Lawmakers introduce bill to extend VA care to 490,000 more veterans ill from Agent Orange

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Efforts in Congress last year to add hypertension to a list of diseases linked to Agent Orange at the Department of Veterans Affairs failed, keeping Vietnam-era veterans from accessing care for high blood pressure connected to the toxic exposure.

Now, lawmakers are making another attempt to add hypertension and MGUS (Monoclonal Gammopathy of Undetermined Significance), to a list of presumptive conditions at VA, which will qualify those veterans for care and benefits. As many as 490,000 Vietnam-era veterans could benefit from the change, if the bill passes Congress and becomes law.

Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jon Tester, D-Montana, introduced the Fair Care for Vietnam Veterans Act this week, along with support from 16 other senators. Tester said the bill would "put an end to decades of veterans wrestling with bureaucratic red tape" at VA, adding that there is sufficient scientific evidence to connect the illnesses to the toxic herbicide.

Earlier this month, Tester and Moran urged VA leaders to expand care and benefits to as many as 160,000 affected by Agent Orange-linked hypertension.

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The Victims of Agent Orange the U.S. Has Never Acknowledged

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America has never taken responsibility for spraying the herbicide over Laos during the Vietnam War. But generations of ethnic minorities have endured the consequences.

It was a blazing-hot morning in October 2019 on the old Ho Chi Minh Trail, an intricate web of truck roads and secret paths that wove its way across the densely forested and mountainous border between Vietnam and Laos. Susan Hammond, Jacquelyn Chagnon and Niphaphone Sengthong forded a rocky stream along the trail and came to a village of about 400 people called Labeng-Khok, once the site of a logistics base inside Laos used by the North Vietnamese Army to infiltrate troops into the South. In one of the bamboo-and-thatch stilt houses, the ladder to the living quarters was made from metal tubes that formerly held American cluster bombs. 

The family had a 4-year-old boy named Suk, who had difficulty sitting, standing and walking — one of three children in the extended family with birth defects. A cousin was born mute and did not learn to walk until he was 7. A third child, a girl, died at the age of 2. “That one could not sit up,” their great-uncle said. “The whole body was soft, as if there were no bones.” The women added Suk to the list of people with disabilities they have compiled on their intermittent treks through Laos’s sparsely populated border districts.

Hammond, Chagnon and Sengthong make up the core of the staff of a nongovernmental organization called the War Legacies Project. Hammond, a self-described Army brat whose father was a senior military officer in the war in Vietnam, founded the group in 2008. Chagnon, who is almost a generation older, was one of the first foreigners allowed to work in Laos after the conflict, representing a Quaker organization, the American Friends Service Committee. Sengthong, a retired schoolteacher who is Chagnon’s neighbor in the country’s capital, Vientiane, is responsible for the record-keeping and local coordination.

The main focus of the War Legacies Project is to document the long-term effects of the defoliant known as Agent Orange and provide humanitarian aid to its victims. Named for the colored stripe painted on its barrels, Agent Orange — best known for its widespread use by the U.S. military to clear vegetation during the Vietnam War — is notorious for being laced with a chemical contaminant called 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-P-dioxin, or TCDD, regarded as one of the most toxic substances ever created.

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Attorney Gerson Smoger's Filing Against the Roundup settlement

Some of you may remember Gerson Smoger from our days arguing against MDL 381, the Agent Orange Class Action Suit, settled (against the wishes of Vietnam veterans) in May 1984. We're just trying to stay ahead of any new developments with respect to exposures and what the government continually tries to hide from its citizens.

Paul Sutton

They are proposing a new herbicide get out of jail free card for Monsanto like the Agent Orange settlement that was so destructive.  As with that, I am opposing it.  I thought that you may be interested in my court submission.  Keep up your updates -- I do read them.

Best,

Gerson

Gerson Smoger, Smoger & Associates, P.C.

GO HERE TO SEE EXHIBITS

Petition for Camp Lejeune water registry to be presented to congressional representation

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Congressional representatives and state lawmakers from Kentucky are set to convene to discuss water contamination that occurred at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune for more than 30 years from the 1950s to 1980s and to hear out victims' plea for a medical health registry. 

The special event, organized by former Marine Brian Amburgey, will be held on Wednesday, March 17 at the Elks Lodge located at 225 Shoppers Dr. in Winchester, Kentucky. The program begins at 1:00 p.m. with a showing of “Semper Fi: Always Faithful”, a 2011 documentary about the contamination. A Q&A session with retired Marine Corps Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger, a main voice in the film and leading proponent of justice for victims, will follow.

Mike Partain, a male breast cancer survivor who was born at Camp Lejeune during the contamination, is also a leading advocate for victims who has worked with Ensminger for well over a decade and has testified before Congress on the subject. He says he plans to drive 11 hours from Florida to attend the ceremony.

“When a congressional office is interested in the issue, you have to go and talk to them, and that’s exactly what we are doing,” Partain said. “Our government doesn't work by getting on Facebook and writing a couple posts or making a phone call. It works by meeting people, talking to them, interacting with them, presenting your evidence and then asking for action.”

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Monsanto’s Big Lie About Roundup and the System That Enabled It

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Just after midnight on August 1, 2017, attorney Brent Wisner gave his legal team the go-ahead to start publishing a series of internal memos and documents from the Monsanto corporation. The internal communications made clear that Monsanto—the company that created saccharine and went on to develop DDT and Agent Orange—was not only aware that independent scientific studies had found that its blockbuster weed killer, Roundup, and the primary ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, were probably

carcinogenic and harmful to human health, but the company had also tried to bury the findings. The documents also proved that Monsanto ghost-wrote scientific studies that suggested Roundup was safe (when the company knew it wasn’t), paid experts to support those claims, pressured scientists to reverse their previous conclusions that glyphosate could be linked to cancer, and successfully lobbied regulators at the EPA to keep the agency’s own findings—that glyphosate was probably harmful to humans—under wraps. 

Decades of research connected the weed killer to cancer. According to the internal documents Wisner and his team published, Monsanto—instead of doing the right thing and pulling the product off the market given all it knew—did everything in its power to cover it up.

“This is a function of a system where we allow money to wield influence in Washington, DC,” Carey Gillam, author of The Monsanto Papers: Deadly Secrets, Corporate Corruption, and One Man’s Search for Justice (Island Press, 2021), told Sierra. “Scientists are trying to do the work to protect public health, but if their research interferes with the profit motives of a multibillion-dollar corporation, those scientists can see their work limited or even censored. Corporate influence digs deep.”

The Monsanto Papers is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the dangers of glyphosate to human health and the corrupt system of corporate and political influence that enabled Monsanto to sell its toxic weed killer for decades.

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a Message from Paul Sutton

The People vs. Agent Orange documentary will be screening from March 5th to the 18th on the virtual cinema platforms of 37 cinemas around the country.  You can access the film’s link at: https://www.thepeoplevsagentorange.com/screenings-1 

The film, which has already won two major awards including the Jury Prize at the Eugene Environmental Film Festival, takes a deep dive into Operation Ranch Hand in Vietnam, the contamination of US troops and the illnesses and deformities that were passed down to their children and now grandchildren.

The film describes Agent Orange as a weapon of mass destruction. The character-driven and investigative documentary goes on to detail how the forestry industry in America's Pacific northwest, and agriculture elsewhere, began using Agent Orange and other toxic herbicides even after the use of them was halted in Vietnam.

Two heroic women, one Vietnamese, the other American, crusade to advance the movements to help the victims and hold the American chemical manufacturers accountable.

The film's tag line, on the poster here, declares "We have the right to protect ourselves from being poisoned."  That right is still widely denied to today's victims of toxic herbicides and to those who will sadly fall victims as well because of the epigenetic damages of the chemicals.

Veterans and environmental groups are offering discounted "tickets" for people to book viewings in their homes and in organizational settings. There are extensive details on the film's website including a list through which folks can choose what theater they would like to support with their bookings, how to request discounts, and to view related panels involving veterans, scientists and community activists.

Susan Hammond, the founder and Executive Director of the War Legacies Project, is working with us as the film's outreach and impact director.  We are organizing community-based forums to be recorded and posted on the film's website as the program of cinema screenings continues.

I have not been as moved by any documentary film as I was by this one. Despite nearly 45 years of involvement in advocacy and activism on all matters related to herbicide exposure, primarily exposure in Vietnam to our troops and the Vietnamese; I have unfortunately paid little attention to exposures here in the US. That, despite a huge, never-ending exposure in Newark and other places along the Passaic River here in NJ.

Yes, I knew of the exposures in Oregon and other places in the Pacific northwest. I even met and talked with Carol Van Strum at an Agent Orange conference in Roseburg, OR in 2003.

This film needs to be seen by everyone in the world, especially in the US. Folks have no idea what toxic exposures they live with, day in and day out, especially schoolchildren, because they are our future and they need to know what our generation has done to our earth.

I was particularly taken by the juxtaposition of the Oregon exposures and those in Vietnam. You only need one visit to a Peace Village in Vietnam to know what we did to that country. And, coupled with the exposures in the US, we all need to become aware of the dangers of these on-going exposures.

We Americans - in the words of John Lewis - need to "..make good trouble..."  There is much yet to do!

I’ve had the signal honor of being able to preview this riveting film. This film will be in my mind and dreams for months to come.

Paul Sutton

Lessening Exposure To Dioxins May Help Protect the Immune System

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According to experts, dioxins slowly decompose in the environment and may travel or be transported long distances.

(Newswire.net -- March 3, 2021) Orlando, FL -- The pandemic has undeniably made it extremely important to protect and enhance immune system health.

According to experts, having a strong immunity may improve the body’s ability to combat the potentially dangerous effects of Covid-19.

Researchers have long recommended making dietary and lifestyle improvements , but there are actually other factors helpful in protecting and boosting immunity. These include keeping the body from toxins.

Dioxins have long been one of the toxins experts warn exposure against. It is often produced in burning processes, such as those involving oil, coal, or wood.

There are also some human activities that produce this health hazard, such as burning household trash, dismantling and recycling electronic products, chlorine bleaching of pulp and paper, and production of pesticides and herbicides.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reveals that the most reported causes of dioxin contamination happen in industrialized nations, and in other places, high dioxin levels often go unreported.

Low level dioxin exposure is often through contact with water, soil, or air that usually happens when breathing in air containing trace amounts, accidentally ingesting soil with dioxins, and using tampons and water bottles with dioxins.

According to experts, dioxins slowly decompose in the environment and may travel or be transported long distances.

It is also found that when this toxin enters the food chain, they tend to accumulate in fat. There have been many studies finding that dioxins can produce adverse health effects, and these include infertility, cancer, hormonal problems, and diabetes.

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Senators urge VA to take 'decisive action' for 160,000 veterans with Agent Orange-linked hypertension

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Senators are once again urging Department of Veterans Affairs leaders to expand care and benefits to thousands more veterans ill from Agent Orange exposure. This time, for veterans with high blood pressure linked to the toxic herbicide.

Last year, Congress approved adding three new illnesses to a list of conditions VA recognizes as connected to Agent Orange and therefore provides care and benefits for -- bladder cancer, hypothyroidism and Parkinson's-like symptoms. But just before leaving office in January, Trump administration VA officials said the about 34,000 veterans affected may not see benefits from Congress' action for months or even years.

VA disagrees with scientists’ findings linking 4 more diseases to Agent Orange exposure

Hypertension, or high blood pressure, had been a fourth condition lawmakers, advocates and veterans pushed for Congress to include, but ultimately was left out, and Congressional staff with knowledge of those negotiations told Connecting Vets cost was a leading factor. Estimates suggest the expansion of benefits could cost as much as $11 billion to $15 billion over the first 10 years.

VA officials under the Trump administration argued against adding hypertension to the list because of continued doubts about its link to Agent Orange, despite the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine in 2018 finding "sufficient" evidence to connect the two. VA argued it needed to continue to conduct its own studies on all four conditions before making a decision, and the results of those studies (due by the end of 2020, then delayed by the coronavirus pandemic to mid-2021) have not yet been publicly released.

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Pentagon says reported sexual assaults at academies dropped

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of sexual harassment and sexual assault cases reported at the military service academies dropped in the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 school year, the Pentagon said Thursday.

The report, which is required by law annually, comes as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said that reducing sexual assault is one of his top priorities. He was recently briefed on the military service's programs to counter the problem.

“We have been working at this for a long time in earnest, but we haven’t gotten it right,” Austin said last week at his first Pentagon news conference. He promised stronger efforts.

“You can look for us to take additional steps in looking in detail at ourselves and what has worked, what hasn’t worked and what measures we need to take going forward to ensure that we provide for a safe and secure and productive environment for our teammates,” he said. “Any other approach is, in my view, irresponsible.”

Thursday's Pentagon report said the number of reported sexual assault cases at the U.S. Military Academy, the U.S. Naval Academy and the U.S. Air Force Academy fell to 129 from 149 in the previous academic year. Sexual harassment reports dropped to 12 from 17.

The report said the reason for the declines is unclear, but it noted that in-person classes at the military academies were suspended in March because of the coronavirus pandemic. Officials altered most academy activities, including holding graduations virtually and postponing commissioning ceremonies. Thus, it said, the academies offered only about three-quarters of normal levels of interaction.

Separately, an in-person survey of military academy students that is normally conducted to give the Pentagon a better understanding of the sexual assault problem and its prevalence was canceled because of the pandemic.

VAOIG - VA Needs Better Internal Communication and Data Sharing to Strengthen the Administration of Spina Bifida Benefits

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Executive Summary

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) reviewed key aspects of VA’s spina bifida program in response to wide-ranging concerns raised by Senator Michael K. Braun and by Vietnam Veterans of America. The concerns were about whether eligible individuals are receiving the compensation, health care, home services, and other related benefits to which they are entitled.

Regular monthly payments under this small but critical program serving more than 1,000 beneficiaries with disabilities exceeded $20.8 million in 2019, and medical reimbursements topped $45 million.

Spina bifida is a birth defect that occurs when a fetus’s spine and spinal cord do not form properly. An individual with spina bifida may suffer from nerve damage, paralysis, and bowel or bladder problems.

Children born with spina bifida may receive benefits from VA if one of their biological parents is a veteran presumed to have been exposed to herbicides during the Vietnam War.

Benefits can include monthly payments, vocational training and rehabilitation, and health care with services such as home care and case management.

The spina bifida program is jointly managed. The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) determines eligibility for benefits and issues monthly payments. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) covers all medically necessary health care, which includes all medical services and supplies, not just those related to spina bifida. The OIG assessed how effectively VBA and VHA carried out their respective responsibilities in managing the spina bifida program.

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Water near Arizona Air Force base is tainted in latest case

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PHOENIX (AP) — The U.S. Air Force says it will be distributing bottled water to thousands of residents and business owners near its base in suburban Phoenix until at least April, marking the latest case of chemicals from military firefighting efforts contaminating the water supply in a nearby community.

Luke Air Force Base announced this month that studies showed high levels of contaminants had affected drinking water for about 6,000 people in roughly 1,600 homes as well as a few neighboring businesses.

A contractor is scheduling deliveries of drinking water to the homes of people who picked up their first bottles this week, said Sean Clements, chief of public affairs for the 56th Fighter Wing at the base. Those deliveries will go on until a long-term filtration facility can be set up in April, Clements said Thursday.

The base has recommended people use bottled water for drinking and cooking but deemed tap water safe for bathing and laundry.

Similar contamination tied to the use of firefighting foam has been found in water supplies near dozens of military sites in Arizona, Colorado and other states and has triggered hundreds of lawsuits. Growing evidence that it's dangerous to be exposed to the chemicals found in the foam has prompted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to consider setting a maximum level for those chemicals in drinking water nationwide.

But they aren’t regulated now, meaning the base can't be punished even though the EPA says the chemicals stay in the body for long periods and may cause adverse health effects.

The Arizona Corporation Commission, which regulates utilities, is scheduling an emergency meeting next week with five water companies to discuss concerns about the contamination, said Caroline Oppleman, spokeswoman for the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.

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Depleted uranium from tanks, ammo not tied to Gulf War syndrome, new study finds

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Depleted uranium in tanks and ammunition used in the 1991 Gulf War “played no role” in the unexplained illnesses, known as Gulf War syndrome, that veterans faced in the years afterward, according to a new study.

The findings by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the University of Portsmouth in England counter decades of understanding by the military and Department of Veterans Affairs about potential causes for a host of ailments that collectively are now known as Gulf War illness.

“That depleted uranium is not and never was in the bodies of those who were ill at sufficient quantities to cause disease will surprise many, including sufferers who have, over the last 30 years, suspected depleted uranium may have contributed to their illnesses,” said Randall Parrish, a uranium isotope expert at the University of Portsmouth who developed the study’s methodology to scan veterans’ urine for traces of exposure.

The study looked at depleted uranium levels in the urine of 154 veterans, of whom 106 had Gulf War illness symptoms and 48 did not.

The findings may provide a definitive answer on whether there is a connection between depleted uranium exposure and Gulf War illness because of the level of precision used to detect any isotopes in veterans’ urine and the time involved in the study, Dr. Robert Haley, the director of epidemiology at UT Southwestern, a Dallas-based research hospital, told McClatchy in a phone interview.

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