Food activists from Nevada County take on Biotech Goliath, Monsanto in court

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Since her early days of activism in the 1960s protesting the Vietnam War when she was an undergrad student in Texas, Grass Valley resident Pamela Osgood has been arrested 150 times as a practicing "steward of the world."

Last May, her loyalty to the health of the human race landed her in the Woodland Jail after she and a small band of folks from Nevada County and other parts of the state formed a blockade in front of Monsanto's largest seed research center in the U.S.

Monsanto is a Fortune 500, modern agricultural company that employs over 20,000 people globally in 69 countries, according to Monsanto's website. Monsanto, acquired by Bayer Crop Science Ag in 2016, is known for its biotech seeds like Roundup Ready Corn.

"The work that is going on in there is really dreadful. We have to get people educated about what Monsanto is doing. Monsanto is poisoning everyone," Osgood said.

Osgood and her sister (a grandmother) were among 10 environmental and human rights activists known as the "Monsanto 10" arrested in the early morning last spring when they tried to block Monsanto staffers arriving to work at the 90,000-square-foot research facility in Yolo County. The protest was one of more than 400 "Anti-Monsanto/Anti-GMO" demonstrations held worldwide in 47 states and 52 countries on six continents.

Why Is Roundup Still Used In Hawaii?

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We should make public the names of government officials who approve the use of such poisonous chemicals.

Despite the demands made by residents of Hawaii to end the use of Roundup in the islands, the state continues to spray in parks and public areas with this cousin of Agent Orange.

When the Honolulu Parks Department was queried as to why it continues using a known carcinogen that’s been banned in many cities in the United States and several countries around the world and is involved in more than a dozen lawsuits, including a class-action suit, the reply was that its use was state-approved.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s 3,000-acre Superfund cleanup site in Kunia on Oahu exists because a “state-approved pesticide” was used for pineapple.

Here's why Roundup is still used in Hawaii

After reading a recent opinion piece titled Why Is Roundup Still Used In Hawaii? I wanted to correct some of the misinformation contained in the article.

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in many Roundup-branded weed control products, as well as many other weed control products marketed under different names by different companies. It is used by homeowners, gardeners, farmers, businesses and government agencies to control a lot of different weeds.

Weed control is important. Weeds can cause farmers to lose yields, harbor insect pests, be invasive, create hazard along roadways and be a pest in landscaping.

To be clear, glyphosate is not a “cousin” to Agent Orange, as the article stated. They are not chemically similar. Glyphosate has nothing to do with an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site in Kunia, as the piece seems to suggest.

AGENT ORANGE TOWN HALL MEETING SCHEDULE

We update our meetings regularly on the Town Hall Meeting Calendar:

https://vva.org/AOTownHall.html

February 10, 2018

Mesa, Arizona

Contact Chuck Byers 480-258-7105

seagb@cox.net

February 24, 2018

Mitchell, South Dakota

Contact: Terry Mayer

605-830-2011

Maynard Kaderlik

507-581-6402

March 20, 2018

Cape Coral, Florida

Contact: Stuart Berman

239-220-2369

March 24, 2018

Portland, Oregon

Contact: Don Curtis 503-913-1787 

Tom Owen  541-619-8187

April 7, 2018

Marshalltown, Iowa

Contact John Kost

515-212-0741

April 8, 2018

Stratford, New Jersey

Contact: Mike Eckstein

201-874-1664

April 21, 2018

Sanborn, New York

Contact:   Gordon L. Bellinger

716-625-4470

April 21, 2018

International Falls, Minnesota

Contact Carissa MacLean 218-283-1179

Maynard Kaderlik 507-581-6402

April 29, 2018

Mayetta, Kansas

Contact:Roland Mayhew 785-249-4517

Thomas Wabnum 785-554-5248                                                                       

Vlas Ortiz 785-554-3949

Guam EPA: Agent Orange testing yet to start

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More than a year after Gov. Eddie Calvo instructed the Guam Environmental Protection Agency to test for traces of Agent Orange, a hazardous defoliant, actual sampling and testing have yet to take place but a work plan is now being developed.

Guam EPA public information officer Nic Rupley on Friday said a contractor hired by the military is now finalizing a work plan, which serves as a guide for sampling, how the testing will be carried out and how the outcome will be interpreted, among other things.

Rupley said Guam EPA has been working with the Department of Defense on the Agent Orange investigation. He said the military awarded a contract to develop the work plan, but a contract for the field work, which includes actual sampling and testing, has yet to be awarded.

Vice Speaker Therese Terlaje wrote a Feb. 1 letter to Guam EPA Administrator Walter Leon Guerrero, seeking an update on the Agent Orange investigation that the governor asked the agency to conduct in January 2017.

"I am hoping that we can shed light on this investigation in order to find answers for our residents and veterans," Terlaje wrote. Local residents, she said, have stated that family members who worked on military properties have since died from cancer.

April 15 dicamba spraying ban in place for Arkansas

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On Friday morning, the Arkansas Legislative Council (ALC) passed a proposal to ban the spraying of dicamba in the state after April 15.

The passage was a quiet affair compared to a subcommittee hearing at the capitol three days earlier, which came on the heels of a wintry storm. At that hearing, lawmakers heard some three hours of impassioned testimony from those wanting the April cutoff date and those wanting it pushed into May or June. On a split vote, the subcommittee sent the dicamba proposal package to the full ALC.

Related: Arkansas Plant Board votes in favor of tightening dicamba restrictions

The cutoff proposal first came to the legislature last fall following nearly 1,000 off-target dicamba drift complaints and numerous meetings of both the Arkansas State Plant Board and a dicamba task force set up by the governor.

AGENT ORANGE TOWN HALL MEETING SCHEDULE

We update our meetings regularly on the Town Hall Meeting Calendar:

https://vva.org/AOTownHall.html

February 10, 2018

Mesa, Arizona

Contact Chuck Byers 480-258-7105

seagb@cox.net

February 24, 2018

Mitchell, South Dakota

Contact: Terry Mayer

605-830-2011

Maynard Kaderlik

507-581-6402

March 20, 2018

Cape Coral, Florida

Contact: Stuart Berman

239-220-2369

March 24, 2018

Portland, Oregon

Contact: Don Curtis 503-913-1787 

Tom Owen  541-619-8187

April 7, 2018

Marshalltown, Iowa

Contact John Kost

515-212-0741

April 21, 2018

Sanborn, New York

Contact:   Gordon L. Bellinger

716-625-4470

April 21, 2018

International Falls, Minnesota

Contact Carissa MacLean 218-283-1179

Maynard Kaderlik 507-581-6402

April 29, 2018

Mayetta, Kansas

Contact:Roland Mayhew 785-249-4517

Thomas Wabnum 785-554-5248                                                                       

Vlas Ortiz 785-554-3949

This problem is not going away -Act Now!

Nearly one in four Vietnam War combat veterans who participated in a small study at the Northport VA to detect past infestations of the cancer-causing liver fluke parasite tested positive, according to a paper penned by researchers at the VA Medical Center.

The pilot study, titled “Screening US Vietnam Veterans for Liver Fluke Exposure 5 Decades After the End of the War,” is in the current edition of the periodical Infectious Diseases in Clinical Practice.

The Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center at Northport conducted the study last spring, after Vietnam combat veteran Jerry Chiano of Valley Stream was diagnosed with bile-duct cancer in 2013. Chiano died in November. 

Northport examined 97 Vietnam War veterans and selected 50 who met the inclusion criteria of having eaten undercooked freshwater fish while serving in Vietnam. Blood samples collected at Northport were subjected to serological examinations performed by researchers at Seoul National University College of Medicine in South Korea because no facility in the United States is equipped to identify the antigen marker that shows the parasite was once present.

Two members of Congress — Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) — released statements calling for a broader study to determine whether wartime exposure to liver fluke should be considered service-related.

“The Northport Medical VA Center’s groundbreaking study confirms what many vets have asserted: some of our brave Vietnam veterans were, in fact, exposed to cancer-causing parasites when serving overseas,” Schumer said in a release.

“I am urging the VA to move forward with developing a treatment, screening and awareness program to help our Vietnam veterans who may be at risk to developing bile duct cancer in the future,” Schumer said.

Suozzi said the VA should move quickly to address the study’s findings.

“There must be a lot of anxiety in the Vietnam veterans community and we should try to alleviate that anxiety by actually getting firm answers,” Suozzi said.

Liver flukes are parasitic worms that spend part of their life cycle in freshwater snails that inhabit rivers throughout parts of the Far East, including Southeast Asia, China and the Korean Peninsula. The snails release larvae that burrow into the flesh of fish and can infest the bile ducts of humans who eat the fish. They can reside symptomless in a victim’s body for decades.

The adult worm is believed to release an irritant during its quarter-century life span — an irritant that can lead to cancerous lesions in the bile duct decades after the parasitic infestation has died out. In some south Asian villages where raw fish consumption is part of the culture, more than one in two people harbor liver fluke infestations, according to parasitologists.

Some activists have likened the seriousness of fluke exposure in Vietnam veterans to Agent Orange, a class of dioxin-contaminated herbicides believed to have tainted hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops. The VA pays disability claims to Vietnam veterans who suffer from any of a host of maladies linked to Agent Orange exposure, from heart disease to bladder cancer.

Since 2013, the VA has received 240 disability claims related to bile-duct cancers associated with liver fluke, the agency said. It had rejected more than 76 percent of those claims.

IOM, Viet Nam Academy of Social Sciences Study Family Relocation due to Environmental Change

Migration Research, Migration and Climate Change, Migration and Environment

Ha Noi – IOM and the Institute of Sociology (IOS), Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, have released a new report: Planned Relocation in the Context of Environmental Change in Hoa Binh Province, Northern Viet Nam: An Analysis of Household Decision-making and Relocation Outcomes.

The study assesses the implementation and outcomes of planned relocation in the Hoa Binh Relocation Project, which aims to relocate 1,200 families from two remote communes in the mountainous Northwest region that face high natural disaster risks.

The study explored project implementation, household decision-making processes and relocation outcomes for 406 households, including those who have relocated, those who wish to move, and those who have chosen to remain or are undecided.

Its findings show the potential for relocation to contribute to improved quality of life and new opportunities for relocated communities. Existing policies in Viet Nam provide important support that can help relocated households transition successfully to new, safer locations.

But the implementation of the current project shows the complex nature of household decisions on relocation and the practical challenges encountered in helping families to address the multiple factors which impact relocation outcomes.

The research identified key themes in household decision making, along with practices that support successful relocation.

It showed that households had high levels of awareness and experience of natural disasters. But disaster risk was only one of multiple factors influencing their migration decisions. Others included concerns about the impact on their livelihoods and the social dislocation associated with relocation.

The findings related to project implementation and relocation outcomes also showed that although most families had a high awareness of the objectives of the project, they had a limited understanding of the actual process. It also noted the limited participation of commune authorities and communities in both planning and implementation.

The research recommends policy approaches to support improved relocation practices, including policies on relocation planning and implementation, participation and communication, livelihood development, and monitoring and evaluation.

The report was released at a best-practices workshop on planned relocation and disaster risk reduction co-hosted by IOM and IOS in Ha Noi. The event was designed to provide policy makers, researchers, and civil society with an opportunity to discuss the findings and best practices with national, regional and international experts.

“Planned relocation, and migration in general, are a possible response to environmental change, which can increase households’ resilience to slow onset and rapid onset disasters. But they can be complex and are probably best when safe in-situ adaptation or other options are not feasible. They also need to be planned, designed, implemented and monitored with full community participation,” said IOM Viet Nam head of programmes, Paul Priest.

Download the reports here:
English | Vietnamese

For further information, please contact IOM Viet Nam. David Knight, Tel: +844 3850 1810, Email: dknight@iom.int.

U.S. aircraft carrier to visit Vietnam in post-war first

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HANOI (Reuters) - In a post-war first, the United States is poised to send an aircraft carrier to Vietnam in March, officials of both sides said on Thursday, dramatic evidence of deepening military ties between them, more than four decades after the Vietnam War.

The announcement came during a two-day visit to Hanoi by U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis that had been expected to focus on shared concerns about China.

The proposed visit is set for March at the central port of Danang, Vietnam’s defence ministry said in a statement. Such a visit by a U.S. aircraft carrier could bring the most U.S. forces to Vietnam since the conflict ended in 1975.

Mattis cheered the planned port visit during talks with Nguyen Phu Trong, the general secretary of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam.

“Thank you for the increasing partnership, with our aircraft carrier coming into Danang here in March,” Mattis said.

Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, confirmed the carrier visit was discussed by Mattis and Defence Minister Ngo Xuan Lich, and Vietnam’s defence ministry was seeking final approvals from national leaders.

“We expect it will be approved,” Davis said.

Ninth Circuit Panel Reverses Lower Court Dismissal Allowing Suit to Proceed

SALT LAKE CITY (PRWEB) January 26, 2018

A Ninth Circuit panel has reversed a lower court dismissal, allowing a False Claims Act suit against former Lockheed Martain health care subsidiary, QTC Medical Services Inc. to proceed (US ex rel. David Vatan v. QTC Medical Services, Inc., et al Case No. 16-55406).

The unpublished decision came down on Friday, January 12, 2018 in an appeal from whistleblower and former QTC claims file analyst, Dr. David Vatan, whose suit was dismissed for failure to state a claim. In the suit, Vatan alleges that QTC submitted false claims to the United States Department of Veterans Affairs for evaluating Vietnam War veteran's symptoms of Agent Orange-related diseases.

A 1991 settlement that is still in effect, stemming from a class action lawsuit, requires the VA to take certain actions whenever it recognizes a new disease as linked to Agent Orange exposure. These actions include reviewing previously denied claims and paying disability and death benefits to affected veterans or their survivors.

QTC was hired by the VA to review 65,000 files for Agent Orange-related Parkinson's disease, ischemic heart disease, and hairy cell leukemia, as well as 95,000 files for peripheral neuropathy. QTC was to flag files that merited a second review and final decision by the VA.

The lawsuit brought by Vatan in 2014 alleges that claims that QTC, "created and executed a scheme to incentivize" analysts to review as many files as possible, and that this rush to close files came at the expense of accuracy and completeness. He further alleges that he and other analysts were not formally trained and were not given the VA's training guide. QTC was paid between $300 and $350 for each file reviewed. According to McClatchy News in 2015, QTC's various contracts with the VA exceeded $175 million.

In February of 2016, it appeared that the case might be dead in the water after a lower court judge threw out two of Vatan's claims against Lockheed and QTC based on the fact that Vatan did not have access to the full contract between the company and the government and therefore could not prove that the company misrepresented its work. Vatan's appeal said the court overly relied on this fact and reversed the decision.

Dow Chemical Wins Key Ruling In Dioxin Pollution Dispute

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SAGINAW, Mich. (AP) – A decision by the Michigan Supreme Court means that property owners along the Tittabawassee River might have waited too long to sue Dow Chemical over dioxin contamination.

In an order this week, the court sent a lawsuit back to a Saginaw County judge for more work to determine when property owners were harmed.

There is a three-year limit to file a lawsuit. The Supreme Court said the clock starts running when damage occurred.

Dow has argued that the statute of limitations had long expired when the lawsuit was filed in 2003 because the public became aware of dioxin pollution in the Tittabawassee River years earlier. The company appealed after the appeals court said the key date was much later, in 2002, when regulators reported high levels in the flood plain in Saginaw County.

Litigation against Dow has been broken down into separate lawsuits by dozens of people.

Vietnam, US begin Agent Orange cleanup at former wartime air base

Bien Hoa Airport is the largest remaining dioxin hotspot in Vietnam

Courtesy Chuck Searcy, Dr. Wayne Dwernychuk, Paul Sutton

Vietnam and the U.S. have kickstarted the process of cleaning up the dioxin around Bien Hoa Airport, a heavily contaminated zone just outside Ho Chi Minh City.

The process formally began on Tuesday with the signing of a Memorandum of Intent between the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Military Science Department under Vietnam's Ministry of Defense.

USAID will be working with the Vietnamese ministry to first design a remediation program before implementing it over the next few years.

“The only way to begin a long journey is to take the first step. The Memorandum of Intent is that first step, and the journey begins today," said U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Daniel J. Kritenbrink, who witnessed the signing together with Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh, Vietnam's Deputy Minister of Defense.

"The United States looks forward to working with the Ministry of National Defense on this important initiative, deepening our partnership further, and building a prosperous future for both our countries.”

The campaign to decontaminate Bien Hoa is part of the two countries' cooperation that started in 2000 to resolve humanitarian and wartime legacies while continuing to strengthen their economic, cultural and security ties.

It will also be the second time the U.S. has been directly involved in a dioxin cleanup effort in Vietnam, following USAID and the defense ministry's $110 million campaign that took five years to clean dioxin-contaminated soil at Da Nang International Airport, which started in 2012.

Bien Hoa is the largest remaining dioxin hotspot in Vietnam. Studies have found that more than 500,000 cubic meters of land at the airport, which Vietnam uses for military purposes, needs treating.