Wednesday, January 12, 2022
Cancer-causing waste found at troubled paper mill on SC river. How did it get there?
Decades later, EPA still working on cleanup of Florida’s “Mount Dioxin”
Pensacola wood treatment plant just one of 92 Superfund sites around the Sunshine State.
Florida has lots of communities with a history that is — oh,
what’s a good word? Let’s say “unusual.”
Or take my hometown of Pensacola. It’s one of the great
also-rans of history. It was founded before St. Augustine, but a storm smashed
the Spanish colonists’ supply ships, chasing them away. That’s why St. Augustine,
not Pensacola, gets all the tourists who want to visit the oldest continuously
occupied city in North America.
Then, in 1861, the Civil War almost started there.
Confederate troops planned to attack the Union-held fort guarding the mouth of
the harbor. Once again, though, a storm interfered, forcing the Rebels to
postpone their bombardment. That’s how Fort Sumter, S.C., made it into the
history books, instead of Fort Pickens in Florida.
But Pensacola does have a couple of modern claims to notoriety.
It was the first place where a doctor carrying out abortions was murdered by
someone claiming to be “pro-life.” And it is the site of one of the worst
Superfund sites in the nation, one that ranks up there just behind Love Canal
and Times Beach.
We live in an era of “supers,” as comic-book superhero
movies from Marvel and DC rake in big bucks. But this super is far more vital
to saving our lives and our planet than Iron Man and B
“Superfund” is a fairly benign nickname for something that
is both scary and necessary. The Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation and Liability Act was passed by Congress in 1980 and signed into
law by then-President Jimmy Carter.
Wednesday, January 5, 2022
The Right Wants to Make Disabled Veterans Into the New “Welfare Queens”
In recent years, both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have backed privatization of services provided by the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). As part of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the VHA serves about nine million patients and operates the largest public health care system in the country.
Since 2015, billions of dollars have been diverted from VHA
care to private doctors and hospitals who treat veterans in costlier and less
effective fashion. This cannibalization of the VHA budget began under President
Barack Obama, escalated during the Donald Trump era, and continues under Joe
Biden.
Up until now, few Republicans, or their allies like the Koch
brothers–funded Concerned Veterans for America (CVA), dared to attack the
VA-run Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), a sacred cow even for
conservatives. Nearly six million veterans currently receive payments for
service-related medical conditions that left them partially or totally
impaired; among them are 1.3 million men and women who served in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Their total compensation, plus pensions, costs the public about
$110 billion per year.
Publication of a new book, touted by Trump’s last VA
secretary, signals that any ceasefire over veterans’ benefits has ended inside
the Beltway. In Wounding Warriors: How Bad Policy is Making Veterans Sicker and
Poorer, Daniel Gade, a retired US Army lieutenant colonel and former Trump
administration official, has teamed up with an ex–Wall Street Journal reporter,
Daniel Huang, to demand major “entitlement reform” at the VBA.
The authors — who are definitely not critics of the
military-industrial complex — denounce what they call a “disability-industrial
complex.” They argue that monthly checks from the VBA foster a costly and
unhealthy culture of dependence among veterans — and should be sharply
restricted, not expanded.
Robert Wilkie, the Republican operative who helped expand
VHA outsourcing while serving as VA chief until last year, has joined the call
for benefit cuts from his own new perch at the Heritage Foundation. At a
Veterans Day event with Gade in November, Wilkie accused his former agency of
being overly “focused on getting veterans checks and not getting them well and
getting them back into society.” Like Gade, he claimed that veterans service
organizations encourage former military personnel “to play disability” — with
the result being that too many noncombat veterans are getting undeserved
compensation.
The hidden legacy of Agent Orange
PART I
All wars are brutal, but some are more savage than others in the number of people killed and how they died. During World War I (1914-1918) approximately 19.7 million people lost their lives — 9.7 million military personnel and 10 million civilians. Chemical weapons were used by both sides to kill over 90,000 combatants and injure approximately 1.2 million more.
Although the number of deaths in the Vietnam War — 1.35
million military personnel including 58,200 Americans, and up to 2 million
North and South Vietnamese civilians — was much less than in World War I, the
toxic impact of chemical agents was significant. During Operation Ranch Hand
(1962-1971) the U.S. military sprayed approximately 20 million gallons of
“rainbow herbicide” defoliants: agents orange, green, blue, pink, purple and
white (nicknamed for the color on the barrels in which they were shipped) in
Vietnam (primarily), eastern Laos and parts of Cambodia.
Approximately 65% of rainbow herbicides contained dioxin,
one of the most toxic materials ever manufactured. Dioxins can cause cancer,
reproductive problems (including spontaneous abortions) developmental problems,
damage to the immune system, type 2 diabetes, ischemic heart disease and
interfere with hormones.
The use of “rainbow herbicides” led to a 1984 class action
suit by Vietnam veterans and their families against chemical companies that
produced these defoliants. The suit alleged that Agent Orange exposure resulted
in cancers, other serious health conditions and birth defects in children of
veterans.
Dow Chemical Company utilized the “government contractor
defense.” That is, if Dow could prove the herbicides were manufactured to
Defense Department specifications, and both parties were aware of the hazards
presented by these defoliants, the company could not be held liable for health
problems caused by the herbicides.
Arguing against Dow’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, veterans’ attorneys cited a then-secret 1965 meeting of chemical companies wherein Dow scientists warned about significant health dangers of dioxin. As reported in the New York Times, the veterans’ lawyers stated: “Since the mid-1960s, Dow had information that Agent Orange supplied to the Government contained large levels of dioxin, far in excess of anything Dow considered safe or necessary … What did Dow do with this information?” the attorneys asked. “It concealed it from the Government and asked others, it’s co-defendants, to do the same.”
National action plan on overcoming consequences of toxic chemicals/dioxin issued
Hanoi (VNA) – Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has signed Decision No. 2215/QD-TTg promulgating the national action plan on overcoming the post-war consequences of toxic chemicals/dioxin in Vietnam for the 2021-2030 period.
The plan aims to deal with all hotspots and areas
contaminated with toxic chemicals/dioxin left from the war in the country,
specifically at A So airport in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue and Phu
Cat airport in the central province of Binh Dinh by 2025, and at Bien Hoa
airport in the southern province of Dong Nai and newly-discovered areas by
2030.
By 2025, over 85 percent of the risk of exposure to toxic
chemicals/dioxin from contaminated areas will be controlled. The rate will
reach 100 percent by 2030.
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.
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