Agent Orange Town Hall Meetings

February 11, 2014
Memphis, Tennessee
Barry Rice
(615) 479-8619
6PM-9PM,
Ridgway Baptist Church,
2500 Ridgway Avenue, Memphis TN 38119

February 20^th 2014
Mooresville, North Carolina
Date: Thursday, February 20, 2013
Time: 1 pm
Town Hall Meeting: Mooresville, North Carolina
Place: Richard’s Coffee Shop,  165 North Main Street, Mooresville, NC 28115
Contact: Pamela Scheffer: 704-425-5573

60 Minutes- Agent Orange

A look at the outstanding work of the Hatfield Group in Vietnam and its ground-breaking efforts on behalf of us all. Why is it that a Canadian firm can do what no U. S. firm will do? Answer: fear of our government and the international chemical industry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_NDCixWw6Y 

http://www.hatfieldgroup.com/ 

Dr. Wayne Dwernechuk

Two sides of a safety switch

http://www.sciencecodex.com/two_sides_of_a_safety_switch-127470
The images were seen all over the world and stuck in the minds of many: in the autumn of 2004, former President of the Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, was poisoned with a high dose of dioxin. Although he survived the attack, the chloracne caused by the poisoning, officially known as MADISH, left him severely disfigured: his face was peppered with numerous cysts, which left deep scars.
Now a team of researchers headed by ETH-Zurich professor Sabine Werner and a senior researcher of her team, Dr. Matthias Schäfer, has stumbled across a link between chloracne and a molecular switch, which causes a comparable skin phenotype in mice after longer and increased activation. The new discovery has just been published in EMBO Molecular Medicine.
Interesting candidate
The molecular switch is Nrf2, which the ETH-Zurich researchers have been studying in connection with different skin diseases for some time. Nrf2 is a so-called transcription factor. It activates certain genes that protect cells and help them to survive under stress conditions. The ETH-Zurich scientists had discovered that a moderate activation of Nrf2 protects the skin against UV damage (see ETH Life from 20 May 2010). The molecule activates several genes designed to protect skin cells from aggressive free radicals, which are formed through UV radiation, save them from dying off and prevent damage of the genetic material.
Nrf2 is thus an interesting candidate for use in skincare creams and for cancer prevention. Until now, however, the consequences of prolonged Nrf2 activation in the skin had not been characterized. After all, in a previous study Werner and Schäfer realised that the skin of mice became flaky and was thus potentially damaged upon increased activation of Nrf2.
READ MORE: http://www.sciencecodex.com/two_sides_of_a_safety_switch-127470

Food Safety Update

http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2014/02/chinas_food_safety_woes_plasti.html 
As far as food safety goes, things aren't getting much better in China.
So says a report in Forbes magazine. The article warns that a new strain of avian flu, H10N8, has turned up in chickens in China, forcing the slaughter of 20,000 birds in Hong Kong alone. More alarming: The strain has jumped to humans, who can become infected if they eat infected birds or are around them. 
A 73-year old Chinese woman died in December from the strain and a 55-year-old woman was recently hospitalized, Forbes said.
A virologist from the Chinese Center for Disease Control in Beijing, who was quoted in the Chinese medical journal, The Lancet, warned this week about the potential for a pandemic.
This is China’s fifth avian influenza strain to emerge in the last 17 years and the latest of its food safety woes. In 2008, melamime-tainted milk killed six children in China and hospitalized tens of thousands. Melamine, which is used in plastics and pesticides, can cause kidney failure. Pet food, which contained melamine-laced wheat gluten from China, killed scores of dogs and some cats in North America in 2007.
Dial to the present and a new threat is on the horizon, critics say. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is preparing to allow poultry raised in the U.S. to be shipped to China, turned into chicken nuggets or some other processed food, and then shipped back to the U.S. for consumption. The product labeling would not alert consumers either.
If that's not enough to worry about -- and we do worry here in food safety central -- the Center for Food Safety has just launched a campaign to stop Dow Chemical from putting so-called "Agent Orange" GMO crops on the market, according to a story in Food Poisoning Bulletin.
The center is worried that the USDA will approve genetically engineered crops doused in 2,4-D, a powerful herbicide that formed one half of Agent Orange. The compound was used by the U.S. government during the Vietnam War to defoliate forested and rural land, depriving guerrillas of cover. It had devastating effects on the locals and U.S. troops.
Finally, the Center for Science in the Public Interest has a campaign of its own -- against a dough conditioner called azodicarbonamide, according to a story on Food Navigator. The additive is used to make dough smoother, but critics worry it could cause health problems. In its industrial form, which is chemically identical to the food-grade form, it's used in the production of foam plastics like shoe soles and exercise mats, the report says.
Apparently, Subway is phasing it out.
That's it for today. Keep your appetite and safe eating.
-- Lynne Terry

Agent Orange may become part of your diet

http://voiceofrussia.com/us/2014_02_05/Agent-Orange-may-become-part-of-your-diet-8300/

By Andrew Hiller
WASHINGTON (VR)—The nature of food we eat is changing rapidyly.
It's nearly impossible to know what you eat even if you choose your food locally or purchase primarily organic foodstuffs. Modifications can make plants bigger, heartier, and according to the chemical companies, better than they were before... but much of these foodstuffs though heavily tested cannot possibly have undergone longitudinal testing. That is, we don't know how the accumulation of chemicals or long term exposure to some of these products could impact the body.

Now, scientists at DOW have developed genetically engineered corn and soybeans that can withstand the application of materials used in Agent Orange chemical weapons. To look into this and the cost-benefit analysis as well as the longer term implications of this type GMO, we've brought in Patty Lovera, Assistant Director of Food & Water Watch.

"One of the main reasons that crops have been genetically engineered" Lovera explains, "is so you can grow
the corn or the soybeans and they've been genetically engineered to survive being survived with a specific herbicide."

In this case, the herbicide is 2, 4-D, half of the notorious Agent Orange. The chemical is gaining popularity in use because weeds have grown resistant to many of the solutions currently in use, thus making sprayers seek out more lethal and toxic materials.

The problem with this, according to Lovera is manifold: runoff may take the herbicide into our drinking water, it may carry it to fields where non protected plants may suffer or die, and little independent testing has been done on the long term effects of these solutions to humans or to plant life.

"We know we're going to see more use of 2 4-D and that brings a lot of environmental hazards, a lot of health hazzards, and we just think it's the wrong approach in dealing with agriculture and the pressure they have with weeds."

Agent Orange and Cancer

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/intheworkplace/agent-orange-and-cancer

About 3 million Americans served in the armed forces in Vietnam and nearby areas during the 1960s and early 1970s, the time of the Vietnam War. During that time, the military used large amounts of mixtures known as defoliants, which are chemicals that cause the leaves to fall off plants. One of these defoliants was Agent Orange, and some troops were exposed to it. Many years later, questions remain about the lasting health effects of those exposures, including increases in cancer risk.

This article offers a brief overview of the link between Agent Orange and cancer. It does not offer a complete review of all evidence – it is meant to be a brief summary. It also includes some information on benefits for which Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange may be eligible.
During the Vietnam War, US military forces sprayed millions of gallons of herbicides (plant-killing chemicals) on lands in Vietnam, Laos, and other nearby areas to remove forest cover, destroy crops, and clear vegetation from the perimeters of US bases. This effort, known as Operation Ranch Hand, lasted from 1962 to 1971.

Different mixes of herbicides were used, but most were mixtures of 2 chemicals that were phenoxy herbicides:

• 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D)
• 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T)

Each mixture was shipped in a chemical drum marked with an identifying colored stripe. The most widely used mixture contained equal parts 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. Because this herbicide came in drums with orange stripes, it was called Agent Orange. Today, Agent Orange refers generally to all the phenoxy herbicides sprayed at the time. (Other types of herbicides were also used, including cacodylic acid and picloram.)

The 2,4,5-T in Agent Orange was contaminated with small amounts of dioxins, which were created unintentionally during the manufacturing process. Dioxins are a family of dozens of related chemicals. They can form during the making of paper and in some other industrial processes. The main dioxin in Agent Orange, 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, or TCDD, is one of the most toxic.

After a study in 1970 found that 2,4,5-T could cause birth defects in lab animals, the use of 2,4,5-T in Vietnam was stopped. A year later, all military herbicide use in Vietnam ended. During the 1970s, some veterans returning from Vietnam began to report skin rashes, cancer, psychological symptoms, birth defects in their children, and other health problems. Some veterans were concerned that Agent Orange exposure might have contributed to these problems. These concerns eventually led to a series of scientific studies, health care programs, and compensation programs directed to the exposed veterans.

A large class-action lawsuit was filed in 1979 against the herbicide manufacturers, and was settled out of court in 1984. It resulted in the Agent Orange Settlement Fund, which distributed nearly $200 million to veterans between 1988 and 1996.

Although there is now quite a bit of evidence about the health effects of Agent Orange, many questions have not yet been answered.

READ MORE: http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/intheworkplace/agent-orange-and-cancer

It's Not Just Your Daddy's Agent Orange Now

DEAR EDITOR:
The ''F.da,'' aka FDA, which is supposed to be the watchdog on duty looking out for the health and well-being of its people, has once again followed its nose to the money of chemical companies.
It makes it obvious who is really holding the leash on approval here. The FDA is cowering at the feet of Monsanto approving Agent Orange chemicals to be sprayed liberally on its newest food crops. We need to bite back.
We do not want any more chemicals in or on our food without our knowledge, period. Where are the ''pit bulls'' that used to work in the FDA? Get involved with Label It Ohio, and know what is in your food.
We should not have to be detectives to know what is in our food. Label GMOs.
Robin Liddle
Southington,
Mahoning Valley Ohio
http://tribune-chronicle.com/page/content.detail/id/598921/Get-involved-and-know-what-s-in-food.html?nav=5017 

Why We Need to Keep ‘Agent Orange’ GMO Crops Off Our Farms

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/vegan-food/why-we-need-to-keep-agent-orange-gmo-crops-off-our-farms/

Have you heard of superweeds? For years, Monsanto has been selling genetically engineered (GE) or GMO corn and soybeans that promote the use of an herbicide called Roundup. Evolution is happening, and now weeds are becoming resistant to Monsanto’s killer.
Dow Chemical thinks they have the solution – new GE corn and soybeans genetically engineered to survive an even more toxic herbicide called 2,4-D.  But big profits for Dow Chemical is bad news for the rest of us!
Agent Orange was sprayed aerially by U.S. planes in Vietnam to destroy the country’s forests and agricultural lands. The veterans and civilians exposed to Agent Orange experienced extreme health complications – a range of cancers and birth defects have been linked to exposure to the toxic chemical. The Vietnamese Red Cross estimates nearly 1 million people have experienced health problems as a result of the use of Agent Orange.[1] 
READ MORE:2,4-D was a major component of the chemical defoliant known as Agent Orange

Once Upon a Mine: The Legacy of Uranium on the Navajo Nation

http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/122-A44/
On a low, windswept rise at the southeastern edge of the Navajo Nation, Jackie Bell-Jefferson prepares to move her family from their home for a temporary stay that could last up to seven years. A mound of uranium-laden waste the size of several football fields, covered with a thin veneer of gravel, dominates the view from her front door. After many years of living next to the contamination and a litany of health problems she believes it caused, Bell-Jefferson and several other local families will have to vacate their homes for a third round of cleanup efforts by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Decades of uranium mining have dotted the landscape across the Navajo Nation with piles of contaminated mine waste. The EPA has mapped 521 abandoned uranium mines on the reservation, ranging from small holes dug by a single prospector into the side of a mesa to large commercial mining operations.¹ The Navajo people did not have a word for “radioactivity” when mining outfits looking for vanadium² and uranium³ began moving onto their land in the 1940s, and they did not understand that radiation could be dangerous. They were not told that the men who worked in the mines were breathing carcinogenic radon gas and showering in radioactive water, nor that the women washing their husbands’ work clothes could spread radionuclides to the rest of the family’s laundry.
Bell-Jefferson and her brother Peterson Bell played in and around the mines, splashing and swimming in pools of radioactive water that had been pumped out of the mines and then collected on their property. The contaminated water looked and tasted perfectly clean. Families used it for cooking, drinking, and cleaning. Hogans and corrals were built with mine wastes, as were roads.
All that changed on 16 July 1979. Just about a mile and a half from Bell-Jefferson’s home, a dam broke at the United Nuclear Corporation mill, where workers processed ore from the nearby Northeast Church Rock uranium mine. The spill dumped 94 million gallons of mill process effluent and 1,100 tons of tailings—an acidic, radioactive sludge—into a large arroyo that emptied into the Puerco River.⁴
The Church Rock spill occurred less than four months after the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor, and it released three times as much radiation, making it the biggest nuclear spill in U.S. history, yet it received only a tiny fraction of the news coverage.⁵ Declared a Superfund site in 1983, the heaps of waste around the mill still cause radiation survey instruments to squeal from the invisible uranium atoms that remain active 30 years later.^{6
READ MORE: http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/122-A44/}

Are You on the Ship List?

http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/shiplist/list.asp

Agent Orange: Alphabetized Ships List

If your vessel is not included in the Mobile Riverine Force, ISF Division 93 or listed designations (see "Find Your Ship"), check the alphabetized list of ships below.

To search for your ship, look under the first letter of the formal ship name. For example, if your ship's name is USS Dennis J. Buckley, look under the letter "D" for Dennis.

Ships will be regularly added to the list based on information confirmed in official records of ship operations. Currently there are 308 ships on this list. Ship not on the list and you think it should be?

Questions about your eligibility for disability compensation? Contact your nearest VA benefits office.

If your vessel is not included in the Mobile Riverine Force, ISF Division 93 or listed designations (see "Find Your Ship"), check the alphabetized list of ships below.
To search for your ship, look under the first letter of the formal ship name. For example, if your ship's name is USS Dennis J. Buckley, look under the letter "D" for Dennis.
Ships will be regularly added to the list based on information confirmed in official records of ship operations. Currently there are 308 ships on this list. Ship not on the list and you think it should be?
Questions about your eligibility for disability compensation? Contact your nearest VA benefits office.
- See more at: http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/shiplist/list.asp#sthash.GTC1VmMx.dpuf

Agent Orange: Alphabetized Ships List

If your vessel is not included in the Mobile Riverine Force, ISF Division 93 or listed designations (see "Find Your Ship"), check the alphabetized list of ships below.
To search for your ship, look under the first letter of the formal ship name. For example, if your ship's name is USS Dennis J. Buckley, look under the letter "D" for Dennis.
Ships will be regularly added to the list based on information confirmed in official records of ship operations. Currently there are 308 ships on this list. Ship not on the list and you think it should be?
Questions about your eligibility for disability compensation? Contact your nearest VA benefits office.
- See more at: http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/shiplist/list.asp#sthash.GTC1VmMx.dpuf

Agent Orange: Alphabetized Ships List

If your vessel is not included in the Mobile Riverine Force, ISF Division 93 or listed designations (see "Find Your Ship"), check the alphabetized list of ships below.
To search for your ship, look under the first letter of the formal ship name. For example, if your ship's name is USS Dennis J. Buckley, look under the letter "D" for Dennis.
Ships will be regularly added to the list based on information confirmed in official records of ship operations. Currently there are 308 ships on this list. Ship not on the list and you think it should be?
Questions about your eligibility for disability compensation? Contact your nearest VA benefits office.
- See more at: http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/shiplist/list.asp#sthash.GTC1VmMx.dpuf

READ MORE: http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/shiplist/list.asp

13 more barrels dug up near Kadena schools

Barrels dug up
OKINAWA CITY – The Japan Ministry of Defense said Thursday an additional 13 corroded barrels were found beneath a soccer field adjacent to Kadena Air Base’s primary and intermediate schools.

The barrels were discovered beneath two others initially detected Tuesday when the latest unearthing began, according to a spokesman for the ministry’s Okinawa Defense Bureau.
A previous underground section of the field was found to have 22 dioxin- and herbicide tainted drums, shocking parents who send their children to base schools within sight of the field.
The new discovery brings the total number of barrels found in the field to 47, the spokesman said.
The latest barrels were rusted, crushed and marked with unreadable English, he said.
The ministry plans to dig in three more spots on the field where earlier magnetic surveys detected buried metals.
The soccer field land, southeast of present day Kadena AB, was used by the Air Force until 1986, when it was returned to Okinawa control.
The 22 empty Dow Chemical Co. barrels already recovered were found to contain traces of dioxin, a common pollutant linked to cancer, reproductive and developmental problems, immune system damage and hormone imbalances.

Agent Orange Linked To Skin Cancer Risk

http://www.science20.com/news_articles/agent_orange_linked_skin_cancer_risk-128602
Military veterans exposed to the herbicide Agent Orange may be at higher risk for certain types of skin cancer, suggests a new report.
Agent Orange is a defoliant famously used by the British military during the Malayan Emergency and the U.S. military period of the Vietnam War. The study adds to existing evidence that risk of non-melanotic invasive skin cancer (NMISC) is increased even four decades after Agent Orange exposure, with at least some exposed veterans having unusually aggressive non-melanoma skin cancers.
READ MORE: http://www.science20.com/news_articles/agent_orange_linked_skin_cancer_risk-128602