The Brockovich Report - What you donʼt know just might kill you…

CURRENT WORK

My work, as all work, can become a real challenge. I have learned that DECEIT becomes one of our biggest challenges and our biggest enemy .

My work is about helping people get the answers that they need and help them find the deceit that ends up jeopardizing them. My job isn’t to try to be the lawyer. I am not the scientist. I am an everyday person who wants to help others in time of need, or a least be a shoulder to lean on.

It is through awareness and information that we can protect ourselves, our families and our health. It is the absence of knowing information that we become vulnerable and stand defenseless to protect ourselves.

So many people write to me because they suddenly become curious as to why all their neighbors or family and friends have been diagnosed with a cancer or illness and their children may be sick, yet they don’t know why or what to do. Often times community members suspect a nearby industry as a possible cause of the problem, but are unsure and will contact me searching for help and answers.

I want to help each and every person the best way I know how. It is through communication with you, applying our common sense, searching for information and documents, finding the right lawyer and standing united that we can fight back against an enemy that we can’t always see, until it is too late.

MY PHILOSOPHY

People ask me all the time what I think and what my opinion is. Well, here are a few of my thoughts and beliefs:

• Everyone believes because of the movie, that I am an environ- mental activist. I am often referred to as the environmentalist with cleavage. I do care a great deal about the environment, but my real work and my greatest challenge is try- ing to overcome deceits that end up jeopardizing public health and safety.

• I am an advocate for awareness, the truth, and a person’s right to know. I believe that in the absence of the truth, all of us stand help- less to defend ourselves, our families and our health, which is the greatest gift that we have. As with everything, some people always go too far, too far to the right, too far to the left, and this is true of environmentalism and now, in many instances, our issues fall on a deaf ear.

• Often times we don’t think about or worry about or understand what is happening to another person until it happens to us. Deceits have no boundaries. Disease doesn’t recognize the color of our skin or our political parties affiliation. When it comes to cover-ups and destruction of our environment, we are all up for grabs.

• A lot of times I am motivated or become very inspired by a cliché. They make me think and more often than not can be true. For example, “an informed citizen is the only true repository of the American will” - Thomas Jefferson. Oh how right he was. I believe that our perception of things become our reality. It is how you choose to see yourself, your char- acter, that can actually determine your fate.

• Most people don’t know that my favorite movie is not “Erin Brockovich” but “Pay It Forward”. All of us should pay it forward but not with the expectation of seeing a reward, that is not why we do it. Pay if forward because it is the right thing to do, reward or not. If you follow your heart, if you listen to your gut, and if you extend your hand to help another, not for any agenda, but for the sake of humanity, you are going to find the truth.

TOXIC WATER

If we had a crystal ball and could see a 60 foot wall of water coming at us, or an F-5 tornado ready to rip our house off its foundation, would we do something to stop it? Of course we would—unless it is an environmental disaster of our own making. Those we tend to ignore. Environmental disasters need no gypsy fortunetellers or wizards to reveal ominous portent. All it takes is a little common sense and people who pay attention. We all need to pay attention because that 60 foot wall of water is on its way. Only in some places it is arsenic, or benzene, or hexavalent chromium, or lead.

GARDASIL VACCINE

Even if I’m concerned about public health issues NO ONE has the all the answers. We just want the power of choice and full disclosure. It’s a matter of logic and personal decision making. If dozens of people in my family had Epstein Barr, I would stay away from Gardasil. But if dozens of women in both sides of my family had cervical cancer, then maybe Gardasil would look a lot different to me. If it is so great, wouldn’t it cause a red- uction in the rate of HPV exposure down the road? Why isn’t it marketed to boys? NO answers here, just more questions. I just want to advo- cate for full disclosure and getting information out there for girls who have been impacted or communities impacted. If we do all we can now to learn and grow from our exper- ience, 50 years from now, we may see Gardasil as a Thalidomide- type disaster or the polio-type miracle of 2010. But that’s a conclusion that only time will tell.

by Erin Brockovich
brockovich.com