Wednesday, December 29, 2021
Wednesday, December 22, 2021
Filing a VA claim for disability compensation
VA disability compensation benefits are a monthly, tax-free
payment to Veterans who were injured, sustained a long-term illness or
experienced a worsening medical condition during their military service.
In addition to compensating Veterans whose disabilities
incurred while serving in the military, Veterans may also be granted
compensation for specific post-service medical conditions that arose because of
their military service. Known as presumptive disabilities, these conditions may
not have arisen in service but may be granted as service-connected because its
occurrence can been linked directly to military service.
VA recently added new medical conditions to a growing list
of presumptive disabilities, which you can view here. These conditions can be
presumed to have occurred because of an exposure to Agent Orange, ionizing
radiation, and service in the Gulf War.
How to file a claim for disability compensation
The COVID-19 pandemic has not halted the claims process.
Veterans can still file claims, and VA is still processing them. VA recommends
filing a claim online, but it can still be done in person or through the mail.
To get started, visit the VA disability compensation webpage and follow the
steps listed below.
‘Seed Money’ Explores Monsanto’s Troubling Past and its Impact on the Future of Food
For decades, the company once known as Monsanto has dominated U.S. agriculture. Famous for its Roundup Ready system—which consists of the herbicide Roundup, made with glyphosate, and seeds genetically modified to resist it—the global corporation became the largest seller of seeds in the world by the 1990s. Fast forward nearly 30 years, and Bayer, the German pharmaceutical company that bought Monsanto in 2018, now faces a number of high-profile lawsuits related to glyphosate’s cancer-causing potential as well as the failures of the Roundup system.
In his new book Seed Money: Monsanto’s Past and Our Food Future, historian Bartow J. Elmore uncovers Monsanto’s record of producing not only Roundup, but also many of the chemicals that make up our modern world: the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in electrical equipment, the defoliants in home-garden herbicides and the Agent Orange used for chemical warfare during the Vietnam War, and the herbicide dicamba.
Elmore traces the company’s record of misleading regulators
and the public about the dangers of such chemicals to human health and the
environment and explains how the chemicals themselves have become deeply
ingrained in our economy and agricultural system for the foreseeable future.
Measures sought to improve efficiency of prevention, treatment of AO related diseases
Vietnamese and foreign scientists, experts and doctors
gathered at a conference on December 20 to seek measures to improve the
efficiency of preventive measures against and treatment to diseases related to
Agent Orange/dioxin exposure.
Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnamese and foreign scientists, experts and
doctors gathered at a conference on December 20 to seek measures to improve the
efficiency of preventive measures against and treatment to diseases related to
Agent Orange/dioxin exposure.
Participants analyse the real situation of the diseases in
Vietnam, evaluating the results of relevant researches and giving a number of
models of preventing and treating diseases related to Agent Orange/dioxin (AO)
exposure.
Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Truong Son said that
although the war ended nearly 50 years ago, dioxin consequences have still
lingered. AO victims and their offspring have suffered serious diseases and
deformities, while medical facilities have yet to meet their demand, he said.
The official said that despite efforts to support AO
victims, the prevention and cure of AO related diseases have remained a tough
issue that needs further researches.
More toxic exposure to military and their families
Toxic exposures on our military are no new thing, often it
is the side effect of chemical war like mustard gas, nuclear or radiation,
agent orange, or burn pits. But what I am going to talk about is the exposure
to our families inside our own country. This isn’t about PFAS, or the exposures
on Fort McClellan or Camp Lejeune, this is about the drinking water at military
installations in Hawaii.
There were already reports of residents on Joint Base Pearl
Harbor-Hickam being sickened, possibly from the water. On November 29, the base
commander, Captain Erik A.Spitzer, sent out a message to all military housing
residents. He stated: “I can tell you at this point that there are no immediate
indications that the water is not safe… We visited several communities and
homes last night to get samples of water and we talked with residents who had
concerns.”
But it was found that just before Thanksgiving on November
22 a fuel-water mixture totaling 14,000 gallons was spilled from a leak in a
drain line on Pearl Harbor.
Wednesday, December 15, 2021
Monsanto tees up SCOTUS slugfest over landmark cancer verdict
The Supreme Court could decide this week whether to take up a legal battle that has the potential to upend a watershed victory by a California landowner against the manufacturer of a popular weedkiller.
Monsanto Co.’s petition — should the Supreme Court choose to
take it — would throw into question the future of a $25 million verdict a jury
awarded to Edwin Hardeman, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma after
years of using Roundup on his San Francisco Bay Area property, as well as
potentially billions more in settlements.
Hardeman’s verdict, which was affirmed this year by the 9th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, was the test case for thousands of trials over
the harm posed by glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup.
Monsanto wrote in its petition for Supreme Court review that
the justices should not allow the 9th Circuit’s decision to govern that massive
body of consolidated cases.
“Because important federal questions related to Roundup and
non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma that would otherwise be tested in different courts
nationwide are instead being resolved solely in a single district, this Court
should not wait to grant review,” Monsanto wrote.
Monsanto v. Hardeman is one of thousands of petitions that
make their way to the Supreme Court each year. The justices grant just a tiny
fraction of the petitions they receive.
The petition is scheduled for discussion during the
justices’ conference tomorrow. They could announce a decision by early next
week on whether they will hear the case.
Wednesday, December 8, 2021
DARPA wants to ‘slow life to save life’ with program that extends the ‘golden hour’
When troops are wounded, time is precious. That’s why the fast-ticking minutes that follow such an event are called the “golden hour.” Get the right care within the right time and you survive. Wrong care or an evac takes too long — you’re dead.
Researchers
at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency recently launched a five-year
project dubbed “Biostasis.” The program will “leverage molecular biology to
develop innovative ways of controlling the speed at which living systems
operate.”
By
doing that they hope to extend the “golden hour” before it’s too late.
“At
the molecular level, life is a set of continuous biochemical reactions, and a
defining characteristic of these reactions is that they need a catalyst to
occur at all,” said Tristan McClure-Begley, the Biostasis program manager.
Those
catalysts, McClure-Begley said, are proteins and “large molecular machines”
that transform chemical and kinetic energy into biological processes.
“Our
goal with Biostasis is to control those molecular machines and get them to all
slow their roll at about the same rate so that we can slow down the entire
system gracefully and avoid adverse consequences when the intervention is
reversed or wears off.”
The
program starts small, first by aiming at slowing certain processes within
cells, then slowing whole cells and later tissue processes, then onto the
entire organism, he said.
But
the goal isn’t simply to slow processes down but to do it without damaging the
processes when they return to normal speed.
‘Golden Hour’ needs to become the ‘Golden Day,' Army medical leaders say
ARLINGTON, Virginia – The Army is working on all kinds of ways to defeat, destroy and kill the enemy in what leaders believe will be the next fight — a large-scale ground combat operation with multi-domain implications.
But
an even more vexing problem than defeating high-tech enemies is how to handle
what most experts agree will be a number of casualties like the United States
hasn’t seen since World War II.
At
an Association of the U.S. Army forum held Tuesday, top leaders in the Army
medical field laid out some of the challenges they’re facing.
“The
future battlefield is one of isolation, without the ability to evacuate
casualties or get resupply,” said Brig. Gen. Anthony McQueen, commanding
general of the Army’s Medical Research and Development Command.
McQueen
noted some key demands that need solutions, including more blood on the
battlefield to treat higher numbers of wounded, more oxygen and perhaps more
medically-trained soldiers to increase the “holding” capacity of keeping
wounded in place as the force fights for safe evacuation options.
The
goal is to use technologies and procedures to extend the “Golden Hour” — the
vital time following injury to ensure survivability — to the “Golden Day,”
McQueen said.
“Equipment
must become smaller, lighter and more rugged,” he said. “And prolong life until
the casualty can reach a higher level of care.”
While Americans See an End to 20 Years of War, VA's Job Has Just Begun
It
has haunted her ever since.
Burch,
who was 23 when her tour ended, worked as an operations manager for an Air
Force combat engineer unit. She aspired to be a physician. She spent her
downtime as a volunteer medic at a Kandahar trauma hospital.
"I
saw the worst of war and the best of humanity," she says.
She
came home with the service's prestigious Commendation Medal, awarded for acts
of valor or meritorious service. She also brought home a case of post-traumatic
stress, frequent migraine headaches, and bronchitis and other breathing
problems. But help has been slow in coming—both for Burch and for other
veterans, she says.
"They
need peer community support and easier access to health care and
benefits," says the 34-year-old retired Air Force staff sergeant.
"Everything moves at this bureaucratic pace."
While
many Americans may have seen the end of the forever wars as the cap on two
decades' worth of war spending, the job of Veterans Affairs has only just
begun—and will continue for decades. But some fear the antagonistic
relationship between VA and veterans will continue as advocates are forced to
fight bureaucracy to gain benefits, even as VA officials say they're ready to
move forward.
"As
we look to the future, we're not trying to build a VA that goes back to the old
normal," VA Secretary Denis McDonough recently said at the National Press
Club. "Instead, we're going to continue to do better for vets, we're going
to continue to be better for vets."
Veterans Affairs bureaucrats are keeping vets from using health care outside its troubled system
Once again, Department of Veterans Affairs bureaucrats are making a concerted effort to prevent veterans from using our health-care benefits at community-based providers outside the VA system — despite a law requiring them to do so.
Seven
years ago, while suffering from excruciating pain, I attempted to make a
primary-care appointment at a VA hospital. In the week between Christmas and
New Year’s, no one at my Durham, N.C., VA facility answered the phone. In
January, it took two weeks to get a new provider assigned and an appointment
scheduled. The earliest they could offer was April 15, 90 days out.
At
that point, inflamed joints throbbing, I asked if I could use my Choice card,
which had arrived in November with the promise it gave me access to private,
local health care in the event “the Veteran is told by his/her local VA medical
facility that he/she will need to wait more than 30 days from his/her
preferred date or the date medically determined by his/her physician.”
No
dice.
Congress-approved commission to begin BRAC-style review of VA facilities
WASHINGTON — A process will begin in 2022 to review Department of Veterans Affairs facilities across the country to determine which buildings to close and where to invest more resources.
“We’re
on the verge of some very big decisions here,” McDonough said.
Congress
approved the creation in 2018 of an Asset and Infrastructure Review Commission
to work on the “modernization or realignment” of VA properties. As of
Wednesday, the White House had selected seven of the nine commissioners,
McDonough said.
The
commissioners have not yet been named publicly. The law mandates the commission
reflects the demographics of VA patients, and some commissioners must have
expertise in either the VA health care system or federal capital asset planning
and management. Three of the commissioners must be representatives from
veterans service organizations.
If
the asset-review commission determines a facility no longer meets the VA's
needs, it's supposed to recommend how the facility could be reconfigured,
repurposed, consolidated, realigned, exchanged, leased, replaced, sold or
disposed, the law states.
The
commission must send its recommendation to President Joe Biden by Jan. 31,
2023. Biden will then decide to reject the plan or forward it to Congress.
Congress can either accept all of the recommendations or vote down the
proposal.
Wednesday, December 1, 2021
We're baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack...
We've been away for a while...during a conversion from DSL to Fiber internet service our trusty computer network was down for 11 days...then came the Holiday Week...but the staff is back fat and sassy and ready to get back to producing the Agent Orange Zone on a weekly basis.
More KIWI Vietnam Veterans to receive compensation for Agent Orange Exposure
Minister for Veterans, the Hon Meka Whaitiri announced today that two new conditions associated with Agent Orange exposure have been added to the Prescribed Conditions List.
Under the 2006 Memorandum of
Understanding signed between the Crown and representatives of Vietnam veterans
and the Royal New Zealand RSA. Vietnam veterans in New Zealand who have these
conditions are eligible for an ex gratia payment of $40,000.
Prescribed Conditions are
those for which the United States National Academy of Sciences considers there
is scientific evidence of association with exposure to Agent Orange. The two
new conditions on the list are monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined
significance (MGUS) and hypertension.
5 Harmful Side-Effects of Drinking From Plastic Water Bottles
Dangers of drinking water from plastic bottles:
- Dioxin Production: Direct exposure to the sun.
Such heating releases a toxin called Dioxin which when consumed can
accelerate breast cancer.
- BPA generation: Biphenyl A is an
oestrogen-mimicking chemical that can lead to a lot of health problems
like diabetes, obesity, fertility problems, behavioural problems and early
puberty in girls. It’s better not to store and drink water from a plastic
bottle.
- Impact Immune system: Our immune system is
immensely affected when we drink water in plastic bottles. The chemicals
from plastic bottles are ingested and tend to disturb our body’s immune
system.
- Liver Cancer and Reduced Sperm Count: Because of
the presence of a chemical called phthalates in plastic, drinking water
from plastic bottles can also lead to liver cancer and a reduction in
sperm count.
Can America Afford to Take Care of Its Veterans?
We may have ended combat in Iraq and Afghanistan but the mental, physical, and fiscal costs of those who have borne the battle will linger for many decades.
In taking over the Department
of Veterans Affairs (VA), Secretary Denis McDonough, only the second
non-veteran and the second person not confirmed unanimously by the U.S. Senate,
faced a series of unprecedented challenges in providing for the needs of the 19
million living veterans. The most critical of these can be placed into six
categories: the rapidly increasing size of the department’s budget, the
dramatic expansion of the number of veterans eligible for disability benefits,
providing benefits for those LGBT personnel with less than honorable
discharges, the backlog of compensation exams, the high suicide rate among
veterans, and GI bill benefits.
NGO alliance calls waste-to-energy systems ‘incinerators in disguise’
THE Global Alliance for
Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) Asia Pacific said waste-to-energy (WTE)
facilities proposed for the Philippines are effectively incinerators, fueled by
municipal waste, that release toxic chemicals into their immediate
surroundings.
“WTE is simply waste
incineration in disguise. It burns tons of municipal wastes to generate a small
amount of net energy while emitting massive amounts of toxic pollutants and
greenhouse gases,” Jorge Agustin O. Emmanuel, a Silliman University expert on
managing waste, said at a GAIA briefing.
GAIA is a network of over 800
environment groups in over 90 countries.
Parkinson’s disease awareness: Answering 9 most popular Parkinson’s questions from Veterans
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second-most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s in the U.S. One million Americans live with Parkinson’s today – and of those, approximately 110,000 Veterans with PD receive Parkinson’s treatment through VA.
While the exact cause of
Parkinson’s is unknown, research suggests that its cause can be linked to
genetic and environmental factors. For some Veterans living with Parkinson’s,
the disease can be associated with exposure to Agent Orange or other herbicides
during military service.
To make life better for
Veterans with Parkinson’s, the Parkinson’s Foundation has a partnership with
the VA. Below we answer the top questions asked by Veterans and their family
members about Parkinson’s.
Foods to Avoid Completely Blacklist of Dangerous Foods Containing Dioxins and Heavy Metals
Not all of the food you eat is healthy, especially if it comes from foreign countries where it can be difficult to control quality and respect hygiene. The fact is that in 2020, in Italy, almost one food alert was issued per day with as many as 297 notifications sent to the EU, of which only 56 concerned products of national origin, while 160 came from other EU countries and 81 from countries outside the European Union.
This is what emerges from Coldiretti’s dossier on the
“blacklist of the most dangerous foods” presented by the association yesterday,
at the conclusion of the 19th International Forum on Agriculture and Food,
based on the findings of the latest report from the World Health Organization.
The EU Rapid Alert System, which, in effect, records alerts for food hazards
that have been verified due to chemical residues, mycotoxins, heavy metals,
microbiological contaminants, dioxins or additives and dyes in the EU last
year.