Blue Water Navy Veteran Rally in Washington, DC on May 18Th

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Blue Water Navy Veteran Rally in Washington, DC on May 18th

The Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Association, a Littleton, CO based veteran advocacy 501c3 organization, is sponsoring a Rally in Washington, DC on May 18th in support of legislation that will return benefits of Health Care and Compensation to veterans who served offshore during the Vietnam War. Members and even non-members are being invited to attend this event.

Although granted to them by the Agent Orange Act of 1991, the Department of Veterans Affairs removed this group from receiving their benefits for disabilities related to exposure to the herbicide Agent Orange. The herbicide defoliant contains dioxin, which has caused a number of cancers and other disabling conditions.

In 2002, the VA literally redefined a “Vietnam veteran” to mean only those who serviced with boots-on-ground. Those who served in combat positions offshore and within the bays and harbors are no longer eligible for the presumption of exposure to Agent Orange. The VA continues to provide those benefits to veterans who had boots-on-ground. But the VA claims all herbicide, whether water-borne in the streams and rivers or air-borne from spray drift and the blowing dust and debris known to travel in the atmosphere for thousands of miles, did not go further than a line they drew along the coastline of Vietnam. Since this belief defies common sense and the laws of nature, there is legislation in both the House of Representatives (HR-969) and in the Senate (S-681) to declare this regulation unreasonable. Passing this legislation would return presumption of exposure to those who served offshore or in bays and Harbors if they suffer from the identical diseases that plague the veterans with who served with boot-on-ground.

“A government agency must have regulation regarding its activities,” says John Rossie, Executive Director of the Blue Water Navy Association, “but we all expect those regulations to maintain some semblance of rationality. Declaring no exposure to the sick and disabled men who never touched the ground because a line was drawn on a map doesn’t fit that category. We have attempted to work with the VA to get this regulation changed. The Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims has ruled these regulations as “arbitrary and capricious.” But the leadership of the VA is sticking to their guns on this issue. Directing them by legislation is the only way we can get this changed.”

The contact for this event is John Rossie who receives his email at .

Posted by AgentOrangeZone at 7:32 AMNo comments:

Agent Orange Links

Relation between in Utero Arsenic Exposure and Birth Outcomes in a Cohort of Mothers and Their Newborns from New Hampshire

The dioxin receptor has tumor suppressor activity in melanoma growth and metastasis.

LINE-1 gene hypomethylation and p16 gene hypermethylation in HepG2 cells induced by low-dose and long-term triclosan exposure: The role of hydroxyl group.

Endocrine disruptors dixioin causes reproductive system defects

Link revealed between AML and Agent Orange

Modeling the effect of cigarette smoke on hexose utilization in spermatocytes.

Occupational, environmental and lifestyle factors associated with spontaneous abortion.

Effects of Prenatal Environmental Exposures on the Development of Endometriosis in Female Offspring.

Toddler's behavior and its impacts on exposure to polybrominated diphenyl ethers.

Bisphenol A exposure and children's behavior: A systematic review.

Plasma phthalate and bisphenol a levels and oxidant-antioxidant status in autistic children.

An Informatics Approach to Evaluating Combined Chemical Exposures from Consumer Products: A Case Study of Asthma-Associated and Potential Endocrine Disruptors

Exposure to Gulf War Illness chemicals induces functional muscarinic receptor maladaptations in muscle nociceptors

Diabetes Prevalence in Relation to Serum Concentrations of Polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCB) Congener Groups and Three Chlorinated Pesticides in a Native American Population

Posted by AgentOrangeZone at 7:29 AMNo comments:

Why Hasn’t The Government Learned Anything From The Agent Orange Health Crisis?

The defoliant provides a case study in how not to deal with the unintended health consequences of war.

In 1961, South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem asked the United States to help defoliate the lush jungle that was providing cover to his Communist enemies. President John Kennedy acquiesced and formally launched Operation Ranch Hand, the United States Air Force’s program of systemic defoliation with the chemical compound Agent Orange. So many years later, we’re still coming to grips with the devastating effects of Agent Orange on troops and civilians alike. Decades of the government dragging its feet on dealing with the Agent Orange issue in any comprehensive way has delayed a full reckoning. New information about diseases caused by the defoliant trickle in year by year while clean-up efforts continue in Vietnam itself. The entire Agent Orange saga provides a casebook study in how not to deal with the health and environmental fallout of combat.

Agent Orange use was revolutionary in scope, not concept. During and after the Second World War, Allied forces collaborated in exploring the potential of using defoliating agents in Southeast Asia. The British put those experiments to practical use when they used pesticides and poisons to clear brush and kill crops in a counterinsurgency campaign against Communist guerrillas during Operation Malayan Emergency in the 1950s. American leaders then, in a leap of playground logic, made the dangerous assumption that such a close, English-speaking ally using defoliating agents in war meant that it was morally and legally justified for us to do the same.

According to The New York Times, “From 1962 to 1971, American C-123 transport planes sprayed roughly 20 million gallons of herbicides on an area of South Vietnam about the size of Massachusetts.” This ecocide, as some have called it, wasn’t meant to just clear jungle space for patrols and reconnaissance; it was also part of the larger strategic goal of forced urbanization.

Posted by AgentOrangeZone at 7:26 AMNo comments:

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Ortho to stop using chemicals considered to be harmful to bees

Ortho, the insect control product maker, said Tuesday it would begin “to transition away” from using chemicals that are harmful to honeybees and other pollinators, responding to growing pressure from environmental advocates.

The Marysville, Ohio-based company, which is a subsidiary ofScottsMiracle-Gro,will discontinueneonicotinoid-based pesticides for outdoor use. The move follows Lowe's and Home Depot's announcements last yearthat they will stop sellingneonicotinoid-based products in their garden care sections.

Ortho alsoplans to work withthe Pollinator Stewardship Council, an advocacy group that supports beekeepers, to start a customer education program andlobby for the use of label language that clarifiesthe purchase of non-neonic pesticides.

"This decision comes after careful consideration regarding the range of possible threats to honeybees and other pollinators,” said Tim Martin, general manager of the Ortho brand. “While agencies in the United States are still evaluating the overall impact of neonics on pollinator populations, it’s time for Ortho to move on.”

"We encourage other companies and brands in the consumer pest control category to follow our lead,” he said.

Ortho has previously worked with the Pollinator Stewardship Council to support pollinator habitat, and itsnew multiyear program will use online channels and social media to"develop homeowner education related to the responsible use of pesticides where pollinators can be found," Ortho said.

“Bees and butterflies are essential to our ecosystem and are increasingly facing a struggle to survive," Michele Colopy, program director of the Pollinator Stewardship Council, said in a statement. "We join Ortho in asking other consumer pest-control brands to also transition away from the use of neonics.”

In January, ScottsMiracle-Gro announced a program that will result in the creation of 75 pollinator gardens in the U.S. this year.

Posted by AgentOrangeZone at 8:12 AMNo comments:

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Contamination: Kadena Air Base’s dirty secret

For the first time, documents released under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act reveal extensive pollution on an active American base in Japan.

Located in the center of Okinawa island, Kadena Air Base is the largest U.S. Air Force installation in Asia.Equipped with two 3.7-kilometer runways and thousands of hangars, homes and workshops, the base and its adjoining arsenal sprawl across 46 square kilometers. More than 20,000 American service members, contractors and their families live or work on the base alongside 3,000 Japanese employees.

Kadena Air Base hosts the biggest combat wing in the U.S. Air Force — the 18th Wing — and, during the past seven decades, the installation has served as an important launchpad for wars in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq.

Given the long history of Kadena Air Base and its city-sized scale, it is easy to understand why the U.S. Air Force calls it the “keystone of the Pacific.”

But until now, nobody has realized the damage the base is inflicting on the environment and those who live in its vicinity. Documents obtained under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act reveal how years of accidents and neglect have been polluting local land and water with hazardous chemicals, including arsenic, lead, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), asbestos and dioxin. Military authorities have often hidden this contamination, putting at risk the health of their own service members and the 184,000 civilians living in neighboring communities.

This week, we examine the pollution of local water resources and the exposure of on- and off-base residents to lead and asbestos. The accompanying article explains the flaws in current guidelines that allow the U.S. military in Japan to conceal such contamination.

Next week, we will investigate the installation’s ongoing struggles to manage contamination from PCBs, its coverup of the discovery of hazardous waste near two on-base schools and the human impact of this pollution.

In January, the U.S. Air Force released 8,725 pages of accident reports, environmental investigations and emails related to contamination at Kadena Air Base. Dated from the mid-1990s to August 2015, the documents are believed to be the first time such recent information detailing pollution on an active U.S. base in Japan has been made public.

Posted by AgentOrangeZone at 8:42 AMNo comments:

U.S. steps up efforts to heal Agent Orange wounds in Vietnam

CAM LO, Vietnam — When Le Thi Mit is awakened at night by the moans of her 34-year-old son, she thinks back half a century, grappling with the vivid memories of American planes flying overhead to coat her village with toxic chemicals.
Three of her four children were born severely disabled. One died young. Truong, 28, who crawls because his sticklike legs cannot support him, cannot speak, bathe himself or eat on his own. Lanh, the 34-year-old, is confined to a bed of wooden slats by his gnarled back.

Mit’s wish is that her children die first. There is no one else to care for them.

As President Obama is scheduled to visit in May amid warming relations between the former foes, the United States has increased its commitment to heal lingering wounds from Agent Orange and other jungle-clearing defoliants it deployed during the Vietnam War.

For decades, American officials minimized or dismissed Vietnam’s health problems. Vietnamese officials also skirted the issue at times out of concern for the image of the country’s agricultural exports.

But the United States is gradually increasing its victim funding, and both governments now willingly speak about Agent Orange. Congress allocated $7 million this year to health and disability programs in Vietnam, much of it targeting presumed Agent Orange victims.

“We are not aware of any widely accepted scientific study that conclusively establishes a connection between dioxin and these types of physical or psychological disabilities,” said Tim Rieser, a longtime foreign policy aide to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who has led the charge to appropriate money for Agent Orange. But “the United States is essentially acknowledging by our actions that there is likely a causal effect, and Senator Leahy believes we have a responsibility to help address it.”

Posted by AgentOrangeZone at 8:31 AMNo comments:

Burn Pits - Agent Orange of the 21st Century

Thousands of U.S. military personnel who served on bases in Iraq and Afghanistan recall the dense black smoke from burn pits where everything from IEDs to human waste was incinerated.

Now many have died, and more are gravely ill. Those battling a grim menu of cancers, as well as their loved ones and advocates, trace their condition to breathing in the toxic fumes they say could be the most recent wars' version of Agent Orange or Gulf War Illness.

“The clouds of smoke would just hang throughout the base,” Army Sgt. Daniel Diaz, who was stationed at Joint Base Balad, in Iraq's Sunni Triangle from 2004-2005, told FoxNews.com. “No one ever gave it any thought. You are just so focused on the mission at hand. In my mind, I was just getting ready for the fight.”

Diaz returned from duty in 2008. A year later, he started developing health problems including cancer, chronic fatigue and weakness, neuropathy and hypothyroidism. Nearly every base he was stationed at during his four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan had burn pits nearby - and pungent smoke everywhere.

“When I was stationed at Camp Wright, there was one 20-30 feet from our rooms,” he says. “No one ever questioned whether it was dangerous having it so close. Not even once.”

During the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the burn pit method was adopted originally as a temporary measure to get rid of waste and garbage generated on bases. Everything was incinerated in the pits, say soldiers, including plastics, batteries, appliances, medicine, dead animals and even human waste. The items were often set ablaze with jet fuel as the accelerant.

Joint Base Balad, where Diaz was partially stationed, burned up to 147 tons of waste per day as recently as the summer of 2008, according to The Army Times.

The incineration of the waste generated numerous pollutants including carbon monoxide and dioxide—the same chemical compound found in Agent Orange, which left many Vietnam vets sick after it was used as a defoliant.