crews and crazy shifts. But I'm not really sure it's a political issue, both parties are on the side of the railroad owners here.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/02/biden-signs-bill-averting-ra...

Re: Clinic to open near Ohio derailment as health worries linger

#93
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JD Vance has a similar motivation for making the current administration take the flak for it, so I would also take him with a grain of salt.

The government should want to do testing and prove Vance to be a conspiracy loony then right?

[deleted]

Re: Clinic to open near Ohio derailment as health worries linger

#94
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and if this happened just outside Atlanta, it would be all over the news for the next month..and senators would call it racial injustice. Not to mention every govt agency on site. Train derailments happen regularly every week, but not to this extent. It’ll be an ecological disaster. The water may be fine now, but no so much in a month. Ground water seepage takes time.

>> and if this happened just outside Atlanta, it would be all over the news for the next month..and senators would call it racial injustice. This is quite the stretch. When was the last time you heard, on the news, that Jackson Mississippi still doesn’t have clean water? Because they still don’t have clean water, haven’t for months, and are also a demographic where it could be spun as “racial injustice”

You are trying to compare a large toxin spill against a municipal failing to upgrade their infrastructure. This is similar to Flint, MI.

If you want to compare Jackson, MS..it’s 82% black (which is why you brought it up) in which its own state calls it the murder capital of the world. It appears they have a lot of city related issues including misappropriation of funds.

Re: Clinic to open near Ohio derailment as health worries linger

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you have family in the area maybe you can answer this question: What do people need and is there anything that can be done to help them?

This will be an unsatisfying answer. Thanks to my job as a software engineer I felt like I was in the position to help people financially but the dozens of people I've asked at this point have all told me the same thing: 1. Their immediate needs are taken care of. The ones who got evacuated were put up in hotels at first and have tons of support from local organizations. The ones who were more than 1 mile away genera…

I grew up in a below-average income household in Ohio and everything you said rings so true about where I'm from as well.

Just take us seriously and let us go back to normal. Money is the last thing people want.

Re: Clinic to open near Ohio derailment as health worries linger

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you have family in the area maybe you can answer this question: What do people need and is there anything that can be done to help them?

This will be an unsatisfying answer. Thanks to my job as a software engineer I felt like I was in the position to help people financially but the dozens of people I've asked at this point have all told me the same thing: 1. Their immediate needs are taken care of. The ones who got evacuated were put up in hotels at first and have tons of support from local organizations. The ones who were more than 1 mile away genera…

> experienced runny noses, sore throats, and other minor symptoms. Was it a result of the chemicals? Was it stress? Was it all in their head? We just don't know.

chemicals.

Re: Clinic to open near Ohio derailment as health worries linger

#97
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Horseshoe theory. Both the extreme left and the extreme right has reason to doubt/oppose the current political establishment.

The nice thing about extremists is that they're sufficiently non-invested in making the status quo look good that they're happy to point out when it's shit. Frankly I really like the extremists on both sides of the isle. While I might vehemently disagree with them on specifics they are at least generally principled people who derive their policy positions from their beliefs logically and I have respect for that.

> While I might vehemently disagree with them on specifics they are at least generally principled people

Being so staunchly principled that you cannot compromise or be practical or be open to have your mind changed is not a virtue, in my mind. If anything it is arrogant.

> who derive their policy positions from their beliefs logically and I have respect for that.

Outcomes are more important. If your beliefs are abhorrent then your policies will follow. That is not something to admire.

Re: Clinic to open near Ohio derailment as health worries linger

#98

I've posted on Hackernews before mentioning that I grew up in East Palestine and my entire immediate and most of my extended family either live in the town itself or within 20 miles. It's been surreal to see this event unplay in the media. Some things I haven't seen talked about: 1. How desperately poor most of the population in that area is. My fear is that if the crash has long terms effects people will never get j…

There was an opinion piece in nytimes yesterday with some overall numbers:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/17/opinion/ohio-train-derail...

Re: Clinic to open near Ohio derailment as health worries linger

#99
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those “weird white deposits” are normal and have always been a thing. The rainwater evaporates but leaves some minerals behind

There are minerals in rainwater? It's effectively distilled, no? How does it get minerals?

Rain is normally quite clean, but in certain circumstances can also pick up various other materials [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_dust

Re: Clinic to open near Ohio derailment as health worries linger

#100
post #5
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to downplay the disaster, but just because there's a sheen that appears when disturbing the creekbed doesn't indicate it's a result of the contamination from the disaster or even petroleum-related contamination at all: for instance, bacteria can form a similar oil-like sheen on water. I don't think it's possible to conclude anything without sampling the water, and definitely not from a video of someone j…

I'm not trying to be unreasonable but if this was a school shooting everyone would be calling for the ban of all guns. The scale of this is vastly greater, yet the reaction is just unfathomable to me given the scale of this disaster. Again, not trying to stir anything. Just an observation.

What would you like to ban, trains?

There's already massive safety measures. If they weren't followed then that needs to be addressed.

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