GMO experiments receive questionable oversight

http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/GMO-experiments-receive-questionable-oversight-5740478.php

Washington -- At a secret location among the vineyards of California's Central Coast, a plot of genetically engineered corn is producing proteins for industrial and pharmaceutical uses, including an experimental vaccine for hepatitis B.
The altered corn is growing with federal approval 100 feet from a steelhead stream in San Luis Obispo County, in designated critical habitat for the threatened California red-legged frog. Agriculture Department inspectors have reported two "incidents" at the site, including conventional corn sprouting in a 50-foot fallow zone, but the findings did not rise to the level of a fine or even to a formal notice of noncompliance for the company that planted it, Applied Biotechnology Institute Inc.
Details of Applied Biotechnology's inspections and hundreds of other field trials with genetically modified plants were obtained by Hearst Newspapers under Freedom of Information laws. The inspection reports and other Agriculture Department records present a picture of vast, swiftly expanding outdoor experimentation and industry-friendly oversight of those experiments.
The founder and president of Applied Biotechnology, John A. Howard, previously founded another company that was permanently banned from trials of genetically modified organisms - GMOs - after creating such contaminated messes in the Midwest that a half-million bushels of soybeans and more than 150 acres of corn had to be destroyed.
Yet since 2009, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved the Applied Biotechnology Institute's little-known plantings, albeit with limits so strict that ears of corn must be locked up and plant remains must be buried 3 feet deep. Indeed, things are proceeding so well for Applied Biotechnology that Howard is seeking land to expand the 5-acre "pharming" operation.
The outdoor tests are at the leading edge of a technological revolution based on reordering the building blocks of life. The advent of GMOs has spawned global debate and protest over issues of consumer safety and the uncertain effects of altered genes on the environment.

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Environmental Remediation of Dioxin Contamination at Danang Airport Progress Report

Danang Airport Cleanup

This document is a general update of the remediation activities happening at the site through the end of July 2014.  For more information please contact USAID Environment and Social Development Office, Hanoi, Vietnam at (84-4) 3850 5000, ext 2222.
The progress report can also be found online at USAID/Vietnam’s environmental remediation webpage
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Agent Orange Town Hall Meeting Calendar

http://www.vva.org/calendar.html

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Faces-of-Agent-Orange/187669911280144

September 12, 2014

Fort Collins, Colorado

6pm-8pm

Larimer County Courthouse, First Floor

200 West Oak Street, Fort Collins

Contact: Wes Carter

971-241-9322

C123kcancer@gmail.com

September 13, 2014

Spokane, Washington

1:00 pm

United Steel Workers of America Hall

14015 E. Trent Street

Spokane Valley, Washington

Contact Jim Daugherty

509-868-0200

Agent Orange exposure and risk of death in Korean Vietnam veterans: Korean Veterans Health Study.

AGENT ORANGE EXPOSURE - KOREA STUDY

from our good friend George Claxton

Abstract

BACKGROUND
Agent Orange (AO) was a mixture of phenoxy herbicides, containing several dioxin impurities including 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD). Various military herbicides, including AO, were sprayed by the US military and allied forces for military purposes during the Vietnam War. This study was performed to identify the associations between the AO exposure and mortality in Korean Vietnam veterans.
METHODS
From 1 January 1992 to 31 December 2005, 180 639 Korean Vietnam veterans were followed up for vital status and cause of death. The AO exposure index was based on the proximity of the veteran's unit to AO-sprayed areas, using a geographical information system-based model. The adjusted hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals were calculated by Cox's proportional hazard model.
RESULTS
The mortality from all causes of death was elevated with AO exposure. The deaths due to all sites of cancers combined and some specific cancers, including cancers of the stomach, small intestine, liver, larynx, lung, bladder and thyroid gland, as well as chronic myeloid leukaemia, were positively associated with AO exposure. The deaths from angina pectoris, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and liver disease including liver cirrhosis were also increased with an increasing AO exposure.
CONCLUSIONS
Overall, this study suggests that AO/TCDD exposure may account for mortality from various diseases even several decades after exposure. Further research is needed to better understand the long-term effects of AO/TCDD exposure on human health.

Links

Publisher Full Text

Authors

Yi SW, Ryu SY, Ohrr H, Hong JS

Source

International journal of epidemiology : 2014 Sep 2 pg

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North Carolina: What effect will herbicide have?

http://www.fayobserver.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/letter-what-effect-will-herbicide-have/article_e8a25b41-2e5b-51f0-9f86-1449c1e92e48.html

Letter to The Editor:
Seeing films and videos of Vietnam, I have seen the devastation and long-term effects that occurred when America used Agent Orange and destroyed the forests and jungles of Vietnam to aid our war effort by taking away the hiding places of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. Many of our soldiers have suffered long-term health issues, along with citizens of Vietnam, because of this deadly chemical.

Imagine my horror to see that a large portion of my property had been sprayed with a chemical so strong that it kills trees and any other living foliage that it comes in contact with. One day my property is green and beautiful, and the next, it is dead.

This was the result of a new program by South River EMC to save money. Instead of having a trimming crew to keep tree limbs from coming near power lines, they have decided to kill anything that is growing on the right of way with a chemical spray.

My neighbors and I were never sent a letter or notified that our property would be sprayed or given notice about when it would occur so we could protect our animals and ourselves.

I am concerned about what the long-term effects will be to us and also to our water supply and to our health.

We are now forced also to look every day at the ugliness of our once beautiful landscape because our electric company wants to make more money.

Wayne T. Bone

Linden, NC

US EPA Urban Air Toxics Report to Congress

http://www.natlawreview.com/article/us-epa-urban-air-toxics-report-to-congress

On August 21, 2014, US EPA released the Second Integrated Urban Air Toxics Report to Congress. This is the final of two reports required by the 1990 Clean Air Act (CAA) to inform Congress on the process in reducing public health risks from urban air toxics.

A copy of the complete report is available here.  

Dioxin

The urban air toxics program groups dioxins, furans and dioxin-like PCBs in the dioxin category. There are a total of 29 of these compounds. Seven dioxins, ten furans and 12 dioxin-like PCBs are included in the urban air toxics dioxin category. Dioxin levels are down 95 percent from 1987 to 2000 (from 12.8 kg TEQs to 0.07 kg TEQs).  The US EPA has released strict dioxin standards for municipal waste incinerators, medical waste incinerators and other man-made dioxin sources.

A list of the 30 urban air toxics can be found here.

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Taiwan develops new method to speed up dioxin detection

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20140904000045&cid=1103

Taiwan has developed a new method for fast detection of dioxin compounds, for use primarily in large-scale investigations of dioxin contamination, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said Tuesday.
The cost of a typical instrument for dioxin analysis is about NT$10 million (US$334,000) and the process usually takes a long time, the EPA said.
It said such instruments, therefore, are not suitable for the detection of dioxins, in investigations and studies.
In an effort to address the problem, the EPA said, it began in 2004 to use a new analytic method of dioxin detection adopted from abroad. However, while the patented technique was easy to use, it cost Taiwan NT$750,000 (US$25,000) in patent fees per year, the EPA added.
The EPA said its Environmental Analysis Laboratory, in collaboration with the National Health Research Institutes, began working on a similar technique in 2008 and succeeded in developing a suitable one after three years of research.
The locally developed technique is six times faster than the normal methods and costs about the one-tenth of the price, according to the EPA. It can also test 10 times the number of samples per batch than other methods, the EPA said.

Upcoming Agent Orange Town Hall Meetings

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Faces-of-Agent-Orange/187669911280144

http://www.vva.org/calendar.html

Agent Orange and VA battles

http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Agent-Orange-and-VA-battles-5727316.php

Francesca Cesare sat behind a stack of her husband's medical records at her spotless town house and told how wounds from the Vietnam War ate away at the man she loved for nearly 50 years.
The Malta woman met Robert Cesare on his birthday in a Troy nightclub in 1965, the year he graduated from Colonie's Shaker High School and enlisted in the Army to fight in Vietnam. After 13 months in the war zone, he came home a changed man on St. Patrick's Day in 1967.
Over the following decades, he suffered from cysts and boils on his body and post traumatic-combat stress that nearly tore his family apart. He sought disability benefits for exposure to Agent Orange — a blend of chemicals used by U.S. armed forces in Vietnam to eliminate foliage that provided cover for the enemy — but the Department of Veterans Affairs repeatedly rejected his claims until days before he died, according to records.
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Taiwan develops new method to speed up dioxin detection

http://focustaiwan.tw/news/asoc/201409020040.aspx
Taipei, Sept. 2 (CNA) Taiwan has developed a new method for fast detection of dioxin compounds, for use primarily in large-scale investigations of dioxin contamination, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said Tuesday.
The cost of a typical instrument for dioxin analysis is about NT$10 million (US$334,057) and the process usually takes a long time, the EPA said.
It said such instruments, therefore, are not suitable for the detection of dioxins, in investigations and studies.
In an effort to address the problem, the EPA said, it began in 2004 to use a new analytic method of dioxin detection adopted from abroad. However, while the patented technique was easy to use, it cost Taiwan NT$750,000 in patent fees per year, the EPA added.
The EPA said its Environmental Analysis Laboratory, in collaboration with the National Health Research Institutes, began working on a similar technique in 2008 and succeeded in developing a suitable one after three years of research.
The locally developed technique is six times faster than the normal methods and costs about the one-tenth of the price, according to the EPA. It can also test 10 times the number of samples per batch than other methods, the EPA said.
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Some Vietnam Vets Left to Wonder Whether Agent Orange Made Them Sick

http://wuwm.com/post/some-vietnam-vets-left-wonder-whether-agent-orange-made-them-sick
More than four decades ago, the U.S. military blanketed Vietnam with Agent Orange and researchers continue to find ways the toxic herbicide has sickened the nation's veterans.
The U.S. military used Agent Orange to deforest land during the Vietnam War.
To date, researchers blame Agent Orange for causing 14 illnesses in veterans, who are eligible for federal compensation and health care.
But some Vietnam vets are sick with conditions not on the official list, but insist Agent Orange is the cause.
However for many purported connections, there is no proof, at least so far.
Jim Gumm lives in the small house he grew up in on the west side of Milwaukee. Photographs of his parents dot the living room walls. His old dog tags hang over one frame.
Forty-five-years ago, Gumm was stationed at a small air base tucked between rice paddies in southwestern Vietnam. He recalls U.S. transport planes spraying Agent Orange around the base, to defoliate the land.
“This was not gentle stuff and you know, we had to walk through it. And you didn’t know what it was. That’s the problem. Some people got boils, some people got sick,” Gumm says.
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Block Genetically Modified Agent Orange Crops

http://forcechange.com/131791/block-genetically-modified-agent-orange-crops/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=block-genetically-modified-agent-orange-crops
Target: U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsack
Goal: Deny government approval for chemical-intensive “Agent Orange” FrankenCrops
Until recently, Monsanto has been the prime mover behind genetically engineered pesticide-promoting crops. The company’s aggressive patenting and marketing of genetically modified (GM) seeds that are able to withstand massive, ecocidal applications of its Roundup weed killer has made it public enemy number one for anyone who cares about family farms, sustainable agriculture, or healthy food systems. But the mantle of most-hated corporation may soon be passed on to Dow Chemical, maker of such 20th century delights as Napalm and Agent Orange. Not to be outdone by Monsanto’s chemical footprint, Dow is currently seeking U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) approval for its own brand of toxin-loving FrankenCrops.
The connection to Agent Orange is not coincidental. In the same way that Monsanto seeds are resistant to Roundup, Dow’s new GE crops would be resistant to its own version of easy money: 2,4-D, otherwise known as half of the toxic chemical cocktail that goes into Agent Orange. Widely used as a weapon of chemical warfare during the Vietnam War, Agent Orange is said to have killed around 400,000 people directly, and been responsible for over half a million birth defects in Vietnam alone. Among American soldiers, exposure to Agent Orange has been linked to a plethora of cancers, several nerve disorders, digestive and skin issues, and an increased rate of miscarriage among the wives of returned veterans.
The reason that Dow has developed the new GM seeds to be resistant to 2,4-D is that Roundup has become less and less effective, as heavy application has caused new Roundup resistant superweeds to evolve and spread. In replacing the old GM seeds, these new seeds would simply be another step in the escalating chemical arms race that is inherent to industrial monoculture. 2,4-D is also far more toxic than Roundup, and is already a major source of dioxins in our natural environment. Dow Chemical is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths from chemical contamination—this is not a company we want involved in our food system. Tell the USDA to reject Dow’s plan to spread Agent Orange across our country.
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