Man meets daughter after 48 years

http://www.wivb.com/dpp/news/erie/man-meets-daughter-after-48-years
CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. (WIVB) - A Western New York man is getting acquainted with his 48 year-old daughter for the first time Thursday evening.
Tom Pritchard is a Vietnam vet who struggles with devastating health problems after his exposure to Agent Orange.  His daughter, Heidi Frederick, was born after a high school romance in Horseheads, NY involving Pritchard and a teenage girlfriend. When the mother became pregnant, she was sent to Buffalo to have her baby, Heidi.
Pritchard says he was devastated that the baby was put up for adoption and joined the service shortly after Heidi was born.
"Got out of the Navy, came home, and I thought about her just about every day. I really wanted my daughter back," he recalled.
Frederick's adoptive parents eventually moved to California, where she grew up and lives today.
"Growing up, I always wondered, I always wanted to know something.  But it was a closed adoption so the records are sealed," Frederick said.
READ MORE & WATCH VIDEO: http://www.wivb.com/dpp/news/erie/man-meets-daughter-after-48-years
WHY IS THIS STORY IMPORTANT? Tom Pritchard struggles with devastating health problems after his exposure to Agent Orange - his offspring have a right to know in the event they or their children have Agent Orange related health issues.

"New and Improved" EPA rules boost "acceptable" levels of toxins

In the editorial for the September 2013 Consumer Reports, CR President Jim Guest writes
about the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act:

"In theory it gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to collect information about the hazards posed by chemicals and to take action to control 'unreasonable risks'. In reality, collecting information is all but impossible because of trademark secrets embedded into the law; and controlling risks is so tied up in legalese that even asbestos, long ago proved to cause cancer and other fatal diseases is not banned in the U.S.
There are now more than 83,000 chemicals and classes of chemicals listed in the EPA inventory. In the years since the act was passed, the agency has banned, limited or restricted the use of five of those.
Five.
Does that mean that the manufacturers of the other 82,995 have confirmed that they're safe to be in our food containers, cleaning products, carpets and toys?  No, it doesn't. Manufacturers don't have to do a thing; the law requires instead that the EPA prove that a chemical is not safe."

 

VA reverses denial of benefits for veteran in Agent Orange-related case

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/va-reverses-denial-of-benefits-for-veteran-in-agent-orange-related-case/2013/08/07/7cf1a680-ff81-11e2-96a8-d3b921c0924a_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines
The Department of Veterans Affairs has reversed its denial of Agent Orange-related disability benefits for an Air Force veteran who flew on potentially contaminated C-123 aircraft after the Vietnam War, a decision advocates describe as the first of its kind for veterans seeking compensation for postwar exposure to the toxic defoliant.
Paul Bailey, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who is gravely ill with cancer, received notice Monday that he would receive “a total grant of benefits” for cancer associated with his 1970s-era service in the United States aboard the aircraft, which had been used to spray the toxic defoliant during the war.

“The preponderance of the evidence suggests that you were exposed to herbicide onboard U.S. Air Force C-123K aircrafts,” said the VA decision, dated July 31. “Reasonable doubt in regards to the exposure to certain herbicide, to include Agent Orange, as the result of occupational hazards onboard C-123K aircrafts is resolved in your favor.”
Bailey was featured in a recent Washington Post article about a controversy concerning C-123 aircraft, many of which were destroyed in 2010 by the Air Force. Tests in the 1990s showed that some of the planes might still be contaminated with TCDD dioxin, a carcinogen associated with Agent Orange.
Bailey, 67, who suffers from prostate cancer and metastatic cancer of the pelvis and ribs, said the disability compensation will allow his wife to stay in their New Hampshire home after he dies. “The financial and emotional support this provides is just tremendous,” he said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “It takes a huge burden off me.”
READ MORE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/va-reverses-denial-of-benefits-for-veteran-in-agent-orange-related-case/2013/08/07/7cf1a680-ff81-11e2-96a8-d3b921c0924a_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines

Dredging Begins To Remove Toxic Mud From Lyndhurst Section Of The Passaic River

http://www.newsroomamerica.com/story/380038/dredging_begins_to_remove_toxic_mud_from_lyndhurst_section_of_the_passaic_river.html

(Newsroom America) -- Work has begun to remove approximately 20,000 cubic yards of highly contaminated sediment from a half-mile stretch of the Passaic River that runs by Riverside County Park North in Lyndhurst, New Jersey.
The cleanup is necessary because high levels of contaminants, including dioxin, PCBs and mercury, are present in the sediment and can have serious impacts on people’s health.
The EPA says the $20 million cleanup is being paid for by 70 companies considered potentially responsible for contamination of the lower Passaic River. The cleanup will be conducted by the companies with EPA oversight.
"The level of contamination in this area of river sediment is very high and the EPA is ensuring it doesn’t move and contaminate other areas of the Lower Passaic River," said EPA Regional Administrator Judith A. Enck.
"This cleanup removes some of the worst contamination in the Passaic River while the EPA continues to develop long-term cleanup plans for a 17-mile stretch of the Lower Passaic River between the Dundee Dam and Newark Bay."
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin said the cleanup of the entire Passaic River is a top environmental priority of the Christie Administration.
"Our goal is to restore this river to one that can be a swimmable and fishable natural resource and an economic engine to benefit towns like Lyndhurst and cities like Newark and other urban communities along this once great river.
"We particularly look forward to the completion of the EPA’s Focused Feasibility Study by the end of this year to outline options to clean up the entire 8 miles of the lower Passaic River," he said.

Twenty-thousand cubic yards of highly contaminated sediment will be removed from the river and a protective cap will be placed over the approximately 5.6-acre excavated area. The cap will be approximately two feet thick and consist of four layers of stone, fabric, sand and a layer of activated carbon. The cap will be monitored and maintained to ensure that it remains protective while a final cleanup plan for the lower 17 miles of the Passaic River is developed by the EPA. All work will be conducted from barges on the river and the sediment will be transported by the barges downriver to a processing facility and then disposed of out-of-state. No equipment or dredged sediment will be placed in or transported through the park or local streets. Air and water quality will be monitored during the work. Prior to finalizing its plan to remove the highly contaminated sediment from this area of the river, the EPA held a public meeting for Lyndhurst residents and has been working with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, local officials and community organizations to keep the public informed. The work is expected to be completed by the end of 2013.

The sediment of the Lower Passaic River, which extends for about 17 miles from Newark Bay to the Dundee Dam in Garfield, is contaminated with a variety of hazardous substances, including dioxin, PCBs and mercury. A long-term study of contaminated sediment in the entire 17 miles of the Lower Passaic River is being conducted. During the investigation, an area of surface sediment containing high concentrations of contaminants, including dioxin, was found in mud adjacent to Riverside County Park. The EPA reached agreement in June 2012 with 70 parties potentially responsible for the contamination in this area to conduct the work. A plan to address the lower eight miles of the river, which are known to be the most contaminated, is currently under development and the EPA expects to propose a cleanup plan for this section of the river by the end of 2013.

Betty Mekdeci to Address Associates of Vietnam Veterans of America on the Generational Legacy of Dioxin

Betty Mekdeci, Executive Director of the Birth Defect Research for Children (BDRC), will address the Associates of Vietnam Veterans of America (AVVA) at the annual luncheon, to be held Wednesday, August 14, 2013, at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville-Riverfront, in Jacksonville, Florida.

Said AVVA President Nancy Switzer, “We are honored that Betty Mekdeci will be joining us, and we look forward to hearing about all of the work she has done in research regarding our children who have been affected by Vietnam Veteran’s parent being exposed to Dioxins.”

 Since 1986, when the first Agent Orange Class Assistance Programs were funded, Betty has been working with families of Vietnam veterans with birth defects and functional disabilities. Although BDRC did not have AOCAP funding, Mekdeci worked with the University of South Carolina in case work that involved counseling with veterans’ families and in creating a series of fact sheets on the disabilities they were reporting in their children. During this time BDRC, with the help of the New Jersey Agent Orange Commission, began the first initiative to set up the National Birth Defect Registry, partly to collect the information being reported by the veterans.

Betty is married to Dr. Michael Mekdeci, retired Assoc. VP of Stetson University, and they have two children, Kristy, a high school art teacher, and David, who is the Associate Director for BDRC.

Navy Vets Say They Suffer From Agent Orange

http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/08/06/60010.htm
WASHINGTON (CN) - Navy veterans sued the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, demanding "the presumption of exposure to Agent Orange for members of the Armed Forced of the United States who served afloat off the coast of the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War."

The Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Association, and Military-Veterans Advocacy Inc. sued Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki in Federal Court
The veterans claim they were exposed to Agent Orange while serving offshore Vietnam and the government won't pay their medical bills and denied benefits to survivors of veterans who "died from complication[s] of Agent Orange."
The United States sprayed Agent Orange (2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin) and petroleum across the Vietnamese countryside in the 1960s and 1970s as a part of Operation Ranch Hand, a program to defoliate Vietnamese jungles and destroy food supplies during the Vietnam War.
The chemicals washed into rivers and streams and eventually into the bed of the South China Sea.
READ MORE: http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/08/06/60010.htm

EPA to American People: 'Let Them Eat Monsanto's Roundup Ready Cake'

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_27837.cfm

• The EPA, whose mission is to "to protect human health and the environment," has approved Monsanto's request to allow levels of glyphosate (Roundup) contamination in your food up to a million times higher than have been found carcinogenic.
  

If you haven't already heard, it's now official. Monsanto's request to have the EPA raise allowable levels of its herbicide glyphosate in food you may soon be eating has been approved [see Final Rule]. Public commenting is also now closed, not that it was anything but a formality to begin with.

Here is the original registration application, lest detractors claim it was not Monsanto behind this bold move to legalize what an increasingly educated public considers a form of institutionalized mass poisoning:
    1. EPA Registration Numbers: 524-421, 524-475, and 524-537. Docket ID Number: EPA-HQ-OPP-2012-0132. Applicant: Monsanto Company, 1300 I Street NW., Suite 450 East, Washington, DC 20005. Active ingredient: Glyphosate. Product Type: Herbicide. Proposed Uses: Add wiper applicator use over the top to carrot and sweet potato, add preharvest use to oilseed crop group 20, add the use Teff (forage and hay), and conversion of the following old crop groups to the following new crop groups: Vegetable, bulb, group 3 to vegetable, bulb, group 3-07; vegetable, fruiting, group 8 to vegetable, fruiting, group 8-10; fruit, citrus, group 10 to fruit, citrus, group 10-10; fruit, pome, group 11 to fruit, pome, group 11-10; and berry group 13 to berry and small fruit, group 13-07. Contact: Erik Kraft, (703) 308-9358, email address: kraft.erik@epa.gov. [emphasis added]
Notice above, the proposal includes "Add wiper applicator use over the top to carrot and sweet potato," revealing that one reason why Monsanto wants tolerances on glyphosate raised is because this chemical will be applied directly not just to Roundup Ready plants but to non-GMO crops as well, virtually guaranteeing that unless you eat 100% USDA organic concentrations of grave concern will end up in your food and body.READ MORE: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_27837.cfm

Agent Orange’s reach beyond the Vietnam War

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/agent-oranges-reach-beyond-the-vietnam-war/2013/08/03/803e57c0-e816-11e2-aa9f-c03a72e2d342_story.html
Nearly three dozen rugged C-123 transport planes formed the backbone of the U.S. military’s campaign to spray Agent Orange over jungles hiding enemy soldiers during the Vietnam War. And many of the troops who served in the conflict have been compensated for diseases associated with their exposure to the toxic defoliant.

But after the war, some of the planes were used on cargo missions in the United States. Now a bitter fight has sprung up over whether those in the military who worked, ate and slept in the planes after the war should also be compensated. Two U.S. senators are now questioning the Department of Veterans Affairs’ assertions that any postwar contamination on the planes was not high enough to be linked to disease.
“It appears that [the VA] does, in fact, plan to deny any C-123 claims regardless of the evidence submitted in a particular case,” the senators wrote. The letter notes that a group of outside experts have called the VA’s scientific conclusions “seriously flawed.”
The Air Force says the planes’ destruction was handled properly.
“Because of the potential stigma associated with these aircraft, the Air Force ensured that the recycling of the aircraft was accomplished completely and that the metal was not stored improperly or abandoned prior to being smelted,” an Air Force statement said.
 READ MORE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/agent-oranges-reach-beyond-the-vietnam-war/2013/08/03/803e57c0-e816-11e2-aa9f-c03a72e2d342_story.html

National Birth Defect Registry

Vietnam Veterans of America Agent Orange/Dioxin Committee is asking the children of Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange; adult children (we recommend you register your children
also) who are ill and/or have birth defects, learning disabilities and/or mental health issues; to register with Birth Defect Research for Children, Inc. National Birth Defect Registry at
http://www.birthdefects.org/registry. 
The registry includes an online questionnaire. It will ask about you (the child) or your disabilities; health and family history of both parents; exposures during pregnancy and occupational exposures. A special section will ask about the veteran’s service in Vietnam. This section was designed in collaboration with the New Jersey State Agent Orange Commission. Collected data will be used for a study of the pattern of birth defects and disabilities that have been most frequently reported in the children of Vietnam veterans. 
All data provided is confidential. Your permission would be requested before any researcher would get in touch with you.
For more information contact Betty Mekdeci, 407-895-0802 or send email to betty@birthdefects.org.

FACES OF AGENT ORANGE

EVENT:  TOWN HALL MEETING      

SUBJECT:  THE LEGACY OF EXPOSURE TO AGENT ORANGE ON VIETNAM VETERANS AND OUR OFFSPRING

LOCATION:  ERIE COMMUNITY COLLEGE, NORTH CAMPUS

KITTINGER BUILDING, ROOM K-100

DATE:  SEPTEMBER 14, 2013

TIME:  2:00 PM – 4:00 PM

This will be an educational meeting open to the public. Vietnam veterans, wives of deceased veterans, along with children and grandchildren are invited to attend to get some possible answers to ongoing with health issues. These health problems may be associated with one or both of their parent’s exposure to Agent Orange and other harmful chemicals used in the Vietnam War.

Past and future health issues will be discussed. A registry is being created by Representatives of the Vietnam Veterans of America National office, headed by Mokie Porter, Director of Communications and Marketing and Dr. Tom Berger, Director of the Vietnam Veterans of America National Health Council.

National representatives from the Vietnam Veterans of America Headquarters will be attending this meeting to help shed some light on the health issues that affect Vietnam veterans and many of their offspring’s. Former National President of the Associates of Vietnam Veterans of America, Nancy Switzer, Mokie Porter will be in attendance as well as former National Director-at –Large Dr. Patrick W. Welch as our moderator.
There will be Certified Veterans Service Officers at the meeting to answer questions and assist any individual in making out a claim.

All are welcome to attend. If you know an individual who has children or grandchildren who has parents or grandparents were in Vietnam please pass this information along.

SEE YOU THERE ON SEPTEMBER 14, 2013

Not every health concern is a result of exposure to Agent Orange. It may be in your best interest to find out.   

Setting the Record Straight: Did Monsanto Really Buy Blackwater (Xe)?

http://naturalsociety.com/setting-the-record-straight-did-monsanto-really-buy-blackwater-xe/
There has been a great deal of publicity over the potential purchase of Blackwater (now known as Academi, and Xe before that) by mega corporation Monsanto. While the two seem to be a great match, as they both fail to consider the morality and consequence of their actions, it seems that Monsanto is only involved with Blackwater in infiltrating activist groups who are opposed to the biotech giant — an operation quite sinister enough. The truth of the matter is that Academi (Blackwater) was purchased by private investors, and the heavily sourced article written by Jeremy Scahill in The Nation actually says nothing about Monsanto buying Blackwater.

What the articles does say, however, is that Monsanto and Blackwater are indeed working together to target anti-Monsanto activists and organizations. Known as far back as 2010, it was unveiled that Blackwater’s client list included Monsanto, Chevron, Walt Disney and many more. According to documents obtained by Scahill, it was also revealed that Monsanto was willing to pay upwards of $500,000 in order for Blackwater to join anti-Monsanto activist groups and infiltrate the ranks. Furthermore, a number of internet-based tactics could be utilized as incognito PR for Monsanto, who undoubtedly knew opposition would mount against their GMO crops as more individuals became aware of the dangers.

READ MORE: http://naturalsociety.com/setting-the-record-straight-did-monsanto-really-buy-blackwater-xe/#ixzz2aqqtK6EK

Unearthed drums show higher dioxin levels than previously reported, Okinawa tests show

http://www.stripes.com/news/unearthed-drums-show-higher-dioxin-levels-than-previously-reported-okinawa-tests-show-1.233247

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa – Okinawa City officials said Wednesday that independent tests on barrels unearthed on former U.S. military land showed much higher levels of toxic herbicide components than test results released earlier by the Japan Ministry of Defense.

The city test results were eight times higher than the ministry’s results for dioxin – a toxin known to cause cancer, reproductive and developmental problems, immune system damage and hormone imbalances – in soil and water collected from around about two dozen rusted Dow Chemical Company containers found buried under a soccer field, according to an Okinawa City report released Wednesday.

Higher levels of 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid — an herbicide that was discontinued in the United States because of health concerns – were also discovered by the municipal testing of the site, which was once part of Kadena Air Base, the report said.

Last week, the Ministry of Defense reported finding two of the three components of Agent Orange defoliant after testing the buried Dow containers, raising local suspicions that the U.S. military may have stored or used the dangerous substances on the island during the Vietnam War.

Dow Chemical was one of the manufacturers of defoliants used to kill jungle and crops in Vietnam. But both the ministry and Okinawa City said they could not definitively link the herbicides to Agent Orange.

Meanwhile, the United States has long denied dioxin-laden defoliants were ever present on Okinawa. Dow also recently said the rusted barrels do not match containers used for Agent Orange.

Okinawa City said it will excavate the rest of the soccer field in search of any more containers.