FEMA Gassed Katrina Survivors

So many of the people ... were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.

-- Barbara Bush

Well, except for the poison gas, Babs.

The latest bombshell from the cesspool of Republican incompetence

    ...wait, that could be any Federal agency!

known as the Federal Emergency Management Administration

    That's better.

comes to us courtesy of the Washington Post.  According to this article by Spencer Hsu, FEMA has known for over a year something in the trailers it provided for evacuees from the Gulf Coast was making those evacuees sick.  Gulf Coast doctors have noticed a pattern of upper respiratory tract infections amoung Katrina survivors living in the trailers, according to current FEMA director R. David Paulison, infections that subside when the families move out of the trailers.  

FEMA investigators have been concerned that elevated levels of formaldehyde gas -- 400-1600 times the CDC-recommended maxium exposure -- detected in the trailers might be the cause of the illnesses; but Administration lawyers decided to shut down any further investigation because

    ... wait for it ...

"Once you get results and should they indicate some problem, the clock is running on our duty to respond to them."

The callousness and scope of FEMA's malfeasance is shocking even to Republicans on Capitol Hill.  Documents produced to Congressman Henry Waxman's House Government Reform and Oversight Committee make clear that "FEMA's reaction to the problem was deliberately stunted to bolster the agency's litigation position," according to Congressman Tom Davis (R-VA). The documents "make it appear FEMA's primary concerns were legal liability and public relations, not human health and safety."

    This suprises you, Tom?  Where have you been for the past six years?

Remember how often we heard how Saddam gassed his own people

    ... with help from Don Rumsfeld ...

prior to the invasion of Iraq?  Wonder what we'll hear about this from Bush and Cheney?

    Crickets, at best.  Or maybe a Medal of Freedom ceremony is in order?

During the European expansion across North America, westerners gave Native Americans blankets infected with smallpox.  In our modern era, Republicans give minorities shelter tainted with carcinogenic gasses.

    Heckuva job!