It'll give you cancer, but it sure does keep them bugs off the berries

I've often thought that big businesses tend to put their profit-motive ahead of the individual consumer's well being. So, seeing another example of that isn't surprising. What is alarming to me is seeing how deeply the business world has the government in its pocket.

Check out this story I just read from NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127910253&sc=fb&cc=fp

(If you don't want to read it, I'll summarize. They're replacing an old pesticide, because it was damaging the ozone layer. The one they're replacing it with is a known carcinogen and neurotoxin! Awesome, right? But the real rub is the debate about "safe levels" of this very unsafe product, which scientists said would be .8 parts per billion for workers with protective gear. The government, after receiving this finding, instead placed the regulation at 96 parts per billion - over a hundred times higher than scientists recommend.)

Now, my question is, why would the government ignore the work of the scientists that they commissioned and place the bar where they did? The only explanation is pressure from the pesticide business. I can't imagine consumers lobbying for there to be more neurotoxins in their strawberries.

It's scary. The reason I've argued like I have in defense of "big government" is on the basis that we need government to protect us from unscrupulous corporations. But when government and corporations are shown to be in cahoots, what protection is left for the individual? Do we need to start having someone in Washington lobbying for us? I thought that's why we elected people!