Gov. Rick Scott's refusal to test for toxics in water puts your life at risk but he wants to be your next US senator ... by gimleteye

The same state, Florida, that won't share data with the public or even acknowledge rare pediatric cancer clusters has neither tested, nor routinely analyzed, nor established protocols to monitor potentially lethal bacteria-laden algae coating its coasts.

Three years ago, Eye On Miami wrote about a distinguished statistician, Dr. Raid Amin, at the University of West Florida whose peer-reviewed analyses of rare pediatric cancer clusters had been ignored by the Florida Department of Health. The State Department of Health not only refused comment, in 2015 it refused to participate in a symposium convened by the top statisticians in the nation who reviewed Amin's data.

Today, millions of Floridians are discovering that the Florida Department of Health has studiously downplayed, ignored, and outright refused to test for deadly cyanobacteria in the massive toxic algae outbreaks that are wreaking havoc on public health, the economy, and the state's reputation as a tourism-friendly destination.

Who gave orders to the Florida State Department of Health to ignore the likelihood of rare pediatric cancer clusters? Who ordered the Florid State Department of Health to glide past the monitoring and disclosure of accurate information on cyanobacteria in Florida waters?

Yesterday, the Fort Myers News Press published a damning report, "Its mission is “to protect, promote and improve the health of all people in Florida through integrated state, county, and community efforts,” but Florida’s Department of Health has remained quiet as the blue-green algae/red tide crisis has escalated into an unprecedented toxic calamity."

The statistical prevalence of rare pediatric cancers and the presence of deadly toxins in Florida waters are not blameless phenomena. The same principle applies in so far as the Florida Department of Health is concerned: "do not seek, and ye shall not find."

The failure to test, to develop best science and analyses, leading to clear and enforceable pollution rules, and the failure to inform the public are decisions executed by senior state health care officials at the direction of the Governor of Florida, Rick Scott.

Today Gov. Rick Scott is running for US Senate. He is sprinkling state money into communities and businesses wrecked by foul, green algae coating Florida's coasts. A few million here. A few million there. He makes an occasional trip into affected waterways with angry citizens and bad photo ops kept at a distance from his US senate campaign.

Scott's handlers know: this is HIS disaster.

This state emergency didn't just pop up on his watch. 2013. Winter 2015/2016. 2018.

Today's toxic emergency in Florida's waterways is one Gov. Rick Scott substantially aided and abetted through his support of polluting industries that have dominated the rules and regulations meant to protect water quality in Florida.

Before spending his own fortune to win the governor's mansion, Scott navigated at the margins of health care reimbursements from government to hospitals and physicians. Put another way, government rules were a playing field and mastering the reimbursement game conferred great wealth on Florida's future governor.

It is a similar game with water management and infrastructure; public benefits that can be "re-balanced" to protect private profits.

The affinity between Gov. Rick Scott and the billionaire polluters of Florida's waterways is real. Over many decades, Big Sugar developed strategies and tactics to control the water quality "playing field", including rules governing pollution, and to persuade the public that they -- private industry -- were doing the best for Florida's economy, natural resources, and jobs.

Big Sugar never paid the full price of externalizing its pollution of Florida's waterways because it dominates the state legislature and Congress -- regularly flooding the hallways of the capitols with squads of lobbyists when its control is challenged by environmentalists or public emergencies like our current toxic catastrophe.

These natural allies -- Gov. Rick Scott and Big Sugar -- have one goal: to lock down the prerogatives of power and wealth at the expense of the public. And now, shockingly, at real cost to public health and safety.

This claim isn't idle speculation. According to yesterday's report, "Starting July 27, the Lee County Health Department didn't return increasingly urgent telephone calls from The News-Press with questions about its response and role, namely: At what point does a novel crisis like this merit intense surveillance and study? On Aug. 1, the department emailed that a reporter's questions had been referred to the state office in Tallahassee. Following another series of emails and calls, state officials responded to a reporter Aug. 10 by email, but they provided inaccurate information, according to scientists and neurologists."

Florida's water crisis is Flint, Michigan -- where government literally refused to protect against lead in drinking water supplies -- stretched across millions of citizens and billions of dollars of tourism-related businesses. It is proven every day, on every tide, in every photograph of the algae blooms containing cyanobacteria that is massively destroying Florida wildlife and exposing visitors, residents, taxpayers and voters to long-term health risks including those linked to severe and untreatable neurological diseases.

And Rick Scott, the political leader most responsible for this disaster and the silence of the Florida Department of Health, still wants your vote.