Bob McCarty Writes

I’ll be making a guest appearance Friday afternoon on The Dana Show on FM NewsTalk 97.1.

During the show’s last half hour, starting around 3:30 p.m. Central, host Dana Loesch and I will discuss an exclusive article I published Monday about a new Weldon Spring Cancer Report I obtained from the Missouri Department of Health & Senior Services Dec. 29 at 5:04 p.m.

Among the things, we’ll discuss:

(1) How my search for answers about the report turned into an uphill battle; and

(2) The fact that the state health agency has yet to provide any kind of public notice or issue any news release about its report on leukemia and leukemia death rates among people living in five zip codes near the site 30 miles west of St. Louis.

It’s unforgivable for MDHSS to withhold information from people living near the site, known as the Weldon Spring Site, especially when one considers the site’s history which landed it on the EPA’s National Priorities List for cleanup in 1987 and prompted the construction of a 75-foot-tall, 42-acre disposal cell (a.k.a., “rock pile”) to hold hazardous materials in 2001.

Be sure to tune in!

Good news! Today, the American Legion’s Burnpit published a 1,700-word article about the book, Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice, which chronicles the life story and wrongful conviction of former Army Green Beret Sgt. 1st Class Kelly A. Stewart.

The article, written by Army war veteran and lawyer Mark Seavey, is one of the best articles to date about the book and ends with a recommendation for readers to buy the book. Couldn’t agree more!

To read other reviews of the book, click here.

For information about ordering a copy of the book, click here.

Crossposted from ThreeDaysInAugust.com.

Enough political correctness!  The trial of Marine Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, one of the so-called “Haditha Marines” mentioned in the foreword of my book, Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice, ended today when he agreed to plead guilty to one count of negligent dereliction of duty, according to a report in the North County Times of Escondido, Calif.

Sergeant Wuterich was on trial for manslaughter and related charges for his role in the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians in 2005. After spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees, seven other Marines, including LTC Jeffrey Chessani, either had the charges against them dropped in exchange for their testimony or were acquitted entirely during courts-martial proceedings.

Though the collective prosecution of the Haditha Marines can only be described as a “Charlie-Foxtrot” at best, it pales in comparison to what Army Sgt. First Class Kelly A. Stewart went through during three days in August 2009.

You can read the story about Stewart, a highly-decorated combat-veteran Green Beret, in my book, Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice.

To read reviews of the book, click here.

For information about ordering a copy of the book, click here.

On March 11, 2011, a major earthquake off the coast of Japan triggered a tsunami that, in addition to killing more than 15,000 people, contributed to the disaster at the Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant — the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.  After watching the Fukushima disaster unfold for three weeks, I began to wonder about all things nuclear, including the Weldon Spring Site, located in a once-rural area 30 miles west of St. Louis.

According to the Department of Energy’s history of the Weldon Spring Site, the site was placed on the EPA’s National Priorities List in 1987 because of the potential for groundwater contamination to adversely affect a drinking water well field less than a mile away that served 60,000 users in the area.  That same year, DOE began cleanup actions. Most of the soils were removed and deposited into a 42-acre disposal cell located on-site in the vicinity of the former feed materials plant.

What was it, exactly, that required cleaning?

According to the summary of a nine-page document published by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services and  known unofficially as the 2005 Weldon Spring Cancer Report, the Weldon Spring Site in St. Charles County, Mo., was contaminated during the production of 2, 4, 6 – trinitrotoluene (TNT) and 2, 4 and 2,6 Dinitrotoluene (DNT) by the U.S. Department of Army from 1941 to 1945 and from enrichment of uranium ore and thorium processing by the Atomic Energy Commission from 1958 to 1966.

Also contained in the 2005 report was a call for follow-up testing to be conducted in response to concerns that radiological and chemical contamination related to the Weldon Spring Site might be negatively impacting the health of residents in the area.  Specifically, the report’s authors recommended “the Cancer Inquiry Program should continue to monitor the cancer incidence and mortality rates in Weldon Spring and its surrounding areas.”

Ever curious, I decided to find out if the “continue to monitor” recommendation had been taken to heart by MDHSS decision-makers.

Gravel-covered stairs lead to the top of the 75-foot-tall disposal cell at the Weldon Spring Site.

On March 24, 2011, I contacted the agency via email and asked if a new report was taking shape.  Then-Communications Director Jacqueline Lapine responded by telling me that an update to the 2005 report would be published in December 2011.

During the next nine months, I checked with her several times on the status of the report and was told each time that it was still on schedule.  Then, just after 5 o’clock Dec. 29, 2011, a message from Gena Terlizzi arrived in my mailbox.  Included as an attachment to the message from Terlizzi, a woman who had only recently replaced Lapine as the agency’s communications director, was a copy of the new report, known officially as the Analysis of Leukemia Incidence and Mortality Data for St. Charles County, Weldon Spring and Surrounding Areas December 2011 (Update to April 2005 Report) and unofficially as the “Weldon Spring Update” or “2011 Weldon Spring Cancer Inquiry Report.”

I read the new report and found it contains two noteworthy statements in its “Updated Analysis” section on page two.  The first appears below:

Based on updated data from the 5-zip code area, the total number of leukemia deaths and the total number of leukemia deaths in those age 65 and older appears to be significantly higher than expected (Table 4 updated) but the actual leukemia death rates in the 5-zip code area were not significantly different from the statewide leukemia death rates (Table B).

While the first noteworthy statement resembles bureaucratic doublespeak, the second statement (below) leaves one feeling perplexed:

Based on this analysis, we have concluded that there is no increased environmental risk of developing leukemia in the five ZIP-code area during 1996-2004 over that of the entire state.

Together, the two statements combine to raise at least one serious question in my mind:

Should the report’s conclusions about the total number of leukemia deaths and the total number of leukemia deaths among people 65 and older warrant concern among St. Charles County residents, especially those living within the five zip codes (63301, 63303, 63304, 63366 and 63376) targeted by the study?

With that question in my mind, I fired off another email message to MDHSS shortly after noon Central Dec. 30.  In it, I asked several questions, including the two below:

MDHSS officials buried the Weldon Spring Cancer Inquiry Report near the bottom of the “Data & Statistics” page of the agency’s website.

1.  Can you tell me why, in both the 2005 report and the 2011 Weldon Spring Update, MDHSS has looked only at leukemia deaths instead of deaths attributed to a wider variety of cancers? and

2.  I noticed MDHSS has not posted the 2011 Weldon Spring Update on its website or issued a news release about the findings.  Do you plan to issue a news release about it and/or share information contained in the 2011 Weldon Spring Update with residents who live within the five zip codes studied?  If so, when and how?

Worth noting:  I discovered a link to the PDF version of the 2011 report a short time after sending my questions to Terlizzi.  The fact that MDHSS officials had buried it — without explanation, among a half-dozen “special reports” at the bottom of the Data & Statistics page on the MDHSS website — prompted me to let question #2 stand.

On Jan. 3 at 3:36 p.m. Central, I received the following response from Terlizzi:

Hi Bob,

We don’t have any additional information or comments aside from what’s included in the report.

Thank you,

Gena

Surprised by the brief response, I placed a follow-up phone call and sent a follow-up email message to Terlizzi, hoping to get some clarification.  Both went unreturned.

As an Air Force public affairs officer during the 1980s and ’90s, I learned quite a bit through firsthand experience dealing with the public and the news media on serious topics, including environmental health concerns related to nuclear-capable military operations.  Among the most important things I learned was that public relations strategies that involve covering up, sugarcoating or otherwise trying to hide bad news from the public never turn out well and should be avoided at all cost.  Those who employ such shortsighted strategies end up facing more questions.

In the case of MDHSS, the agency’s no-comment stance caused two immediate questions to form in my mind:

Are state health agency officials trying to hide something from the public?  and

Do residents living within the target zip codes deserve (1) to have the findings contained in the 2011 report shared with them in a proactive fashion and (2) to get answers to their questions about the report?

While I hope the answer to the first question is “No,” I know the answer to the second question is a resounding “YES!”

* * *

I began this piece some 1,100 words ago by mentioning the disaster at Fukushima.  That event, however, wasn’t the only one to cause me to be interested in the Weldon Spring Site.

During more than ten years of living in the St. Louis area, I’ve heard many people joke about not allowing their children to drink from the water fountains at Francis Howell High School, located a stone’s throw from the Weldon Spring Site.  Most recently, however, I received a phone call.

From the top of the disposal cell at the Weldon Spring Site, one can see nearby Francis Howell High School.

A few days before Halloween 2010, a 40-something mother of two who lives near the Weldon Spring Site contacted me with concerns about what she perceived to be an unusually-high number of cancer cases in her neighborhood.

During multiple conversations over six days, she told me she knew of several people who were either battling cancer or had recently died from the disease. All lived within three blocks of her home in a subdivision of approximately 150 homes, one of many new housing areas to spring up out of farmland in fast-growing St. Charles County during the 1980s and 1990s.

What concerned her most was the fact that the types of cancer involved were varied and included several types of breast cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer and a rare blood cancer.  I took some notes, told the woman I would look into the matter and agreed not to share her name with readers if/when I published anything about the serious subject of our conversations. In reality, though, I didn’t expect our conversations to lead to anything.

Five months later, she contacted me again and told me that another of her neighbors — a child living two blocks away — had been diagnosed with cancer. In addition, she told me about several more cases of children attending schools close to her home who had died from different forms of brain cancer. I filed the information just in case.

Some might consider information provided by a nameless suburban housewife unreliable and label it “rumor” and “hearsay” — and I can’t blame them.  I was skeptical myself.

Another two weeks passed, and the same woman forwarded more information to me in the form of links to two articles.

One link led me to an article published March 7, 2001, in St. Louis’ Riverfront Times, the Voice Media Group-owned alternative weekly newspaper in which one can occasionally find a well-researched, long-form investigative piece.  This particular article contained several hard-to-ignore paragraphs, but none stood out more than the one below which contains the observations of a Catholic priest, Father Gerry Kleba:

Last spring, Kleba’s vow of obedience brought him to a new assignment as a senior associate pastor in the placid suburbs of St. Charles County. What he saw shocked him. “This parish has more sick and dying children than I have ever experienced in my 35 years as a priest,” he told the new social-concerns committee.

The second link led to an article published May 24, 2010, in the Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald.  It highlighted the story of a couple who, before moving to Nebraska, lived for four years near the Weldon Spring Site. They said they believed environmental toxins from the site were responsible for their two sons’ cases of leukemia.

While the two articles are, at a minimum, thought-provoking, they didn’t convince me of the need to write anything about the Weldon Spring Site. But I remained curious.

During the next few months, I had several off-the-record conversations with long-time residents of the area — people I thought might know something about the subject at hand. One pointed me in the direction of Fernald, Ohio, a small township 18 miles northwest of Cincinnati that was home to a “sister site” of Weldon Spring that had also operated as a feed materials plant.

The Fernald Site was the subject of a New York Times article dated July 27, 1994, that offered some interesting information, including the two tidbits below:

1. The Department of Energy settled a lawsuit in 1994 with former Fernald Site workers, guaranteeing them lifetime medical monitoring paid for by the government at an expected cost to the government of at least $20 million; and

2. In 1989, DOE reached a settlement of $78 million in a lawsuit brought against the government by 14,000 residents of Fernald who contended that their property had been contaminated by uranium.

A source familiar with both the Weldon Spring and Fernald sites told me the 1994 settlement mentioned in the Times story would serve as a precursor of sorts to federal legislation passed 11 years later that would provide up to $400,000 in payments for former nuclear workers and/or their survivors nationwide as well as lifetime medical care.  Among those covered were individuals who had worked at the Weldon Spring Site.

Shortly before publishing this story, that same source told me at least two lawsuits similar to the $78 million Fernald lawsuit have been filed on behalf of citizens living near Apollo/Parks Township, Pa., about 15 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, where activities similar to those conducted at Weldon Spring and Fernald took place for many years.  Though I could find no evidence of any mass tort lawsuits being filed by residents living near the Weldon Spring Site, the same source tells me a group of lawyers is studying that costly possibility.

FINAL THOUGHT:  I know the information shared in this piece might fray some nerves.  All must know, however, that the folks at MDHSS bear responsibility for this story being published.  Had they answered my straight-forward questions in the first place, I might not have felt the need to search for answers on my own; I might not have published a story at all; and I might have continued living in ignorant bliss smack in the heart of one of the targeted zip codes.

UPDATE 1/25/12 at 2:17 p.m. Central:  Talk Radio Alert: ‘The Dana Show’ Friday Afternoon

EDITOR’S NOTE:  Accompanying the message in which he forwarded the piece below, guest blogger Paul R. Hollrah wrote the following note:  “Now it’s off to Florida.  I promised Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia Center for Politics more than a month ago that Newt would have the nomination all but locked up before Super Tuesday, March 6.  He laughed at me and replied that he has a special file in which he files outrageous political predictions.  I can’t wait ’til the day when he has to open that file and reread my prediction.”

By Paul R. Hollrah, Guest Blogger

As the American people witness the Republican presidential primaries unfolding, many are puzzled by the uncharacteristic bitterness of the rhetoric.  Rarely have Republican candidates violated Ronald Reagan’s 11^th Commandment… thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican… with the same level of rancor.  But the bitter exchanges are not gratuitous; there is a good reason for them.

Although few Americans would be able to stand and deliver an extemporaneous speech on the social and economic difficulties facing our nation, most Americans understand instinctively that our country cannot long survive with a national debt equal to or greater than our total annual GDP.  They understand that it is Barack Obama, a man who would be out of his depth as leader of a Boy Scout troop, let alone the richest and most powerful nation on Earth, who has brought us to the edge of an abyss from which there may be no recovery.

That being the case, it is easy to see how the level of rancor displayed in the Republican debates is directly proportional to the danger posed by Barack Obama and the Democrat majority in the Senate.  The imperative of ridding the nation of Barack Obama, Eric Holder, and a Democratic majority in the Senate is so great that it produces uncharacteristic passion among the most staid and dignified Republicans, each vying for the chance to be the “Exterminator-in-Chief.”

What is most disconcerting to conservatives is that, until the South Carolina primary, they’ve had to contend with Mitt Romney, another in a long line of Republican moderates, as frontrunner for the 2012 nomination.  Conservatives understand instinctively that the country cannot afford yet another Republican moderate in the White House.  Republicans must nominate a candidate who can not only defeat Obama in a landslide, but who, through sheer determination and strength of personality, can reverse the direction in which the nation is now headed and confront head-on the Democratic onslaught that is sure to come.

What the nation needs in these perilous times is not another “Poodle,” in the style of George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, John McCain, or Romney, but a “Pit Bull” in the style of the “Last Lion of Great Britain,” Winston Churchill.  The only man in the Republican field who fits that description is former Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Governor Romney went into the 2012 Iowa caucuses as the frontrunner, having campaigned for the presidency non-stop since Feb. 13, 2007, nearly five full years.  Speaker Gingrich entered the race on May 11, 2011, just over eight months ago.   However, a week or ten days before the Iowa caucuses, after Gingrich had catapulted into frontrunner status on the strength of his performance in the pre-Iowa debates, the Romney forces panicked.  In their effort to derail what appeared to be the genesis of a Gingrich runaway, they produced an unprecedented number of negative campaign ads, viciously attacking Gingrich.

As Gingrich saw his popularity waning because of Romney’s negative campaigning, he made the first major strategic error of his campaign.  Instead of sticking with the strategy that brought him quickly through the ranks to frontrunner status… i.e. speaking only positively of his Republican opponents while relentlessly attacking Barack Obama… he responded “in kind” to the negative Romney ad campaign.

What he and his advisors apparently failed to consider was that, with a large store of “good guy, nice guy” currency, Romney could engage in a great deal of negative campaigning without suffering self-inflicted wounds.  Gingrich, on the other hand, because of his reputation as a tough infighter during the Clinton era, a man who was said to have so much “baggage” that the names Gingrich and Samsonite became almost synonymous, went into the Iowa contest with little or no store of “good guy, nice guy” currency.

In other words, while Romney could get away with saying almost anything he wanted to say about Gingrich, the voting public would never allow Gingrich the same latitude.  Instead of going negative, Gingrich would have been well-advised to simply look back over his shoulder, swat at Romney like a pesky fly, and double-down on his attacks on Obama.

Now, in the wake of Gingrich’s spectacular win in South Carolina, the first primary event that is truly reflective of the heart and soul of the larger Republican Party, we can begin to see into the future.  This in spite of the fact that few national pundits… including those on the Fox News network… appear to have the slightest understanding of Romney’s inability to secure the Republican nomination after 5 full years of campaigning.  They appear totally out of touch with the reality that Romney cannot rise above the 25 to 30 percent support level because, a) he is a moderate running in a party that is at least 80 percent conservative, b) rank-and-file Republicans are fed up with the lukewarm leadership they’ve received from moderates such as Bush (41), Bush (43), and McCain, and c) Republicans and independents alike are terrified of a second Obama term.

Nor are they able to explain why establishment Republicans and the mainstream media would stoop to employ the most desperate life-or-death tactics… such as airing the Marianne Gingrich interview… to prevent a conservative Republican from coming out of South Carolina a winner.  They appear not to understand that, having engineered the nomination of essentially every GOP candidate for the past century, with the exception of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, the Republican “establishment” is unaccustomed to having their wishes ignored.

GOP POODLES (Clockwise from top left): President George H.W. Bush, Sen. Bob Dole, Sen. John McCain and President George W. Bush.

Bush (41) was a moderate.  He campaigned against Reagan’s supply-side economics… the economic policies that allowed a Republican House and Senate to produce four consecutive balanced budgets… calling Reagan’s economic proposals “voodoo economics.”

Bob Dole was a conservative, but a candidate who was nominated in 1996 by “establishment” Republicans on nothing more than the strength of his claim that it was “his turn.”  As a weak campaigner, he had no chance of defeating Bill Clinton.

Bush (43), brutalized by Democrats and the mainstream media from his first day in office, seemed convinced that his role in U.S. history was to prove that he could “take a punch.”  He seemed not to understand that each time he was verbally assaulted, without ever launching a counterattack, the rank-and-file of the Republican Party felt the pain of the attacks more than he did.

And finally, McCain was, if anything, an even worse candidate than Dole.  It is easy to understand how he could tell a crowd in a recent “foot-in-mouth” appearance with Romney that “Barack Obama would turn the country around.”  It is also easy to understand the frustration that Sarah Palin, a true fighter for the cause, must have felt as the McCain staff regularly tied her hands and prevented her from waging an effective campaign against the Obama-Biden forces.  Now, as the “titular head” of the Republican Party, McCain provides no leadership whatsoever.

Conservative Republicans now feel as though they’ve given the Republican “establishment” more than enough opportunities to govern the country effectively.  All have failed and it’s now time for conservatives to reestablish ownership of their party.

In attempting to explain away the results of the South Carolina primary, Romney spokesmen make yet another strategic error, attempting to paint Gingrich not as a chief executive type, but as a legislator.  In his appearance on Meet the Press, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie responded to a David Gregory question by saying that, “The last thing the country needs is to have another legislator in the White House.  That’s what we have now.”

Yes, Barack Obama was a legislator… a very poor legislator, having voted “present” on at least 129 occasions when he found it either impossible or politically dangerous to reach a decision that might later prove difficult to explain.  His performance in the Oval Office, day-in, day-out, proves that he has little or no executive ability.

Gingrich, on the other hand, has demonstrated strong executive ability throughout his political career.  It was his tendency to act in an autocratic manner during his years as Speaker, as opposed to being the leader of 435 elected officials, each with his/her own oversized ego, that got him into trouble with the Democratic minority and his own House caucus.  Romney and his surrogates make a major error when they attempt to write Gingrich off as a mere “legislator.”  His worst critics, including members of his own party, complain that he does not work well in a collegial atmosphere; he is far better suited to an executive role.

Bush (41), Bush (43), and McCain were all Poodles engaged in a life-or-death struggle against Democratic Pit Bulls.  Among the current crop of GOP candidates, Romney is yet another Poodle; Rick Santorum is a yapping Terrier whose bark is worse than his bite; and Ron Paul is a Bulldog/Chihuahua mix.  The only Pit Bull in the race is Gingrich.

Unlike McCain, who treated Obama as if he was nothing more than a misguided little brother, the 2012 Republican candidate will have to take off the gloves with him.  It is a task that only a Pit Bull can handle.  None of our Poodles could ever get the job done.

Paul R. Hollrah

Hollrah is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a contributing editor for Family Security Matters and a number of online publications.  He resides in northeast Oklahoma.

SHAMELESS PLUG:  Be sure to check out Bob McCarty’s new book, Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice.

In response to pressure from two freedom-loving attorneys representing them, charges against two petition circulators who were cited last weekend for gathering signatures on the public sidewalks of St. Charles, Mo., will be dropped, according to an announcement this morning by the city’s attorney, Mike Valenti.

What kind of petition were the two unnamed individuals circulating?  A news release received this morning from Dave and Jenifer Roland, the Freedom Center of Missouri attorneys who represented the duo, offered the following details:

This controversy was sparked in the early hours of January 15, when two volunteers with the Show-Me Cannabis Regulation campaign were gathering signatures on North Main Street in St. Charles.  The ballot initiative seeks to legalize the production, sale, and use of marijuana under Missouri law and to regulate it in a manner similar to tobacco or alcohol.  Two police officers approached the petition circulators, issued them citations for “soliciting without a permit,” and confiscated some of the petitions, which included approximately fifty signatures.  Acting on behalf of the volunteers, the Freedom Center of Missouri insisted that the First Amendment required the City to drop the charges, return the seized petitions, and to destroy any copies the police had made of those petitions.  The City has agreed to comply.

While I’m not an advocate of legalizing marijuana, this outcome is important as it safeguards the freedoms of all, including those of us outside of the “Cheech and Chong crowd,” to circulate petitions on matters near and dear to us.

Good job, Dave and Jenifer!

Compare Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich‘s trials and tribulations to those of Kelly A. Stewart, the former Green Beret whose life story is chronicled in my book, Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice, and you’ll find things could have been worse for the former Speaker of the House.

On the same day Gingrich picked up an endorsement from Rick Perry after the Texas governor dropped out of the GOP primary race, ABC News began floating details about its soon-to-be-broadcast interview in which one of the former House Speaker’s ex-wives said Gingrich lacks the moral character to serve as President and had actually sought an “open marriage” arrangement so he could have a mistress and a wife.

Whether or not you think Gingrich lacks the necessary moral character depends largely on your belief system, so I won’t go further into that issue.  Instead, I’ll pose a “what if” question that puts everything the Georgia Republican is accused of doing by his ex-wife into perspective with the situation in which Stewart, a highly-decorated combat veteran, found himself.

Imagine this timeline of events taking place a decade or so ago:

Gingrich and Callista, the one-time mistress and House staffer who is now the third “Mrs. Gingrich,” have a one-night stand in a Washington, D.C., hotel room;

Three months later, Callista decides to go to the police and tell them Gingrich raped and kidnapped her in brutal fashion, leaving her bruised and shaken;

Two months later, Gingrich is charged with rape and kidnapping, but allowed to remain outside of jail and not under house arrest or any sort of escort or observation;

Seven months later, Gingrich finds himself in a courtroom facing a prosecutor he had defeated in his most-recent congressional race and a jury comprised entirely of Democrats against whom he had fought many battles in the House chamber; no physical evidence is presented and no eyewitnesses could be found to corroborate her story; critical information from Callista’s medical records are not allowed to be presented to the jury; and he’s found guilty, sentenced to several years in prison and branded as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

If you think the fictitious chronology of events outlined above seems implausible, think again.  It comes close to mirroring what actually happened to Stewart and ended in a U.S. military courtroom in Germany during three days In August 2009.

Though Stewart’s name hasn’t been in the news much, you can read more of the gut-wrenching details about his life in the book, Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice.

WARNING: Reading this book may cause increases in blood pressure, confusion, mood swings and feelings of general discomfort and disgust; however, everything in it is true and deserves your attention.

Original story