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http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/local/west-volusia/2010/12/12/a-familys-story-foreclosure-result-of-small-misfortunes-piling-up.html
By MARK HARPER, STAFF WRITER
DELTONA -- Most people going into foreclosure don't want to talk publicly about it with a newspaper reporter. But Daniel Muriel -- a 55-year-old former Marine sergeant who served in Vietnam -- doesn't mind.
Life was comfortable when he first moved to Deltona in 1995. Both he and his wife Rosa worked. They had a young son, Ezequiel, together and several older children from previous marriages. They had a fixed-rate mortgage from a bank on a four-bedroom home with 1,700 square feet.
They went out to eat twice a month. They took trips: camping in Key West, visiting family in New York and Texas, venturing off to Maine and the Smoky Mountains.
Muriel talks about this as he flips through a stack of family photos. "We used to go to St. Augustine like a religion," he said. "We used to be able to take vacations."
In 2001, he was found to be permanently disabled, unable to work. While in Vietnam, Muriel had been exposed to Agent Orange, he said, and he has suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and degenerative joint disease.
His income was limited to a Social Security check. Later, his wife -- a hospital supervisor -- got sick from the stress and had to leave that position. She now works a lower-paying job in child care.
The family started missing mortgage payments. One thing led to another, and facing foreclosure from a bank, they agreed to refinance with a private lender, raising their payments to $1,900 monthly. When that started looking like a mistake, they hired a lawyer, paid him $3,000, but got nowhere.
MORE: http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/local/west-volusia/2010/12/12/a-familys-story-foreclosure-result-of-small-misfortunes-piling-up.html
http://www.enctoday.com/news/water-85677-jdn-lejeune-claims.html
December 09, 2010 9:50 PM
HOPE HODGE
Officials with the Department of Veterans Affairs told members of a community assistance panel addressing issues surrounding historical water contamination at Camp Lejeune that related disability claims would soon be processed at a central location.
Brad Flohr, with the Veterans Benefits Administration Compensation and Pension Service Department, told the group on Thursday that all the Lejeune water claims would be sent to the VA center in Louisville, Ky., as a way to track the cases and keep the procedure for handling them consistent.
Lejeune veterans and former residents who lived aboard the base between the 1950s and 1980s and attribute ailments like male breast cancer and non-Hodgkins lymphoma to chemical contaminants in the water have advocated for a VA presumptive policy on water cases, similar to that governing exposure to the Vietnam-era chemical Agent Orange.
READ MORE: http://www.enctoday.com/news/water-85677-jdn-lejeune-claims.html
http://english.vovnews.vn/Home/US-congressmen-support-Vietnams-Agent-Orange-victims/201012/122078.vov
Members of the US congress and the US Department of State have shown their support for Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin during a visit to the US by a delegation from the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA).
The visit was made from November 22 to December 4 at the invitation of the US’s Veterans for Peace (VFP) organization and the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign (VAORRC) also based in the US.
The Vietnamese delegation met with the leaderships of the VFP and VAORRC to discuss assistance for AO victims and future cooperation, especially when commemorating the 50th anniversary of the start of the dioxin war against Vietnam on August 10, 1961.
They also met with congressman John Conyers, Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary under the US House of Representatives, congressman Eni F. H. Faleomavaega, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment under the Committee on Foreign Affairs at the US House of Representatives, and US Representative Bob Filner.
These US parliamentarians expressed their support for Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange and welcomed VAVA’s efforts to assist the victims. They stated that the US administration must attach more importance to settling the aftermaths of dioxin in Vietnam.
Mr Faleomavaega said that he regretted not having done enough for the victims in Vietnam and called on both the US and Vietnamese government to take responsibility and address the problem.
During the delegation’s meeting with representatives from the US Department of State, the US side confirmed that the US Department of State gives a high priority to solving the dioxin issue in Vietnam.
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/december032010/idiot-cycle-tk.php
Tim King Salem-News.com
A new film on the reality of your life and cancer...
Salem-News.com
Visit: The Idiot Cycle
(SALEM / PARIS) - I think the new film Idiot Cycle that delivers the good on the world's top cancer causing culprits, could easily have been titled "The Business of Cancer"- as it so fully divulges the dark and dirty side of companies like Bayer, BASF, Dow, Dupont, Monsanto, Syngetna, Novartis, Pfizer, and others.
This country is on its knees, in fact the whole world is fairly screwed for the long run, but it all has red, white and blue paint. It's over kids and what seems good or right about it is nothing more than a temporary illusion.
I hate to say it but I don't think there is any way to turn the clock back on this one.
We are cooked; our food and water supplies are impaired, specifically by the hands of American business, and our kids will have such an increased risk of cancer because of American business practices, that you might as well start your good byes now.
We have been reporting for years about the horrible illnesses plaguing former U.S. Marines who served at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and the Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro.
They have been impacted by contaminants in the soil and in the water at both bases. Contact with substances like Benzene, Trichloroethylene* (TCE), Perchloroethylene** (PCE) and a long list of other contaminants.
Marines and former Marines, Marine families and base employees, have spent their time after serving at these bases, fighting a variety of ailments, many deadly, that include cancers, lower stomach problems and birth defects in their children. That is just the beginning.
Monsanto is a large focus of this movie, and it should be. The producers don't delve into Monsanto's real history as the American company that manufactured a terrible substance called Agent Orange that was used to thin the jungles of Vietnam during the U.S. war there.
Americans have been terribly affected by Agent Orange, they range from veterans of all services, to civilians like Lesli Moore Dahlke, who recently joined our team of writers.
The Idiot Cycle will screen for the first time in America on
7 December 7th, 2010 - at Dark Cinemas in Corvallis, Oregon and at the same time at California States University in Sacramento.
She was part of a USO tour in 1970 that led her to all kinds of crazy bases in Vietnam. Today she suffers all of the effects of Agent Orange contamination, and is a multiple cancer survivor.
MORE: http://www.salem-news.com/articles/december032010/idiot-cycle-tk.php
*used in the communication industry to clean jelly-filled cable
**used in the dry cleaning industry
http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201011220850/a
Reporter: K. Oanh Ha
California is home to many Vietnamese-Americans who fought alongside the U.S. during the Vietnam war. Over time, these soldiers developed cancers because of their exposure to the chemical defoliant Agent Orange. But while American-born vets can get medical care and disability compensation for their Agent Orange-related illnesses, America's former allies get no such benefits.
Luc Nguyen is now a naturalized citizen, but in the 1960s he was a South Vietnamese soldier, working as a translator for the U.S. military. South Vietnamese soldiers frequently got Agent Orange on their skin and clothing when patrolling jungles that had been sprayed. Others were exposed when they sprayed agent orange by hand or helped transport and mix the chemicals.
Luc's former American commander, retired 4-star general Louis Wagner, says there's no question he and Luc were frequently exposed to Agent Orange.
MORE: http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201011220850/a
Although the US EPA released two studies claiming that "Little cancer risk from BP oil burn dioxin, new studies conclude" A sort of rebuttal article written by Mark Schleifstein of the Times-Picayune asks a lot of questions about how safe the EPA testing was. I agree with Mr. Schleifstein's conclusions. However, there are more concerns.
EPA claims that they tested for two families of toxic chemicals. These are the polychlorinated dibenzodioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans. But, how many chlorinated dioxins and furans did they test ? The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has declared that three dioxin like poisons are now "human carcinogens". These are 2,3,7,8 tetrachlorodibenzo-dioxin, 2,3,4,7,8-pentachlorodibenzo-furan, and 3,3,4,4,5 pentachlorobiphenol. The EPA did not break down whether these three poisons were tested from the inadequate oil burn.
Imagine what could happen if these poisons got mixed together? And this doesn't include the other poisons. There are 75 chlorinated dioxins, 134 chlorinated difurans, and 209 polychlorinated biphenols. Please keep in mind that this does not include the brominated dioxins and furans, the polybrominated diphenol ethers, the chlorinated napthalenes, What do a lot of these poisons have in common: Perhaps a lot of them look "dioxin like"! Could they provide a much larger poisoning if combined?
What is EPA doing? Are they trying to stop mass hysteria? Perhaps preventing a social uproar is not practical. BUT, what about testing for alot of factors for acute toxicity. Also an epidemiological study which will encompass many years like the ones on Seves, Italy. However, then who would pick up the tab? I'm quite sure that BP would have nightmares over that suggestion. Maybe we should scrap the idea; after all, the dioxin explosions in Italy (76), England (60's), Germany, France,Austria, Holland, Russia. All of these countries had studies which showed injury from exposure to dioxin like chemicals. And let us not forget the Dow Chemical Company. Oh, that's right, Dow's studies didn't show anything but a skin rash.
http://www.vietnamveteranwives.org/
ATTENTION TO THOSE WITH GLIOBLASTOMAS
I would like to “Welcome” the newest member of VVW, Eileen Perkins. Mrs. Perkins' husband, a combat Vietnam veteran, recently passed away from a glioblastoma. Like many of us, who have lost their husbands, know the frustration of why the VA has not accepted this ailment as a service connected disability. She has offered her services, as a liaison, to record other’s who have lost their loved one to a glioblastoma.
Sometimes it takes the “numbers” for the VA to recognize a sickness is due to Agent Orange/Dioxin so it can be accepted and awarded as a service connected disability.
VVW is asking all those who wish to join in the fight to get this service connected, and have either lost or presently have a loved one who has this ailment, to please contact Mrs. Perkins.
She can be contacted by clicking here.
"UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL AND IN NUMBERS WE ARE HEARD!"
http://www.vietnamveteranwives.org/
http://www.vva.org/Committees/AgentOrange/Dekoff031610.pdf
Arthur Dekoff says he is far from the only one in his family who is affected by the Vietnam War.
“My daughter wasn’t in that war,” he said. “But there’s no doubt in my mind that she’s paying the price because I was in it.”
Jessica Dekoff seemed healthy until she started kindergarten and a teacher said Jessica was dozing off in school. That’s when the seizures began.
“We took her to a children’s hospital. The diagnosis was epilepsy, and they treated her for that, but the seizures kept going,” Arthur said. “Then she had a stroke, and she lost the use of her right side, and it also left her mentally handicapped.
“The doctors kept questioning me about if I had ever been out of the country, and I told them I was in Vietnam. That was the end of the questioning. They didn’t need to talk about it any longer,” Arthur said.
The CT scan confirmed that it was Moyamoya disease, a rare condition first identified by the Japanese. It is more common in Asians but can affect anyone. Girls get it more often than boys. The walls of the internal carotid arteries of a person with Moyamoya, which supply blood to important areas of the brain, become thickened. Blood clots can form which may cause strokes and transient ischemic attacks.
Moyamoya can strike at any age, but the average age of diagnosis is around seven years, right about Jessica’s age at the time. About seven percent of the time, the disease runs in families, and those cases are due to a particular genetic defect.
“They told me my daughter had a year to live,” Arthur said.
A trip to another hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan, resulted in medication that controlled the seizures. Jessica lived, but at 34, she has the mental capacity of a 9-year-old. She can say words but not complete sentences and does not always understand what is being said to her.
Significant numbers of Vietnam veterans have children and grandchildren with birth defects related to exposure to Agent Orange. To alert legislators and the media to this ongoing legacy of the war, we are seeking real stories about real people. If you wish to share your family’s health struggles that you believe are due to Agent Orange/dioxin, send an email to mporter@vva.org or call 301-585-4000, Ext. 146.
The Art Dekoff’s Story Continued...http://www.vva.org/Committees/AgentOrange/Dekoff031610.pdf
http://www.interfax.com.ua/eng/main/53411/
Third Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko (2005-2010) is ready to undergo medical tests as part of the investigation into a criminal case on his poisoning, his lawyer Hanna Vronska has said.
On September 5, 2004, then presidential candidate Yuschenko was taken ill after having dinner with the leadership of the Security Service of Ukraine. He was hospitalized in Vienna on September 10. Doctors said Yuschenko had been poisoned with dioxin. Moreover, they said the poison had been administered five days before his hospitalization. After that, a number of medical tests were conducted. An examination conducted late in May 2006 confirmed the presence of dioxin in Yuschenko's body.
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/11/little_risk_of_cancer_from_dio.html
The release of two types of cancer-causing compounds during the burning of oil released from the BP Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico poses little long-term risk of cancer to cleanup workers, onshore residents or fish consumers, according to two new peer-reviewed scientific papers released today by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
The scientists measured the release of two families of toxic chemicals -- polychlorinated dibenzodioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans -- by collecting samples with a battery-operated instrument package suspended in the plumes of 27 surface oil fires between July 13 and July 16.
http://www.iowapolitics.com/index.Iml?Article=217726
By Senator Tom Harkin
Every year on Veterans Day, Americans take the time to give our millions of brave veterans the honor and thanks they deserve. We thank those who have served out of love of country, and a desire to protect the rights that we prize so dearly. As a veteran myself, I am humbled by the gratitude that is shown on this day, but am even more humbled by the sacrifices that so many other veterans and their families have made and continue to make.
Ensuring that our veterans receive the care, services and recognition they deserve has been a top priority of mine in Congress, and we have had a few important successes in this area in recent years. We fixed a problem that shortchanged 600 Iowa National Guard service members from receiving their earned leave; ensured those serving after 9/11 would qualify for reduced-age eligibility for the receipt of non-regular service retired pay; helped to secure military medals for those whose recognition is long overdue; and recognized Veterans of Iowa’s Meskwaki tribe, who played a historic role in World War II by using their native language as the basis for creating unbreakable codes and communicating messages in combat.
And because of the disproportionately high rates of suicide among those returning from the battlefield, I worked alongside other members to pass into law the Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act, named after Joshua Omvig, a soldier from Grundy Center who took his own life after returning from Iraq. It is an important step towards improving the mental health of our veterans.
READ MORE: http://www.iowapolitics.com/index.Iml?Article=217726">http://www.iowapolitics.com/index.Iml?Article=217726
