After reading Alyssa Sunkin's February article in The Citizen about an artificial turf field proposed for the Auburn Enlarged City School District, noting that a vote would occur in May, I assumed that the public would have ample time to become informed. To be well-informed is to cast a negative vote. Knowledge of research showing serious children's injuries, infectious disease and long-term illnesses, as well as environmental degradation has helped defeat artificial turf elsewhere.
Texas has artificial turf in at least 18 percent of its high school football stadiums, and an MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus) infection rate among players that is 16 times higher than the estimated national average. One Austin teenage player has died of MRSA linked to the turf, while another death in Brooklyn and one in Virginia have not been verified.
How could any parent vote yes to a budget item that might kill a student?
How could a school board go ahead when a moratorium on artificial turf installation had been proposed?
How could the New York State School Boards Association be opposed to such a moratorium? Recent research on five major brands of turf, done by reputable labs, have revealed levels of carcinogenic substances that are in violation of the Department of Environmental Conservation's levels for brown fields (hazardous waste sites). No one would suggest sending kids to play on a hazardous waste site, but only a NO vote on the Auburn school budget can prevent this happening. The Citizen article ended, “...no conclusive evidence linking synthetic turf to suggested health effects like birth defects and cancer.” As Philippe Grandjean, MD, Harvard School of Public Health, said in speaking of mercury in tuna, “It is very unwise to wait until we have complete scientific truth.”
Byrna Weir
Rochester
How could any parent vote yes to a budget item that might kill a student?
How could a school board go ahead when a moratorium on artificial turf installation had been proposed?
How could the New York State School Boards Association be opposed to such a moratorium? Recent research on five major brands of turf, done by reputable labs, have revealed levels of carcinogenic substances that are in violation of the Department of Environmental Conservation's levels for brown fields (hazardous waste sites). No one would suggest sending kids to play on a hazardous waste site, but only a NO vote on the Auburn school budget can prevent this happening. The Citizen article ended, “...no conclusive evidence linking synthetic turf to suggested health effects like birth defects and cancer.” As Philippe Grandjean, MD, Harvard School of Public Health, said in speaking of mercury in tuna, “It is very unwise to wait until we have complete scientific truth.”
Byrna Weir
Rochester
