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April 7, 1997 - Art Bell
01:52:00
Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - And the Waters Turned to Blood - Rodney Barker
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From the high desert and the great American Southwest, I bid you all good evening or good
morning as the case may be and welcome to another edition of the radio program heard
from the Hawaiian and Tahitian island chains in the west all the way east to the Caribbean
And the U.S.
Virgin Islands, South into South America, North to the Pole, and worldwide on the Internet.
This is Coast to Coast AM, and I'm Art Bell.
Great to be with you, and I have got something very special for you tonight.
His name is Rodney Barker, and he is author of... Let me tell you, Sunday on Dreamland, Linda Moulton Howe interviewed Rodney Barker.
His book is called, And the Waters Turned to Blood.
I repeat, and the waters turn to blood.
It's not fiction.
It's real.
It involves something going on off the coast of North Carolina, and maybe way beyond that, something changing in our ocean.
It'll scare the hell out of you.
It did me.
And when Linda Moulton Howe finished her report on Dreamland Sunday, I said, oh my God, I've got to get this guy on the air, and so he's going to be on the air here in a few minutes.
I've got a couple of things I've got to take care of.
For example, pleasurable duties like welcoming new affiliates.
K-E-E-L-A-M in Shreveport, Louisiana.
A biggie, five kilowatts, non-directional, regional on 710.
A welcome in Shreveport, Louisiana.
I'm telling you, you are in for quite a ride, folks.
This is a very different kind of radio program, as you will find out.
Welcome to KHJJ AM 1380 in Lancaster, California.
Great to have you on board.
And, uh, that fills in a nice little hole there in Lancaster.
And welcome to KAAA.
Now, these are people who, when they picked their call letters, wanted to be in front of the phone book, I think.
No, that wouldn't get you there.
You're still a K. Anyway, K-A-A-A in Kingman, Arizona.
1,300 on the AM dial.
Welcome.
All right, my other big announcement is today is the release date for my book.
It is called The Quickening.
It's hardcover only.
It's big.
It's 336 pages.
It is probably, you know, everybody tells me never say never.
It's the definitive work that I will ever do on this subject, certainly.
I think it may be the best work ever done on a subject of this sort, but that's my big-headed view.
Today is the release date.
Now, They were absolutely mobbed beyond redemption today, already with people wanting to order the book.
So I'm going to give you some advice with what I'm going to tell you.
The Quickening is just an absolutely beautiful book.
To give you an idea, Daniel Brinkley said, a vast amount of information and research is in this book.
The Quickening will help you either control your destiny or be swept away by it.
Danion Brinkley.
Brad Steiger said, prepare to be enlightened and frightened.
Art Bell astutely illuminates the challenges and promises of the 21st century.
Whitley Streber says, finally someone has the guts and courage to just state it plainly The world is blowing up in our faces.
Wow!
What a read with the Streeper.
So, uh, it's out.
I know a lot of you have been waiting a long time for it.
I'm going to give out one number only and I'm going to tell you that number is going to be in gridlock and your best shot to get a copy of the goal.
There is one more important thing.
Until I can't handle it anymore, I'm going to be signing autographed copies.
First edition autographed copies.
Not as we did last time with stickers, but really signing it.
So, all I can tell you is, if you want an autographed copy, order now.
And I will let you know when it ends.
In other words, when I've signed so much, I can't sign anymore.
And then there will be no more autographed copies.
So if you want a first edition autographed copy, Here's a number.
I'm going to give it to you right now.
You can try it, but the odds are pretty good you're not going to get through.
Your best chance is after 8 o'clock in the morning, Eastern Time.
After 8 a.m.
Eastern Time.
The quickening is here.
And by the way, it will ship immediately.
You know, you'll have it within 10 days.
The number is 1-800-864-7991.
That's 1-800-864-7991.
Now, if you want to see what the book looks like, the cover of the book is on the website as of now at www.artbell.com.
www.artbell.com.
And if you just want to send in a check, It's $24.95 plus $5 shipping and handling.
It's just like my last book.
I will give you an address.
If you want to order by check or money order, the address is... Are you ready?
Paper Chase Press, 8175 South Virginia Street, That's 8175 South Virginia Street, Suite 850D.
That's 8-5-0-D as in Denmark.
In Reno, Nevada.
Reno, Nevada.
Zip code 8-9-5-1-1.
8-9-5-1-1.
As a matter of fact, they will ship it to you now in 5 to 10 working days.
If you want priority shipping, they can even arrange that.
And I'm not going to go into right now what the quickening is about, because tonight's show is part of it.
Is part of it.
And I will go into a more detailed trip here in the next hour about the book.
Now, to Los Angeles and Rodney Barker.
Rodney, are you there?
I am, Art.
Thank you for coming on the program with such short notice.
Well, I'm pleased to be here, and let me say congratulations.
I think we both know The personal investment that goes into writing a book, and to be your guest on the publication date of your own book is an honor for me.
I equate it to giving birth.
It's called giving birth.
As close as we can come to knowing that.
Yeah, as we'll ever know, that's right.
So thank you.
Yeah, I'm very excited about it all, and I'm very excited about your book as well.
It's called And the Waters Turn to Blood, and we're going to get to why that title.
In a moment, but first, tell me something about yourself.
Who is Rodney Barker?
Well, thanks for asking.
My home is Santa Fe, New Mexico, but I am a former newspaper editor, magazine writer, and non-fiction author of four books, who really goes where my stories take me.
The first book took me to Japan.
The second book was set me in the Southwest.
The third book took me to Moscow.
And if you're interested, I can tell you how it led to my fourth book, which is And the Waters Turn to Blood.
Well, I am.
I was in Moscow not long ago.
It's a strange place.
It certainly is.
Anyway, what's the Moscow connection?
Well, my previous book was called Dancing with the Devil, and what I did was revisit the marine spy scandal of the late 80s.
Um, when Marines were, um, being seduced by KGB beauties and allowing them into the Moscow Embassy.
Oh, yes.
Um, and yet, after all the pronouncements by Cap Weinberger, this being this great, um, breach in security, there was only one prosecution, and it was a fellow named Clayton Lone Tree.
Um, there was some interesting sort of, uh, irregularities about that whole court-martial, and at the end of the Cold War, I thought, here's a tremendous research opportunity.
So, I went over to the old Soviet Union, and Actually, I almost put together my own operation.
I hired some disgruntled ex-KGB people to learn what happened over there on the Soviet side, how many secrets were compromised, and the whole sort of seduction of Westerners that was part of the sexual recruitment.
I learned about that strategy and to meet the women who were involved in that, too.
You actually interviewed the women?
Was that a hard duty?
I kept waiting for one of them to sort of run at me.
No, it was interesting because certainly the KGB people I worked with, one of the strategies that I use in my investigative research is to look for disgruntled ex-employees, and that can be true for anything.
The people living on pensions over there with the KGB are disgruntled.
The women were extremely expendable.
and they were used on the service of the state of a certain time and i've been
dropped and so they have their disillusion a lot of ways on from an actually got involved in that because they were
hoping that seduction of westerners would lead for a ticket out of the
uh... soviet union well listen there's a lot of uh... groups now in russia as
i'm sure you're aware
that are inviting american men over to meet mary and take away russian women
and i think you're a man that right now you've got to know if you remember the
scandal you talked about and i work remember the networks are showing a photograph of one particularly
incredibly strikingly beautiful
of russian woman i'd leave her name would be a letter and and i i i got to learn about about the electorate her
background and what it was like to grow up in that
society I became very close with her mother and sister.
She was very guarded and wary, and she had what they look for when they are looking to recruit people to work for the security services over there, and it was described, interestingly enough, as Judas properties.
Judas properties.
That's appropriate, I guess.
All right, so anyway... So anyway, how that leads to this book is that there was a retired intelligence officer who was involved in that investigation.
Who said to me, listen, when this book is done, I'd like you to come down and visit with me in North Carolina and go fishing.
And he had a boat.
And this was in the fall of 1995 in October.
And I went down to North Carolina to go fishing, fully expecting to have an enjoyable fishing trip.
And we canceled that because it was the end of a season of fish kills in which they say some 40 million fish Um, we're dying in the estuaries of North Carolina.
What?
Forty million?
Forty million over the course of that summer.
And I didn't know much about this, and so... I'm sorry to stop you, Roger.
Yeah, sure.
Forty million, when was that, please?
This was the summer of 1995.
Ninety-five.
So we're talking about a year and a half ago, coming up on almost two years ago.
I mean, that by itself should have been a world-class headline story.
Forty million fish dying.
On the estuaries there in North Carolina.
North Carolinians, prepare yourself.
What you're going to hear is going to scare the hell out of you.
But why wasn't that major world-class news in 95?
Well, actually, CNN covered it.
A lot of the national media covered it.
It was fragmentary.
And North Carolina, understandably, did not want to have a lot of publicity out on it.
But it was reported.
There have been fish kills in our coastal waters for quite some time.
But certainly nothing like this before.
What was killing them?
Well, that was what I didn't know until I went over to a meeting, instead of going fishing, and it was a meeting of state officials, and there were angry fishermen and crabbers, and there were some scientists there, and that's where I first learned about what has been called the Cell from Hell.
The Cell from Hell.
The Cell from Hell.
Good name when you hear, folks, what this thing is.
Linda, when I listened to the interview yesterday, Linda said this cell is part animal, part plant.
Is that true?
Well, actually, not exactly.
It comes from the family called a dinoflagellate.
And a dinoflagellate can be part plant, part animal.
And in its animal form, it is responsible for things like the red tides we've heard about.
As far as the animal form, there's been nothing before known like the creature that causes the kills in the North Carolina estuaries.
Again, which is not a plant.
It is an animal.
It's an animal.
It's an animal.
Then it's what class of animal is this?
Well, I mean, it is a unique creature that lives in the sediment on the bottom of the estuaries.
That they believe has been around for millions of years, lying dormant, and it's only been in the past few years that this thing has emerged and is releasing this incredible toxin.
This thing is like the figure out of Alien.
It's a shape-changing little organism that enlarges in size and releases a very, very powerful neurotoxin.
We are talking, are we not, about a microorganism?
We are.
We are.
And yet, when you see pictures of it as it goes through its changes, I mean, it looks like something from outer space.
I mean, it is almost like a science fiction story.
This little organism enlarges, goes through these different changes, and turns into a powerful, really mini sea monster.
May I ask this?
Do you have microscopic photographs of this thing?
Yeah, there are pictures in the book.
Not a lot of pictures, but there's a picture of the organism.
Not only as it's seen enlarged, but also, as we'll get to I'm sure a little later, feeding on human blood.
Feeding on human blood.
Alright, Rodney, so everybody knows your work is not fiction.
And everything you're telling us is dead, true fact.
And actually, you wrote about the botanist, I guess, who discovered all this.
Is that correct?
I certainly do.
It's mainly told through her eyes.
It's her story and her discovery.
And it's been confirmed in prestigious scientific journals around the world.
All right.
Stay right where you are, Rodney, and we'll be back to you.
Rodney Barker and The Water's Turned Blood is my guest.
Stand by, North Carolina.
This is the CBC Radio Network.
Now, back to Los Angeles, and Rodney Barker.
Rodney, alright.
You said something just prior to the break about human blood.
What does this new horrible little thing, killing fish, have to do with human blood?
Well, what happened, Art, is that The way this whole story evolved is that in North Carolina, there was a mysterious mortality in the veterinary school with a fish pathologist.
And something was killing the fish that they didn't know what, couldn't explain it.
And the scientist there who was working with it finally gave up and he turned for help to a female aquatic botanist named Dr. Joanne Burkholder.
And this woman over the next couple of years identified what the killer was.
Where was she?
Was she at a university?
Yeah, North Carolina State University.
North Carolina State, okay.
And she discovered that there was this little organism that would live in the bottom of the tank, that would come up and release this powerful toxin that was killing fish, and then it would go back down.
And she, about two years after that, tracked it to the estuary and found that was its natural setting.
In the process of doing studies and experiments on it, she became ill, and her lab assistant began to sort of suffer from problems that were not immediately apparent.
They were insidious the way they developed, and he began to manifest symptoms that the doctors thought was either premature Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, or Parkinson's syndrome, and they didn't realize that what it was, this organism, the toxin that it releases to kill fish, It's a neurotoxin that gets airborne.
It aerosolizes.
It gets airborne.
And they were breathing it and didn't know it, and it was having those chronic effects on them.
Of course, they were, I guess, investigating very concentrated... Not really.
She was, and she was hit by these strong cultures, but he, over a period of time, it was more dilute cultures.
And so, there we have two examples where researchers, one exposed to it acutely, And then the other, exposed to it over a period of time on more lower levels, both begin to exhibit these kinds of symptoms.
Oh my!
Now, I've heard a million stories around the country about fish swimming in circles.
Yeah, I've heard more of those too.
Is that related to this in any way?
It's really hard to know.
I mean, I think that this situation that our waters are continuing to be contaminated by the variety of sources and they are manifesting problems
in wildlife that uh... then neurologically is something that the on the
increase it's hard for me to speak to the specific situations
but i don't want to over speak i think it is a water needs to be analyzed the
scientists need to come in on this but certainly it is uh...
it is ominous years
uh... from uh... let's see the wilmington delaware sunday news journal
uh... the headline is sores on fish baffle state officials It says state environmental officials are mystified by what is causing lesions and open sores that appear on fish that are now being harvested.
It's horrible.
Even catfish.
And they don't understand at all what it is.
Now this is all the way up in Delaware and Maryland.
Well, yeah, what you're talking about, this organism, the epicenter of the problem is clearly North Carolina, for reasons we can talk about.
But this scientist has found this organism as far north as Delaware.
It was responsible for wiping out an aquaculture facility in the Chesapeake Bay last summer.
She's found it all along the coast in South Carolina, Georgia, all the way around Um, Florida and all the way over to Mobile Bay, Alabama.
All right.
The next obvious question before we investigate this further is where the hell did this thing come from?
Yeah.
Well, it's a story that I, I believe that, you know, you, um, the thematically you address in your book are, um, they believe the organism has probably been around for millions of years, lying dormant and benign in the bottoms of the coastal waters.
And it was changing environmental conditions that brought it up.
What happened is that over the past 30, 40 years in North Carolina, you've had rapid growth.
You've had industrial growth.
And you had the pesticides being put on the tobacco farms.
And all that runoff has been going to the waters and washing down to the coastal areas.
And it poised the system for one more big thing.
And what happened is that North Carolina, seeing the writing on the wall about tobacco, courted the swine industry.
And now North Carolina is number two behind Iowa in hog production and they courted them with lax environmental laws and the effluent from all that corporate hog farming has been going into the rivers and we're talking about a toxic soup down there that has allowed this organism that was previously unknown To emerge and flourish and attack with a vengeance.
Alright, do we know for sure that it's been there for millions of years?
No, this has to be the theory right now, and there's also precedent for these organisms being transported around the world in a variety of ways.
Ballast water in ships is one big one.
This is such a terribly serious story that I want to be very careful to delineate between what we know and what is theory.
I appreciate that, and I do too.
So, right now, they have found it almost everywhere they've looked.
Biologists, water biologists have asked for Dr. Burkholder to come and either teach them how to identify this organism, or they have sent her samples where they are having mysterious die-offs of fish that are unexplained by normal circumstances.
And even physicians are contacting her where they are seeing mysterious medical syndromes that sound similar to the kind that those exposed to this organism are exhibiting.
All right, what are the human symptoms?
Well, I'm glad you asked that, because that goes back to answering in a roundabout way about the human blood.
What they're finding is that there are four routes of exposure where you can be personally affected by this organism.
When it moves into its toxic stage and releases that toxin into the waters, it goes after fish, and clearly it's fish it's going after.
That toxin, if you come into hand contact, dermal contact, Not only can you develop the same kinds of sores that are turning up on the fish, but that toxin can get into your system.
So if you go water skiing, or you go swimming, or you're a child going to one of the camps down there in North Carolina, you can be exposed to it in the water just by touching the water.
The second way is if you have a cut, and it gets into your bloodstream, this thing has a voracious appetite for human blood.
Appetite for human blood?
Yeah, now the good news is that apparently it eats itself to death.
That it will eat and eat until it dies.
But that is another route of exposure.
The third we talked about is aerosolization.
They're finding that there are people down in those coastal areas who are exhibiting the same kinds of symptoms That the researchers in the lab unknowingly exhibited.
Alright, and again I want to, I would like to make it clear, you're talking about open sores that don't heal?
I'm talking about open sores that don't heal.
I'm talking about cognitive impairment.
I'll move into more of it.
We're talking about immune system suppression.
Really?
We're talking into a whole, the very insidious thing about this organism is we don't fully understand all the health effects.
And that is a, that is really disgraceful because Health officials were informed a number of years ago about the potential, and they have delayed investigating them.
I would say the fourth area of possible, a possible infection for people, and infection is probably the poor word, but contamination has to do with seafood.
This thing, this toxin, can not only kill fish by boring holes in them and by paralyzing it, but it can contaminate seafood, and they haven't even done studies to be absolutely sure And a lot of the seafood coming out of North Carolina is not infected with this.
So you mean not just fish, but other seafood that would be harvested in... Shellfish.
So we're talking fin fish and shellfish being marketed nationally, coming out of North Carolina.
Now let me say, Art, because we don't want to scare people unnecessarily.
You're scaring me!
Yeah, I know.
For the most part, if you cook fish, it neutralizes toxins.
But not all toxins.
And that was why it's so important for that fishing industry there to be able to say to people, listen, we will give you meaningful scientific reassurance that our fish is safe.
And right now they can't do that.
Who knew about this agency wise and how long ago?
Yeah, that's important because what this story chronicles is the discovery process by this Very determined and brave young scientist, female scientist, and the struggles and frustrations she has as she tries to bring it to the attention of the environmental and health bureaucracies in North Carolina, who at first resisted her findings.
I almost came to feel there's a scientific equation that discovery equals skepticism plus jealousy.
I mean, they kept demanding more science.
They kept demanding more information.
They didn't believe her.
They put her off.
And then when they finally were just compelled by the sheer amount of evidence to say there was a problem, they funded some money and it became part of a scandal in terms of where the money went and who got it.
And so we have very few answers now that we didn't have three years ago in the legislature.
They're appropriate over a half a million dollars.
God, we're idiots.
We're such idiots.
We are literally destroying our world.
And we are protecting that destruction politically because of money.
I think there's two things here.
I think that our agencies, our health agencies, are crisis-driven.
They wait until there is a clear health problem.
People are actually rolling over and dying before they'll respond sometimes, I think.
It reminds me of the ozone thing.
I mean, you've got measurements by NASA.
And by everybody else who's in space, of the depletion of the ozone, we know at what rate it's going, although, by the way, it is now speeding up.
And by the way, ozone certainly can't be ruled out as, you know, the depleted ozone, with the increased radiation, UV radiation, as something that might have keyed this as well.
Well, you're right, because we're talking about climate change as having an impact on this.
I mean, a lot of sort of new and mysterious Phenomena are going to be occurring as a result of the changes we're bringing to our environment, plus climatical changes that we have absolutely no control over.
I've got a very great deal on the changing climate, and again, it's very much a part of my book, The Quickening.
I'll get back to that.
This has my mind blown.
I would like to hear from some people in North Carolina, we can do that.
We're heard extensively in North Carolina, and I'm sure as a lot of people listen to this in North Carolina this morning, they're going, Oh my God!
Or would you say they already know about it?
I just finished a week of touring in North Carolina, and it was on all the media.
It was on TV and radio and print.
I think a lot of them are familiar with it.
I certainly would be glad to hear from any of the listeners, too, there.
I mean, that state is in shock, because from around the country, they've been getting calls from people who were planning their vacations there, who have friends who have retired there, or they wanted to retire there, or they were sending their kids to camp, and they want to know if it's safe.
Now, clearly, not all of North Carolina faces this problem.
But there are definitely sick rivers and estuaries and sounds there that are unhealthy places for people, particularly spring, summer, and fall.
Well, if the news has been big in North Carolina and reported widely, why in the hell hasn't it been reported nationally?
Well, now, Art, I'll tell you.
I was on Good Morning America a week and a half ago.
I debated with public health officials on CNN.
So the word is getting out.
You debated with public health officials.
What was their side of it?
They came on and said that I was exaggerating the fear and that it was not as pronounced as I made it a case to be and I refuted them with a letter that I'm looking at right now that they had not even been aware of and that was that 110 physicians Three weeks ago wrote to Vice President Al Gore saying that these are physicians from the coastal counties of North Carolina saying physicians are notoriously uninvolved politically.
However, we are seeing medical syndromes we do not understand.
We feel they are connected to the rivers and to this organism there and they're asking on that national level Al Gore, because he has a history of being interested in environmental issues.
Indeed.
To become involved in this issue.
110 physicians from North Carolina?
When I saw this letter, and I went through the page after page of signatures, I was reminded of the first time I stood in front of the wall, the Vietnam Memorial.
Look at all those names.
Oh my God.
Well, Good Morning America's pretty good.
CNN is pretty good.
But, you know, until then, rather, Tom Brokaw and company say it on the evening news with a big in-depth story, it doesn't sink in.
I know.
Well, that's why I'm so glad to be on your show, because even the New York Times Science section two weeks ago had an article about it, but this is getting out in a fragmentary way, and the opportunity to appear on shows like yours and reach a whole other audience is important.
I understand the economic impact for North Carolina of what you're saying, Rodney.
You bet.
I'm sure you do, too.
But I guess, apparently, we're not telling the people of North Carolina anything.
Is there a campaign going on in North Carolina, in some agencies, in your opinion, to keep this story Minimize?
Well, you have a tough situation there because tourism is a big industry.
Of course.
And so is the fishing industry, and they depend upon a clean and healthy environment.
And while they privately have acknowledged to me, yeah, we got a problem and we should never have been in this situation, On the other hand, they don't want their immediate industry to be impacted.
Of course not.
So, they're publicly going on the air and saying, listen, things are fine, come on down, don't worry about it, and then out there saying, well, I wish you could say that, but show us the scientific findings that can prove that, and let's have meaningful reassurance, not just optimistic proclamations.
Is there any way to make a determination about the speed of the spread of this?
I think we're going to... You mean in North Carolina or up and down the coast around the country?
Well, or how it might spread, if it will spread, if it is spreading.
Well, let me say that scientists have told us for quite some time that we can expect our coastal waters to be the breeding zones for these new and emerging harmful organisms If we continue to put population and pollution pressures on them.
And if you look at our population migrations, they used to be from rural to urban.
Now it's our coastal states that are increasing in population the most.
Yes.
So, I mean, it doesn't bode well for the future.
Now, it may be this organism, and its scientific name, by the way, is Physteria piscicida.
Wait a minute.
Are you there?
I am.
Fisteria piscicida is its scientific name.
I mean, again, this scientist has found this wherever she's looked.
It may be other organisms that are very similar to it, and that's why I'm in California, going to San Francisco and then Seattle, talking to other coastal areas here, where they too are having what is called a fertilization of waters, changing the ecology, and having new kinds of organisms emerging.
All right, I want to get this down.
Fisteria, I've got.
Give me the last one.
Piscicida.
It's Latin for fish killer.
Ceta.
Okay.
Piscicida.
Yeah.
But it's clear that there are probably similar species lurking in the sediment all around the world, just awaiting the right environmental conditions to shift in their favor.
It's kind of like a bomb set to go off when it gets the right signal.
It certainly is.
It's a ticking time bomb.
And, I mean, third world countries that don't have the kind of environmental controls that even we do are seeing these kinds of problems, too.
I mean, it's a global issue.
What has happened to this very brave biologist?
Well, she is withstanding some withering criticism from state agencies and fellow colleagues, but she has also generated a great deal of support and sympathy.
And I happen to know that there are proposals now that are being made to the Governor that she be elevated to a position, a higher position than she is at the University, and she be able to devote full time and have financial resources to continuing the study of this organism and other dangerous organisms in the aquatic waters in areas of North Carolina.
Do we have time?
Well, let me tell you this.
This organism likes warm weather.
Its main season is spring, summer, and fall, and that is also the height of tourist season.
In other words, we're coming into that season right now.
And if they have another summer like they had in 95, or another tens of millions of fish died, North Carolina is in real trouble.
Alright, I'm going to restrict my line east of the Rockies to North Carolina is what I'm going to do.
Stay put.
You can rest for a few minutes, Rodney.
If you're in North Carolina, your number is 1-800-825-5033.
1-800-825-5033.
Everybody else, please hold off.
five zero three three one eight hundred eight two five
five zero three three everybody else please hold off
this is such a giant magnitude story uh... that we better do a little investigative reporting
here uh... back into the state of north carolina where where we are heard
while uh... absolutely
widely So stay right where you are.
There's more to come.
This is CBC.
Don't leave me this way.
I can't survive.
me this way. I can't survive, I can't stay alive without your love. Oh baby, don't leave me.
Oh, we gotta get right back to where we started from. Love is good, love can be strong. We gotta get right back to
where we started from.
Call Art Bell toll free. West of the Rockies at 1-800-618-8255.
1-800-618-8255. East of the Rockies at 1-800-825-5033.
1-800-825-5033.
This is the CBC Radio Network.
It is indeed.
I just got a fact that sums up what you're about to hear.
Art, tonight's subject matter is of the same magnitude of impact as a nuclear bomb can have in its potential to upset your day.
That's in quotes.
Einstein once said, there are two things that are infinite.
One is the universe, And the other is the stupidity of the human race.
How many wake-up calls do we need?
That's from Daryl in Los Angeles, and it's right on the money.
My guest is Rodney Barker.
His book is And the Water is Turned to Blood.
And what you're about to hear is going to scare the hell out of you, and it should.
I've got quite a bit of material, which I'm going to use as setup for this, but I need, once again, to take a moment out and tell you, this is the release date, or was, seven minutes ago, for my book that so many of you have been waiting for so long, called The Quickening.
And believe you me, that's what we're talking about this morning.
Quickening.
If you doubt that, stick around.
For a few depressing minutes.
Anyway, you know, this book poured forth from me.
I knew it was the right book for the right time.
It absolutely is.
It chronicles in every, and I mean chronicles as in documents, in every area of human endeavor, politically, socially, economically, our weather, Our Earth changes, an exponential quickening that's going on in our society.
And when I say document, I mean document.
This is a three hundred and thirty six page hardcover book available as of now.
As of now.
Now, I've got to put a couple of caveats in here because they're totally swamped and you're not going to be able to get through.
The price of the book, by the way, is $24.95 plus $5 shipping and handling, just like my first book, The Art of Talk.
And the water's turned to blood.
I've got an article from Wilmington, Delaware, entitled Sores on Fish Baffle State Officials.
I just got a story from Steve in Portland.
You may have seen it earlier on CNN.
Crawling in mass from the sea, they are piling up on shore, providing a bonanza for beachcombers, but a serious concern for fishermen.
a quote red tide end quote of crayfish has accumulated on the shore 150 miles north
of Cape Town South Africa and residents have arrived from far away to see the
odd spectacle and carry away as much seafood as they can.
Thank you.
The crayfish have been coming out of the water for the last four weeks.
They're trying to escape a red tide caused by a type of Phytoplankton, I can't pronounce that, that depletes oxygen levels in the sea, an estimated, get this, 1,000 tons of crayfish have walked out of the ocean so far, and marine experts are very worried, as are local fishermen, whose livelihood has suffered due to the crayfish exodus.
In other words, they are committing suicide.
They're just walking out of the sea, period.
Now, whether or not that is related to what my guest is talking about in North Carolina remains to be seen.
Rodney, we are joined at this hour by Los Angeles and San Francisco.
So we're going to have to retrench a little bit.
Are you there, Rodney?
I am.
All right.
Your book, again, is not fiction.
Everybody needs to understand this is well documented.
What you're about to hear is truth, not fiction.
Agree?
Agreed with that?
Do you agree with that, Rodney?
Oh, absolutely.
I want to be very careful.
Absolutely.
You have discovered, or that's not right, you have written a story about a botanist who has discovered a new organism in North Carolina.
Now, you just heard what I read about in Africa.
Does that sound the same?
It sounds very similar.
In fact, before they discovered what this organism was that was causing Um, marine animals to behave so strangely.
They were having what they called crab walks in North Carolina waters where crabs were climbing out of the water, trying to climb pilings and posts and going on shore to get out of the water like there was something harmful in there and they just didn't know what it was.
And now we do know what it is.
It sounds uncannily similar.
All right.
This again, it's called Fisteria piscicidae.
Yeah, it's a microorganism.
that it is that it has lived in the sediment uh... of the coastal waters of north carolina but it's been
found all up and down the eastern seaboard and around over the gulf of mexico
it attacks fish with a powerful toxin that bores holes in them it paralyzes
them it feeds on them
and it also is releasing toxins that appear to be having profound
human health effects human health effects like get this folks
It feeds on human blood.
Am I correct?
Yep.
It produces open sores.
We're talking about conditions in human beings now, not just fish.
It is airborne.
Is that correct?
Yes.
It affects cognitive brain ability.
Apparently, much as Alzheimer's does, it affects the immune system, suppresses the immune system in human beings.
Is that an exaggeration?
No, it's not.
In fact, what they call it is, when they see what it does to fish, is fish AIDS.
Because it so suppresses their immune system, it makes them vulnerable to a whole range of opportunistic diseases.
And there are those who even wondered if people chronically exposed to it in the waters themselves are not suffering with a suppression of the immune system that makes them not dissimilar from HIV patients.
So in other words, you're saying that even swimming in those waters that are infested, as you talk about, in North Carolina and maybe elsewhere, if you had an open sore, it could get into your bloodstream and produce all of those symptoms.
The botanist who did the work on this herself got sick And somebody else, you said, got sick?
Oh, in the laboratory, they have had problems.
Ten different researchers in six different labs have suffered from a range of symptoms similar to what we're talking about.
We're killing ourselves.
We're out of our minds.
All right.
How many of the waterways in North Carolina would you estimate Well, what we're talking about is primarily the Pamlico Sound, which is the large sound, the Albemarle and the Pamlico Sound, which are held in by the Outer Banks.
You have three main rivers that feed them, the Pamlico, the Neuse and the New River, but it's also been found in the Cape Fear River.
I mean, all those waters along that area seem to be the epicenter of the problem right now.
All right, from Greg in Seattle, Art, talk about a crisis of biblical proportions.
This is the same organism that causes red tide poisoning in shellfish, question mark.
Is it?
It is similar to the organism that causes red tide.
The difference is that the red tide dinoflagellate is what they call a plant.
And this is similar, but it is an animal.
It has the nutritional needs of an animal.
Yeah.
So it is similar, but it is also different.
All right, it goes on.
Would you ask your guest to clarify under what conditions this organism might adapt totally, for example,
to fresh water and what the potential is for massive bloom or blooming that might eventually
affect drinking water?
Yeah, all good questions.
It has exhibited a tolerance for absolute fresh water to absolute seawater, but it clearly
prefers brackish water which is a mix of fresh and sea water.
It can live in freshwater?
Yeah, it can live in it, but it seems to like the best a mixture of the salt and the fresh.
Alright, now, the thinking is, the theory, ladies and gentlemen, is that this horrible thing has been Waiting like a time bomb for millions of years in the water at the bottom?
Yeah, in sediment.
In sediment, and that all of the pollution that we've been putting into our waters, particularly in North Carolina, has caused this thing to suddenly come alive.
Is that a... No, yeah.
Altered environmental conditions have allowed it to emerge in numbers And with the ferocity that was unknown before.
All right.
I want to take a couple of calls as this story unwinds.
And I realize a lot of you are new to it by about five or ten minutes.
But I want to take a couple of calls from near the area.
So east of the Rockies, you're on the air with Rodney Barker.
Hi.
Good morning.
This is Marty from Virginia Beach, Virginia.
I have the Albemarle sound to my back door and have been adjacent to it for over 29 years of my life.
The old timers can tell you some of the same things that have happened with fish kills years ago in regards to if we don't have a lot of rain to push a lot of sediments out and cycle the earth like it's supposed to be.
I believe if you do some core samples you'll find out that this parasite has been around for quite some time.
It's just because of certain environmental aspects of Uh, runoff and things are probably expiring it to dominate more and come out, flourish it.
Colin, I'm asking a question of you.
How aware of this story were you there near North Carolina before tonight?
This has been something that comes up when we have a lot of hot weather, drought conditions.
You'll get fish killed then.
But when we have a lot of rain, a lot of runoff, the parasite's not a problem.
It's a two-fold problem.
you've got people who are lobbyists that will poo poo this if it comes up and say it's no
big deal. But you also have environmentalists who make it sound like it's the end of the
world type of animal and this is going to happen to us if we don't treat it. That's
the sad thing about it. It's an organism that's been in the arboral sound. I'm sure if you
do core samples and do better studies on it and make it sound like it's the raft of God,
it's just becoming a little bit more prevalent because of environmental reasons, dredging,
runoff, things that are making it grow a little faster, drought conditions, when the arboral
sound doesn't have a lot of rain, the water is more...
Alright, well I think we've got the picture.
Rodney, how do you answer that?
That sounds like somebody you would debate with or may have been debating with.
No, I think he's making a point.
I think the perception for a lot of people down there as well, we've got this situation here, but, you know, it isn't as bad as some people are making it out to be, and yet it's worse than some others are making it out to be.
And what I did in this book that had not been done was to go out and to comprehensively
bring the information that was available both from the scientific community and from the
academic community and then down to collecting stories from people mainly in the Pamlico
Sound and the rivers that feed that to get that from them.
And I'm getting a much more complete picture.
I also have, I also talk to the doctors in the area and doctors doing scientific studies
and all of that adds up to a much more informed and alarming picture.
Alright, you said there was a letter sent to Vice President Gore by 110 doctors in North
Carolina which essentially said what?
Well, I'm looking at it right now.
Well, let's hear it.
Okay.
Physicians are usually notoriously uninvolved in political or environmental issues.
An environmental issue is now, however, threatening the people of our community in New Bern, North Carolina.
As doctors, we feel the need to speak out as advocates of our patients to protect them from possible health risk, which in this case involves exposure to our coastal rivers.
The pollution in our rivers has caused an overgrowth of several organisms, one known as Pisteria, which has been implicated not only in fish kills, but in mammalian neurological dysfunction.
And it goes on to call upon Dr. Al Gore to get involved and show a concern about this problem.
And that's 100 physicians in North Carolina?
110 physicians from three coastal counties.
Oh my God.
All right.
Would you go swimming in those waters?
No.
Would you drink any of that water?
No.
Well, of course, it's salt water you wouldn't drink anyway.
No, but you know, they're talking about, because of the population expansion of a thing called the global transport there, of using waters from the noose that is heavily polluted and treating it and becoming, mixing it into drinking water.
How does it get, how does it, how do we know it's airborne?
Well, they could because of two things.
One, in the laboratory, you had workers who were exposed to its toxins.
that came down with the same symptoms, people who come into contact with it, people out
on the estuaries who have been exposed to these blooms have succumbed to the same series
of symptoms and in the laboratory tests with rats they are finding that they exhibit the
same symptoms.
A lot of people are calling this fish aids.
Fish aids.
Because they have found that it is hard to get human subjects to experiment upon.
So we are at that stage where we are getting an awful lot of circumstantial reports from
a variety of people.
We have the experience of researchers who didn't take proper precautions in the lab.
But we're having to rely on other species.
And that is fish, and that is the rats.
All right, what was determined?
I remember when you were talking to Linda Moulton Howe.
She asked you something about, they did an experiment with this animal.
And human blood.
They put human blood, I guess, in a petri dish or something like that.
And if you'll hold on after the bottom of the hour, we'll tell everybody what happened.
And so if you think this is not a serious problem, I suggest you stick around for a moment.
The book is And the Waters Turned Blood.
We will tell you how to get that.
It's absolutely an incredible story, and everybody should know about it.
Now, he's been on ABC's Good Morning America, and I believe CNN, but, uh, you know, until Brokaw says it, as you all know, it just isn't true.
Sit back, listen, and decide for yourself.
This is CBC.
Art Bell is taking calls on the wild card line That's 702-727-1295.
First time callers can reach Art Bell at 702-727-1222.
702-727-1222.
Now, here again, Art Bell.
That's 702-727-1295. First-time callers can reach Art Bell at 702-727-1222.
702-727-1222. Now, here again, Art Bell.
I'm afraid what we are discussing this morning is worse than science fiction.
I wish it was science fiction.
It's not.
It's what's happening in our oceans, and while the people in the Carolinas apparently know about it, I'm afraid you may be finding out about it for the first time.
There's something new, alive, part plant, part animal, or in this case, animal, killing fish.
In effect, giving fish what's being called fish aids, sores that will not heal.
Many other symptoms, if in a human being, and it's airborne, will cause cognitive difficulties, will cause immune system suppression, and it is airborne, and in a moment we're going to tell you what it does to human blood.
My guest is Rodney Barker, and he wrote, And the Waters Turned to Blood.
And Art wishes this was science fiction.
It is not.
Give me, oh, by the way, on my website right now, a link to the Charleston Post and Courier, which has an article entitled, Scientists Track the Phantom.
The phantom you're about to hear about.
All right, well, this may have nothing to do with anything, but Art, ABC News at the top of the hour, just ran a story That girls are developing sexually at an extremely young age in North Carolina.
Reports said doctors believe it is because of elevated levels of estrogen in diet.
50% of black and 15% of white girls are affected in North Carolina.
Does that strike you as odd, Rodney?
Yeah, both yes and no.
I think this is a theme in your book, Art, that the world is going through some revolutionary changes now because of what we've done to it.
We've all known that if we continue to put pressures on the environment around us, uh... population and pollution pressures that sooner or
later later limits will be reached and i'll come back to haunt us i think it's
pushing back yeah and the question is that you know what what what does it look
like will we recognize it and how we respond
and i think some of the things that your listeners are sending in tonight some of
the things that but you were concerned about and i am are are examples of the earth striking back
Look, they took some of this animal, you're calling it, and did what with a petri dish with human blood?
What happened was, and the news gets worse, in terms of they still do not know the full range of the human health effects here because the toxins of this organism have not been characterized yet, and typically marine toxins are released in sweets.
That's S-U-I-T-E-S.
The brevotoxin that causes red tide, there are six different toxins there.
They think there are at least this many here, and that means six different ways, at least, it can get you.
Six different manifestations.
I mean, some may target the liver, some the lung, some the heart, some the central nervous system.
So they just, they still don't have all the answers in here.
But what you're asking me about is something that they do know, and that is when the assistant To this Dr. Joanne Burkholder at North Carolina State who discovered this organism when he finally recovered his mental abilities after three or four months of being out of the lab because he had inhaled its toxins.
He came back into the lab one night and he wanted to see if it affected human blood.
And I go into this in the book, the dramatic incident.
He goes in there and he takes a sample from his hand.
He puts it under the microscope, puts it on a slide.
He puts the water with this organism in it and he watches.
And he watches this organism literally swarm around his blood cells like a vampire and suck all his blood cells of the internal contents.
And they went from one blood cell to the next blood cell to the next until all were consumed.
Until all were consumed.
Oh my God.
You know, again, this is so alarming to people that I want to be very sure that everybody understands that we're not just feeding them some sort of science fiction.
No.
What we're telling them about what's going on in North Carolina, and apparently elsewhere, is well documented.
Now, I guess people are going to want to read your book, so how do they get your book?
Well, the book is available around the country.
There was a big ad in the New York Times book review this weekend, and I mean, it's widely distributed.
But let me say, Art, you know, one of the things that we have to be careful about is just overwhelming people with bad news.
And I think that really what I tried to do in this book, too, is to present it in a somewhat inspiring context, and that is the struggle I can't say victory yet.
That would be maybe the epilogue for the paperback of this female scientist as we get authorities to be responsible to it and what she goes through and the struggles still is inspiring in a way that I hope can galvanize people and rather than depress them.
Well I'm sitting here feeling sorry for the people of North Carolina because I realize the impact it's going to have on them.
They deserve better and that's what I said there and that's why I went there expecting a lot of hostility and antagonism And I was continually, wherever I went, I was thanked by people that made me feel like I was speaking for a lot of the citizens in that state who are being unnecessarily victimized.
Let me tell you why that is, Rodney.
It's because everybody knows it's true.
Everybody knows this is going on.
They damn well know about it.
First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Rodney Barker.
Hi.
Oh, wait a minute, I didn't push the button.
There we go.
First time caller on the line, now you're on the air with Rodney Barker.
Where are you calling from, please?
I'm calling from the Midwest.
Just as an aside to your remark about the early sexual maturation of young women, there
was a report done in England right around in the Thames estuary and they noticed a significant
increase in the amount of deformed fish, primarily with dual sets of sexual organs.
And the causal link between that type of deformity and the environmental impact of birth control
pills that it entered into.
Linked to estrogen in some way, in other words.
Pardon me?
Linked in some way to estrogen as the story.
Exactly.
So it's all over basically.
My question for Rodney is, what in particular as far as the areas where these organisms are located, is this industrialized areas, agricultural areas, what type of runoff is this attributed to?
Yeah, well what they're finding is that it's a system that has been inundated with variety of runoffs, agriculture, industrial, sewage treatment plants.
and even not what they call non-point sources, that would be acid deposition, runoffs from
sewers, golf courses, but really what has tipped the balance is the swine industry.
And it was courted by North Carolina that saw the writing on the wall with tobacco.
And the way they treat hog influence is very primitive.
They use hog lagoons there.
And so it leaches into the water table and the nitrogen and phosphorus, the nutrients
that are in that hog waste have really thrown the ecological balance over the brink.
So, that's what makes it so difficult, because every time you point your finger at one source of the problem, you've got four fingers going in other directions.
So, all of it is contributing to it, and that's why they're having so much trouble getting people to clean up, because it is economically Um, costly, and no one person can be pointed to as you're the source of the blame.
They're all contributing to it.
All right.
Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Rodney Barker.
Hi.
Hi, Art.
This is Alex, and I live about 25 minutes from North Carolina.
Yes, sir.
And I read, you know, the USA Today every day.
I read our local paper here, and I watch CNN and news, so I'm not media illiterate, but I haven't heard anything about this.
All right.
And I guess my question is, well, I guess first of all, I've heard the ABC report, too, about the girls maturing at eight.
Right.
That may or may not have any relationship.
Well, that's what I was saying.
I didn't hear them say North Carolina in particular.
They didn't mention that in the ABC News report that I heard.
But anyway, my question is, with With the hepatitis outbreak, you know, that everybody's hearing about with the strawberries and that kind of deal, you know, that came from Mexico, right?
Right.
Which supposedly we're supposed to have stringent laws about things that come into the United States.
Somebody violated a law, by the way.
It is against the law to import for distribution for that purpose, so there's going to be a lot of... Oh, okay.
There's going to be a whole lot of trouble for somebody over this, believe me.
Well, how I wanted to relate that was With this being from our own area, I mean with, you know, the North Carolina fishing industry and that, do you not think that, you know, it would be very easy for us to ship around fish that is infected by this, too?
Oh, I see.
That's a very good question.
Rodney, what about the fish?
That are caught in North Carolina and sent all over the place for one reason or another.
Well, I met on Saturday night.
I went down to Moorhead City to meet with the North Carolina Fisheries Association who were upset at the negative publicity that was coming out and the idea that it might have impacted their industry.
I have to say, I said to them, fellows, you should never have been put in a situation When this organism was first identified and linked to fish kills in 1993, you should have demanded right there and then from your state, tests to determine what toxin it releases, and is that toxin in the fish flesh?
Is it in the seafood there that you're exporting to other states?
If not, you're putting yourself in a legally precarious position.
They have basically not had those studies done, so they do not have the scientific data to reassure people.
Now let me say, cooking fish for the most part neutralizes toxins, but not always, and the possibility that on a microscopic level those toxins are harboring those fish's flesh and are going out, if those studies come out later on and confirm that presence, And they're going to be major lawsuits, and so they should have moved them a long time ago, and that's not my fault, and that's really not their fault either.
That's the state bureaucracy that should be making those tests.
All right.
Part of the book that I just wrote has to do with the weather changes.
Let me read you what I just got.
Art, as I sit here in Minneapolis and St.
Paul, Minnesota, with the worst flooding in recent memory, a month and a half early, With a blizzard raging on at 30 degrees below zero wind chill in April, winds up to 60 miles per hour, with floodwaters, freezing cars, houses, and everything else that moves flat in its tracks, I can only come to the conclusion that it is the beginning of the geographic changes that so many guests have predicted.
Now, will man be able to adapt and cope with these changes, or is it also the beginning of the life changes that are to come to bear.
Is this the weather change that Ed Dames remotely viewed?
What next?
A volcano in Kansas or an earthquake in South Dakota?
We've had a year of this, or more now, Rodney.
The weather is clearly changing.
You have some very eloquent listeners, Art.
Um, yeah.
And the, um, as the weather changes and the climate impacts the environment, we can expect more strange phenomena.
We can also expect new, new species to mutate that we had not been previously toxic or harm for people.
And we're only going to know about it when they start manifesting bizarre symptoms.
Um, and I see this organism is an example of that.
All right.
And we should be clear that this new or old organism, This horrible thing that will kill fish and... Can it kill human beings?
Well, I mean, it has not killed them.
The lethality is not directly related.
You could say, well, you're exposed to this, you take in your system, you are going to die, other than you compromise the immune system.
Again, we don't know what all it does, and that's why we shouldn't be in this position of ignorance, because this was brought to the attention of the health authorities Three years ago, and we still don't know answers, and they're still doing studies.
Everything we learn about it is disturbing.
It gets worse.
Rodney, if they have a very bad year in North Carolina, meaning it gets very hot, probably with hurricanes roaring in, how is that going to affect this?
Well, I mean, they've been talking about that.
If we don't act as a result of the publicity generated by this book, and then we have, on top of that, another bad summer, we are in real trouble here.
So we need to begin to start doing things.
And that's why, when I was there, I really tried to give the book somewhat of a positive spin.
And to the North Carolinians, really, You know, this is a challenge and an opportunity.
You can set an example for other states by how you handle this situation because there will be a paperback and that paperback will have an updated chapter of what North Carolina has done since this book has come out.
But if you have another bad summer and you don't begin to act on this book, You know, that could really spell major economic problems.
Well, with the story I've got from Wilmington, Delaware, and the story from South Africa, and people I think have seen that on CNN, Red Tide there, with just thousands of things crawling out of the sea, it's unbelievable.
Thousands of tons, excuse me.
This may already have spread.
I mean, it may be too late in that regard.
Well, I like to think that the only way to stop this, and I propose they do extensive monitoring and detection systems in all the hot spots of North Carolina this summer, and then issue alerts like you have in L.A., pollution alerts.
Have them publicly posted in the newspaper.
What the levels of this organism are, where, when are the days you don't go fishing or don't go swimming.
That doesn't solve the problem, but immediately addresses the concern of people.
In the long run, the only way they're going to solve it is we're not solving it, but manage it.
And that is by cutting back on the nutrients and the pollutants that are going into the rivers.
What do you think the chances are we'll actually do that?
Oh, gosh, Art.
You know, I mean, I think that if the North Koreans can say it's going to cost us more if we don't do it than if we do, there's hope.
They're not yet to that point, though?
I don't think you have the political support up in the legislature, and I know the governor is in a difficult situation because of the incredible pressures of the hog industry there.
All right.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Rodney Barker.
Hi.
Hey.
I'm in North Carolina.
Yes, sir.
Where in North Carolina?
Charlotte.
Charlotte.
I've suffered with the neurotoxin degrees bacterially for over 20 years.
and it is a terrible thing to go through. I now do support group work. I found some answers that
helped me. After 20 years I became housebound, city bound and then housebound. Couldn't get out of bed.
I'm now living 98% normal life again. And Rodney Barker's book, I've been of course keenly aware
of this because of my illness.
I've been looking into all this.
All right, but let me ask you, have you seen a lot of publicity about it there in North Carolina?
Well, it's been like, his book, when it came out, there's been a two-minute snitch on the local news, TV, and things like that.
But the articles have been in the paper.
He's right about the hog farming, and one of our big senators has a huge hog interest And his lagoons broke and polluted, and they find him, you know, a slap on the wrist.
But basically, the news, you know, has been kind of spotty.
But if you really have been aware of it, I mean, I've been aware of it for quite a few years, and they are getting sores, and the brain symptoms of the first three I go to, the short-term memory loss being the second.
All right, sir.
I appreciate the call.
I was in Charlotte last weekend.
Charlotte is more inland, it's not on the coast.
He's right in terms of the regional coverage.
because you thought you went to sleep in the winter.
All right, sir, I appreciate the call.
Yeah, I was in Charlotte the beginning of last week, and Charlotte is more inland, it's not on the coast.
And he's right in terms of the regional coverage.
I did a couple of TV spots and a couple of radio shows there.
I mean, I don't know what it takes to sort of blanket the media.
I've done a number of national shows.
I was on Dateline two weeks ago, as well as Good Morning America and CNN, and there was the New York Times, and I know in Raleigh this has been a big story.
If I play the bureaucrat who thinks Rodney Barker is full of it, and that this is just some sort of Well, I say go to the newspapers, go down on the coast, talk to the doctors who are seeing the patients, take a trip down through all those coastal towns and cities that I do, see how seriously they take it.
Talk to the people who've been given money to do research, see how seriously they take it.
The only people who are going to be talking like that are going to be the bureaucrats who I challenge and reveal and expose in the book.
For the most part, I'm getting endorsement from both the scientific circles, from the medical circles, and certainly from the population.
Rodney, if we do nothing at all, what'll happen?
I think you're going to have We're going to have more and more of... One of the long-standing things is we're talking about health care in this country, and I think you're going to have chronic problems.
You're going to have acute problems.
I think that it's going to have a major, major impact on North Carolina.
I think it's economy, its population is going to be affected.
I mean, I hate to think about that, Art.
I mean, it's only going to get worse, and dramatically worse, because, I mean, the critical point has been reached in North Carolina.
I think it's the first in line.
A lot of coastal states are going to be affected by these kinds of problems.
North Carolina now, the East Coast as a whole, perhaps later.
All right, Rodney, can you hold on?
I can.
All right.
Coming to the top of the hour, Rodney Barker is my guest, and Waters Turned Blood is his book.
I'm Art Bell and you're listening to the CBC Radio Network.
Welcome to the CBC Radio Network. I'm Art Bell and you're listening to the CBC Radio Network.
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This is an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
Art Bell.
I want Rodney to hear this.
Rodney, are you a religious person?
Somewhat, Art.
I'm not a practicing.
I don't go to church, but I have my own private religion that I continue to believe in.
Well, that makes two of us then.
Listen to this.
It is from Pastor Bradley.
Dear Art and Rodney, I know you don't like quoting from the Bible on your show, but there is a verse that describes precisely what your guest is talking about.
It is described in the Curse of the Second Bowl, which is found in Revelation 16, 2, and reads, quote, Then the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it became blood as of a dead man, and every living creature in the sea died.
The very next verse, number four, describes the same thing being introduced into the fresh water system.
Quote, the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water and they became blood.
Signed, Pastor Bradley.
I'm not a strictly religious person by a long shot either and I'm not sure How to approach what we're doing to ourselves right now, Rodney, but I don't know.
That gives me sort of a nervous little tick.
It does too.
I know that I was aware and excited by the recent sort of coalition building between environmentalists and theologians who do see a common cause in the preserving of the earth and being the steward of the earth.
And I like hearing about that kind of coming together.
Let me tell you something.
Politically, most of my life, I have been a conservative with libertarian leanings.
All right?
And the traditional conservative position on environmental matters is BS.
You know, it's BS and all that matters is the economy.
And I have come in the last several years To understand that it's not BS, that I'm afraid it's real, what we're doing to ourselves is now coming back to haunt us.
It's what drove me to write this book.
I guess it's what drove you to write the book, isn't it?
In larger part, yeah.
Alright, let's take a few more calls.
First time caller line, you're on the air with Rodney Barker in L.A., hi.
Hello Art, hi.
Where are you?
In Hannibal, Missouri, hometown of Mark Twain.
Yes, sir.
I used to live in Rock Hill, South Carolina, which is right on the border of North and South Carolina next to Charlotte.
The guy I called just a little while ago, I can back up what he said, the Catawba River, which ran, I'd say, maybe about half a block away from where my apartment was, had a very interesting occurrence, to say the least, happening there in the latter part of 1993 going into 1994.
What was that?
There were scores of fish that ended up on the banks of the rivers, on both sides.
There was somebody that just plowed right down the center of it with a net or something, and just shoved all the fish over to the side.
I mean, there were thousands of them laying around.
Thousands?
The soil conservation people were running around telling people to keep away from the river, away from the fish, because they were rotting and it would get you sick and all that stuff.
But, considering it was so close to my house, you know, I was wondering, what the heck is going on with all the smell down there?
I went to take a look and I saw fish with the same kinds of signs and symptoms as what I've seen on the TV.
Sores and stuff like that.
There were kids that during that same time frame had been down river playing around in the water and they had come down with meningitis.
One of which was 17 years old, football star, no problems whatsoever health wise, who died from it.
Just boom!
Out of the clear blue.
No rhyme, no reason.
The health officials blew it off.
And they would not admit, even when we called the CDC to say, look, are we in danger?
Are we having an outbreak?
What's going on?
The people down there, up to and including Dr. David Thatcher, the director, who I personally talked to about this, would not tell us anything.
Just blew us off and said, oh, there's nothing to it, which is typical of the downplaying of the usual government bureaucracy, you know?
All right.
Thank you.
I have got to somehow impress the audience with the The urgency of this.
110 physicians from North Carolina wrote a letter to our Vice President.
That's 110 doctors in North Carolina.
Would you read it one more time, please?
Certainly will.
Let me just say before I do, it's really amazing when you do something like this.
The different stories you hear from people who have encountered something similar, whether it's a disorganism or not, but who are frustrated.
By what has happened to the environment and the lack of response on the part of public health officials.
This letter is to dear Vice President Gore.
It's from physicians of Craven County, North Carolina and surrounding areas.
It reads, physicians are usually notoriously uninvolved in political or environmental issues.
An environmental issue is now, however, threatening the people of our community in New Bern, North Carolina and nearby.
As doctors, we feel the need to speak out as advocates of our patients to protect them from the possible health risk, which in this case involves exposure to our coastal waters.
The pollution in our rivers has caused an overgrowth of several organisms, one known as Fisteria, implicated not only in fish kills, but in mammalian neurologic dysfunction.
And it goes on to call upon Vice President Al Gore to come in to support the governor.
To me, it's a stunning Rebuke to the public health system in North Carolina that they are going above them, outside the state, appealing to Vice President Al Gore for help.
Alright, now, suppose I lived in the state of Maine, on the coast, and I'm going to just give you a reaction.
I'm going to say, look, fine, that's North Carolina's problem.
That's not my problem.
I don't care.
Well, I would say to them that this organism has been found up and down the eastern seaboard.
I would say to them that they should not be complacent just because they have not been impacted by this particular organism, because I think what this organism indicates is that our coastal waters are being changed by environmental and pollution pressures.
And if it's not this organism, it very well easily could be another organism.
And all the scientists are predicting That this is the direction we're moving in.
There's going to be a global increase in these kind of pathogens, and they're going to be happening in Maine's waters sooner or later.
And they've even had, there was a big incident up in Canada dealing with toxicity.
I just picked on Maine as a... Yeah, I know, but I mean, so you are not immune simply because you live in those northern waters.
In other words, if we don't do something, the ocean is literally going to be poisoned.
Is poisoned the wrong word?
Well, no, it's not.
No, it's not.
I mean, there's a strong possibility that this kind of thing is going on elsewhere and the organism just has not yet been identified.
You heard the story, maybe some of the audience did not, that I just read, which just broke out of South Africa.
There are some photographs on CNN or some video of it.
An estimated 1,000 tons of crayfish have literally walked out of the ocean Worrying marine experts, I'm quoting from CNN, due to a red tide, trying to escape a red tide.
And what you're talking about is a red tide, isn't it?
The organism that I'm talking about, North Carolina, is really a cousin to the organism that causes the red tide.
A nastier cousin?
Yes, it's a nastier cousin because it exhibits direct predatory behavior.
Uh, attacking fish, and the toxin appears to be more, more potent and more dangerous to humans than the one causing red tide.
Alright.
Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Rodney Barker.
Hi.
Morning, Mr. Bell.
This is Robert in San Joaquin Valley.
Yes, sir.
First of all, that, uh, Golden Eagle food, I tried that.
And they've come a long way from, uh, hay rations.
Yeah, no kidding.
Yeah, I know.
Uh, yes.
Good evening, sir.
Yes, sir.
I'm really enjoying hearing you.
There's so many things I could ask you, but let me lump it all in one real quick, Art, and then I'll listen on the air.
Sure.
First of all, after I mentioned the main subject, I was hoping maybe you could tell us, because we can't really depend on politicians and their agendas, what we could do to come together in hopes that we could turn things around.
Pressure.
Yeah, if it's not too little too late.
But are you familiar with the Red Tide, the Salton Sea in Southern California?
Yeah.
Go ahead and tell us more about it, though.
I'd like to hear what you're... They've had it several times.
I drove by there not too many years ago.
All the fish were floating.
The stench was terrible.
The people were sick.
The birds were getting sick.
Yeah, birds are falling out of the air.
Yes, sir.
I was just wondering if you knew much about that and what the cause is.
Yeah, I do.
Well, I know that it's been linked to What is called the fertilization of the coastal waters, which is causing various microorganism cells to turn toxic, and then it works its way up the food chain.
And you've had that problem here.
You had a die-off in 91 of pelicans that were feeding on anchovies that were feeding on toxic diatoms.
And so California has had its spouts, as well as the whole Pacific Coast has, with these marine organisms turning toxic.
In this case, as we said, working its way up the food chain.
All right, I've got two reports here.
One from MSNBC.
Let me read it.
At a conference in Brussels, insurance company scientists warn not only that climate is changing, but that resulting storms and other erratic weather could actually bankrupt the industry.
A quote, it is feared that climate change will produce in nearly all regions of the world new extreme values of many insurance relevant parameters that will lead to natural disasters of unprecedented severity and frequency.
And now from CNN, McGinty, Clinton's point person on environmental issues, largely steered clear of the blame, commenting, focusing instead on the consequences of doing nothing.
Again, he said, quote, as we see increasingly severe storms, we begin to get a glimpse of what a post-climate change world would look like.
But I'm beginning to wonder if we're going to make it that far.
You know, when it comes to the environment, Art, we have relied on other species to be our early warning systems.
That's why miners took canaries into the mines with them.
When they stopped singing, they knew they had air problems.
But the assumption is when the environment reaches a point where it can no longer support wildlife, that we will recognize that.
We'll pay attention to it, and we will react to it.
And boy, some of the stories we've heard tonight, you hear about the frogs up in Minnesota and Wisconsin growing legs out of different parts of their body.
Let me give you one that you might not know about.
I live out here in the desert, Rodney, and Lake Mead is the big drinking water supply for Las Vegas.
And there were front page headlines about two months ago that said that the carp in Lake Mead were showing gross deformities.
Now, bear in mind, this is in the drinking water of Las Vegas.
Well, you know, and there are those who say, you know, it's not fair to extrapolate from other species to human health.
I think that's the case I make in this book is basically The line between us and them, between other species and people has been crossed.
The same things we're doing to the environment that are causing an organism to emerge as killing fish.
Well, why do they call it the food chain?
It's a food chain, right?
Uh-huh.
We're at the top of it.
Oh, I see.
I know.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air with First Time Callers.
Call area 702-727-1222.
Hold it, Steve.
We can't allow you to put a last name on the air.
Okay.
So let us begin again.
Your name is Steve.
And Steve, where are you calling from?
I'm calling from Wilmington, North Carolina.
Two questions for you, and maybe a main concern.
This, you said, might be going airborne, right?
No, it does.
The toxin aerosolizes.
He is airborne.
It is airborne.
All right.
Being that I'm just about two minutes away from the ocean and a few minutes away from several of the branches off the Cape Fear River, is it possible that I could be affected?
And if so, should I be in the thought of moving someplace else?
Oh, no, I wouldn't allow it.
First of all, we're talking about blooms of this organism.
That's when you have concerns.
Um, when it blooms in the water, then, and the problem is, like a red tide, you don't get the discoloration.
That's when the toxin aerosolizes.
In terms of the ocean side, even though it has a salinity tolerance for the ocean, the churning of the waves, the turning over, makes it so that it's inhospitable for it.
So on the exterior parts of the oceans, you don't need to worry.
It has been found in the Cape Fear, yes.
I would keep my, you know, attuned to the newspaper there.
The Wilmington Star-News is very good on this kind of thing.
I was just in Wilmington last week, and you have a riverkeeper there who is monitoring this kind of situation, and I had a long conversation with him, so there will be those kind of alerts posting.
He's going to be looking forward to it, too, so I would not consider moving at this time, no.
Okay.
I don't think you should.
Again, I think you should become involved.
And, I mean, if there... I mean, stay in touch with your river keeper there.
All right.
On the other hand, if he were to ask you, should I go swimming?
Well, Cape Fear has got its problems, too.
I mean, all those coastal rivers, I mean, it's not one thing, it's another.
There's been a variety of bacteria and organisms they've been found in those rivers.
I don't think they're healthy places.
I certainly wouldn't.
I believe in informed consent, Art, and that's what makes me so angry here, is that The health and environmental bureaucracies just don't have the information to be able to provide to citizens and consumers to make them feel meaningfully reinsured of what they know what they're eating or what they're swimming in.
Alright, caller.
So the word is you don't have to move, but stay informed.
Okay, one more quick question for you.
Sure.
How much do you think it's going to get worse?
All right.
Again, that goes back to, if we do nothing, what are we facing?
Well, I can say to you this, is that there was, I mean, if we look back in time, the population sort of shifts move from rural to urban.
Now the population shift is moving to the coastlines.
You look at what states are growing the fastest.
It is our coastal states.
And that is clearly the target area.
Those coastal waters are the breeding zones for these new organisms.
The states are going to have more and more people to them as we put more and more pollution and population pressures.
All right.
What's with the Rockies?
You're on the air with Rodney Barker.
Hi.
Hello.
Hello.
Yes.
I have a couple of questions.
One is, are there any places one could go?
I mean, aside from your book, obviously, which is a prime source of information, which could be considered an official I mean, if you could look, in my book it refers to a Nature article, a scientific prestigious journal out of Britain, when it was first published about this.
I cannot refer you to any information in terms of the state officials in North Carolina.
There are a couple of environmental groups, foundations that are clearinghouses for information.
Um, perhaps if you wanted to call Art's producer back, Art, back at a later time, I could give him those numbers, you could call them.
Alright, in the meantime, we've got a related article now on our website, caller, so if you have a computer, it's www.artbell.com.
Alright, Rodney, sit tight.
Uh, we'll be back to you in a moment.
His book, And the Waters Turned to Blood.
Uh, this is a, uh, a very strange organism we are discussing.
That unfortunately, well, is now affecting the fish, but also is beginning to affect human beings.
You might want to stick around and listen.
I'm Art Bell and this is CBC.
And now back to the best of Art Bell.
More than I am this horrible little bug.
Well, you know, I really see when we talk about North Carolina as a signal event, sending up a flare for a lot of other states to see.
And that's what my hope is.
And that's why I really appreciate the opportunity to be here, is to bring this issue to the attention of people around the country.
Because, yes, we have a major problem in North Carolina, but other states are just standing in line.
It's going to be coming their way.
All right.
East of the Rockies, you are on the air with Rodney Barker.
Hi.
Hi, I'm Larry.
I'm calling from Watertown, Wisconsin, and I've lived in Western North Carolina for 13 years.
They have a very large commercial fish farm industry in Western North Carolina, rainbow trout, catfish.
I drove by one on the way home from work, so I have my wife.
I have the guy dip some of the fish out for my wife, and her health has started to go downhill.
And they've just opened a new fish market in town that she's been patronizing and she's very seriously ill.
She's been eating orange roughy and some other things and I just spoke with her when the program came on.
You know, we have a lot of trouble getting you on the radio in Western North Carolina in the mountains and she's very ill.
She's, you know, to the point she can't sleep pains or she's starting to become forgetful.
She locked herself out of the house.
They didn't even take a purse or keys and you know how a woman is with her purse.
Well, these are symptoms typical of what Rodney has described.
That doesn't mean that's what this is, though.
Although it does sound eerily familiar, doesn't it, Rodney?
Yeah.
Again, as we said, R.J., when you start writing about this kind of thing, you hear all kinds of stories about people who are suffering from similar complaints.
You know, I did a little research on the Internet with the CDC.
And they have a site there talking about new and emerging infectious diseases, and under that is a paper that talks about how poorly equipped public health departments are to be able to discern these new waterborne diseases from all different sources, and that they just don't have the sophistication to detect them, they don't test for them, And they really are crisis-oriented, and they wait until there's an ongoing health problem before they'll finally react to a situation.
I know.
Well, you're not a doctor, but what would you say to this fellow?
Boy, having gone through, I mean, I hear so many stories of those people who have had that kind of thing.
I just don't know any personal physicians.
I just don't know what to say to this individual.
I'm sorry.
I'm so sorry for you.
Is there any danger of that organism being in mountain streams in western North Carolina?
No, let me reassure you about that.
You may have other sources of pollution in your mountain streams,
but in terms of western or North Carolina, I know there's paper mills up there,
and I know there's been some spraying up there, so that might be the source of your problem.
This particular organism, no.
I don't want to alarm you about it.
That doesn't seem to be... I mean, you don't need to worry about this causing those problems.
All right.
First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Rodney Barker.
Hi.
Hi.
Where are you, sir?
My name is Francis.
I'm calling from Grass Valley, California.
I'm listening on KNCO.
Okay.
And I have a couple... I'm an activist in my area with the Green Party, and we're My point is, I'd like to request that the letter of the doctors get put on the website so that people could have access to that.
I think it's valuable information.
I think it is, too.
I do, too.
I'll tell you what, Rodney, if you will supply it to me, I will see to it that it gets on the website.
Okay.
I'll be glad to do that, Art.
Alright, caller?
Sir, I have another quick request.
Another quick comment.
May I?
Yes.
A while back you had this, this is a quick comment, you had this game you played called If I Were a Dictator.
Well, if I were a dictator, whenever someone, a certain conservative radio talk show host used the term environmental wacko, I would have them castrated.
Yeah, I'm sorry, my views have, what would be the right word, they've gone past the Any political concerns or beliefs that I had and I have embraced because of scientific fact that a lot of people are just ignoring right now about what's going on with our environment.
I have begun to realize, as many, many, many others have, that we are really screwing up the place we live in.
You know, I was asked on a program, like, why?
Actually, I think it was Good Morning America.
Why would not health officials react?
I mean, it's difficult to answer that because you think this is their job, and it's a complex mix of motives, but one of the things that I think that I encountered in this book, and I think it's part of one of the, in fact it is one of the themes of the book, and that is how much information is enough?
And I mean, I think that a lot of our health departments You know, their demand for scientific certainty is beyond reason, beyond common sense.
They want absolute scientific consensus, they want perfect information, and you're never going to get that.
And I understand.
You know, to run the engines of environmental protection costs money.
You need to have information because industries can bring lawsuits, and thus you can back up regulations.
But nevertheless, I mean, it reaches a point where if you're going to err, You're going to err on the side of protecting public health, and I find that a lot of these public health agencies are so conservative in their demand for more and more science just to avoid those tough political and economic consequences.
You nevertheless have a lot of science behind what you have written, don't you?
I issued a challenge to that public health department, to the environmental agency there, the Division of Environmental Management.
If you have any disagreement With the contentions in my book, let's sit down and let's select a major newspaper.
I chose the News and Observer from Raleigh, but I said, anyone you want.
And I'll present my data and my information and my sources, and you present yours.
And let's have the public decide.
And I have had nobody take me up on that challenge.
And I know someone from the governor's office went to the health department to say, what are your problems with this?
And they tried to nickel-dime me.
The little things had no consequence to the serious challenges there.
And she was completely, I mean, appalled in my back.
I actually reported that to the governor.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Rodney Barker.
Hello.
Hi.
Hi.
Nice to be talking to you.
I'm from Tempe, Arizona.
My name is Ellen.
Hi, Ellen.
Hi.
I couldn't believe what Mr. Barker, is that correct?
Yes.
Was saying.
I was just driving home.
It's almost the same here in Arizona.
The denial until there were actual dead bodies in this case, and overwhelmingly so.
There was a circuit board manufacturer that blew up in a minority neighborhood, which of course the neighborhood wasn't aware of what was being done in there.
It created a massive fire four years ago.
We now have about 40 people dead on the same street that was downwind from the fire, and eight right away.
When the people were let back into their area, it was a poor evacuation.
They didn't have one, basically.
And they were let back in too soon.
But they came back to their dead animals and dead plants on their lawn.
That's the kind of message?
Yeah, that would prove not only overwhelming scientific evidence, but they went on to say, the Arizona State Health Department and the Maricopa County Health Department, that they were just imagining these symptoms and the deaths were normal.
And the kids started to get sick, and now, you know, down there, it's very, very common for kids to have their hair falling out, and they don't think it's uncommon down there.
So, in other words, the point you're making is that the bureaucracy treated that incident just the way they're treating what's going on in North Carolina right now.
Exactly.
Not only did we have scientific information that the symptoms were all linked together, and not from sick house syndrome, not because African-Americans have bad diets and they even had the nerve to say that, but because we had many dead people and what they were saying was, well, they were very old and they were going to die.
Well, those are the most vulnerable people.
Of course.
The young and the old.
And then when we went further to the federal level and I petitioned the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to do a public health survey They were being told by our state agency that they had it under control.
Finally, four years later, 80 deaths and many sick, we finally got the Region 9 director to come down and listen to this.
All right.
Well, does that all sound familiar?
Oh, yeah, that pattern is repeated again and again.
And I mean, I mean, in some respects, this is an old story.
And and that's where I think sometimes it takes a book, a catalyst for the kind of Hey, how y'all doing?
Well, you're listening.
This is Harold in Jacksonville, North Carolina.
I had one quick question.
I'll get off and listen to the answer on the air.
But we have down here an epidemic of rabies in the population.
Hey, how y'all doing?
Well, you're listening.
This is Harold in Jacksonville, North Carolina.
I had one quick question.
I'll get off and listen to the answer on the air.
But we have down here an epidemic of rabies in the Raccoon population.
And I was just curious to know if by chance this bug in the water
is what's causing the rabies epidemic.
No.
No, absolutely not.
And we really have to be careful because we're talking about the man for a response to the science here.
We have to be scientific.
Yeah, everybody begins to blame it on everything.
Right.
Yeah, that's a danger.
In fact, I was just in Jacksonville.
And by the way, I'm being interviewed by Jacksonville Radio tomorrow morning at about 630.
But no, don't worry about the babies, and this organism has no connection with whoever sent it.
All right.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Rodney Barker.
Hi.
Hi, this is Steve in New Orleans.
Hello, Steve.
I know New Orleans has its own problems.
Yes.
In fact, I'd like to ask your guest.
Several times over the past five to ten years, there's been a dead zone.
And the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast.
And this zone has been growing in size.
And what I read from a newspaper was that it might be caused by fertilizer, which was carried down to Mississippi and dumped into the Gulf of Mexico.
And I would like to ask a guest if he knows if that is accurate.
Or if there might be some type of organism involved.
Rodney?
Yeah, I can't speak to that.
I don't want to over-speak my knowledge here.
Certainly, the waters that you're talking about are prime candidates for what we're talking about.
I mean, think about all the different basins that the Mississippi flushes.
So whether you're talking about a specific chemical contaminant in there that is causing those dead zones, whether you're talking about the changing environmental conditions at a given birth, the organisms that are causing that, I really can't speak to.
Either way, it wouldn't surprise me.
And I know those are the waters that are going to be tested next for this organism.
I know.
We've talked to Dr. Burke Holder, who's a scientist here.
All right.
The name of this organism again, please.
The name of the organism is Pisteria piscicida.
It translates from Latin to fish killer.
Fish killer.
And it has caused fish to have open sores.
Open sores.
It causes them to have muscle paralysis, and they die from the neurotoxin.
They've been dying by the millions in the waters of North Carolina.
By the millions?
Yeah, and again, this toxin just doesn't stop at fish.
Not only does it affect the waters, but it affects almost like a poisonous vapor over where these fish kills take place, and people entering those zones are susceptible.
So a very dangerous time would be when it's hot, when there's a bloom of this, then it would be misty, it would be airborne.
Yeah, and you wouldn't know necessarily.
I mean, if you're looking on the surface for a fish with holes in them to tell you, that's not what the sign is.
I mean, those fish could be disturbed down below.
It could be in the early state of a bloom.
It could be after that.
So you can't tell by looking at the waters whether it's active and whether it's dangerous.
And again, the effect on human beings is?
The effect on human beings is not completely understood, but it's all bad news.
But the symptoms?
The symptoms would be similar to premature Alzheimer's, cognitive difficulty, it seems
like multiple sclerosis, and cognitive impairment, and more to be told.
And immune deficiencies.
And immune deficiencies, but that's what's so hard, is that if it's immune deficiency,
you could be exhibiting a whole range of symptoms that don't have the signature of this organism,
and you wouldn't know what's causing it.
All right, let's take a couple more calls and that's about all we're going to have time for.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Rodney Barker.
Hi.
West of the Rockies, are you there?
East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Rodney Barker.
Good morning.
Yes, this is Charles from Maine.
Yes, Charles.
Yes, I was wondering if this bug were to infect a human or whatever, like is there any chance of a sore like on the fish?
If it were a bug to affect a human, is there a chance of sores on a fish?
I'm sorry, I'm not understanding.
I don't follow that either.
Like, would the human get the sore, you know, as a symptom?
Oh, oh, oh, yes.
Yeah, I mean, the human's exposed to the toxin.
See, I mean, what makes this so difficult is that I can't, I mean, we can't say to you, like, in the auto industry, if you're exposed to benzene, you get a specific kind of cancer.
The range of toxins have not been clearly identified, the range of human health effects have been clearly identified. So there are all kinds of
possible symptoms. The symptoms we are describing today are the ones that are known. But
until that toxin is studied, until we come up with a set of clinical symptoms associated
with it, we really just don't know.
The sores on the hands are one indication that they do not respond to antibiotics. They
are slow to heal and they would be a symptom. But up in Maine, there could be a lot of other
things that are causing it too.
All right, Rodney, we are going to have to stop it here.
But your book, And the Water's Turned to Blood, is generally available, right?
Generally available across the country, Art, and let me say, this has been a public service, and I can't thank you enough for allowing me to bring it to your audience.
Well, I can't thank you enough for taking the time after a busy book signing to be here.
Rodney... And it sounds like we're thinking along the same lines, and I'm anxious to read the quickening.
I'll arrange it.
Thank you, Rodney.
Thank you, Art.
Take care.
That's Rodney Barker, folks, and his book again, And the Waters Turn to Blood.
Now, it's one more indication of exactly what I have written about in my book, which is called The Quickening.
It documents the weather changes, the geographic changes, the social changes, the economic changes.
Changes in literally every aspect of human endeavor.
The exponential quickening.
What's going on?
It is, I suspect, the best book I will ever have written.
And it is 336 pages, available hardcover only.
And I'm going to give you a phone number to order it, but the lines are hopelessly gridlocked.
And the best time to call is after 8 o'clock in the morning Pacific Time.
My book is available as of today.
Now, if you want a first edition signed autographed copy, Now let me explain this to you, okay?
Because last time there were many people screeching about this.
I am going to sign copies for as long as I can humanly do it.
And then I am going to stop.
I'm not putting an actual cut-off date on this.
I'll just sign until I get sick of signing.
Okay?
And then you will not be able to get a signed copy.
So that's the deal, and I'm going to give you the phone number right now.
You can try it right now.
You might get lucky and get through, but my guess is after 8 o'clock in the morning, you'd have a better chance.
All I did was mention it on Dreamland, and it went into utter complete gridlock yesterday, so you can give it a try.
the number is 1-800-864-7991. I have mixed feelings about the effect this, I know the
effect this book is going to have.
love.
It's going to shock and anger a lot of people.
But what you will find in it is documented and true.
If you're not the kind of person who puts their head into the sand, then this is a book you definitely want to read.
The quickening is out as of tonight.
Today.
Actually, yesterday now.
The number to call is 1-800-864-7991.
And I'll be interested to...
By the way, they ship out right away.
They've got them to ship.
No pre-orders this time, like with my last book.
They're ready to ship as soon as you call.
Again, 1-800-864-7991.
And the quickening is kind of what I think we're going to talk about as the show continues this morning.
How could we not?
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