11
Nov
(Beyond Pesticides, November 8-11, 2024) On Veterans Day 2024 we honor those who have served the country and allies. In the 117th (2021-2022) U.S. Congress, legislators enacted The Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act of 2022 (PACT Act). Since the law passed just over two years ago, there has been just under 1.3 million total approved claims marking a roughly 75% approval rate for PACT Act related claims, according to Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) accounting of progress between August 10, 2022, and October 12, 2024 through its dedicated bimonthly VA PACT Act Performance Dashboard. The legacy of toxic burn pits (open air areas where the military has burned toxic waste) and other avenues for toxic exposure in military bases oversees, as well as within the United States in Hawai’i (See coverage on asbestos exposure continuously impacting veterans, as reported on by Honolulu Civil Beat) and Puerto Rico (See peer-reviewed literature review here on toxic heavy metals in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health), among other areas, comes at a time when the country assesses the ongoing impacts of a history that has been characterized by critics as colonial or imperialist. […]
Posted in Agent Orange, Alternatives/Organics, Cancer, dacthal, Disease/Health Effects, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Federal Agencies, Parkinson's, Uncategorized, Veterans Administraton | No Comments »
24
May
(Beyond Pesticides, May 24, 2022) New research is providing strong causal evidence that Gulf War Illness (GWI) is the result of exposure to sarin gas, an organophosphate nerve agent used by Saddam Hussein as a chemical weapon during the Gulf War. The findings, published earlier this month in Environmental Health Perspectives, have important implications for the hundreds of thousands of American service members suffering from a constellation of chronic symptoms without a true understanding of how they became sick. “Quite simply, our findings prove that Gulf War illness was caused by sarin, which was released when we bombed Iraqi chemical weapons storage and production facilities,” said Robert Haley, MD, lead author of the study and epidemiologist at University of Texas Southwestern. “There are still more than 100,000 Gulf War veterans who are not getting help for this illness and our hope is that these findings will accelerate the search for better treatment.” Sarin was first synthesized in the late 1930s by Nazi chemists working for IG Farben (a consortium that included Bayer) in an attempt to create stronger and more powerful insecticides. Sarin is a G-series organophosphate (named after the scientists that created them), characterized by high acute toxicity and […]
Posted in Gulf War Syndrome, organophosphate, Uncategorized, Veterans Administraton | No Comments »
27
Jan
(Beyond Pesticides, January 27, 2020) United States military veterans suffering from bladder cancer, hypothyroidism, hypertension, and Parkinson’s-like symptoms after their exposure to Agent Orange will remain unprotected and uncompensated until at least late 2020, according to a letter sent by Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Robert Wilkie to U.S. Senator Jon Tester (D-MT). Send a letter to Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Robert Wilkie insisting that bladder cancer, hypothyroidism, hypertension, and Parkinson’s-like symptoms be added to the VA’s list of eligible conditions. Congress included a provision in the must-pass December federal spending bill requiring VA to provide legislators “a detailed explanation” for the now multi-year delay in determining whether to list the diseases. The provision is intended to cut through the ongoing delays, but there is no indication VA is going to meet the 30-day deadline. “The longer VA continues to drag its feet on expanding the list of conditions associated with Agent Orange, the longer our veterans continue to suffer—and die—as a result of their exposure,” Senator Tester said in a statement to the news site Connecting Vets. He continued, “It’s time for VA to stop ignoring the overwhelming evidence put forth by scientists, medical experts and veterans and do right by those who served. Any […]
Posted in Agent Orange, Bayer, Cancer, Department of Defense, Monsanto, Take Action, Uncategorized, Veterans Administraton | 3 Comments »
04
Sep
(Beyond Pesticides, September 4, 2018) Close on the heels of the recent landmark California decision against Monsanto, maker of the glyphosate-based pesticide Roundup, Vietnam has demanded that the company pay damages to the many victims of its Agent Orange herbicide and defoliant, which Monsanto supplied to the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. (Monsanto was not the only U.S. manufacturer of the compound; there were nine in total.) U.S. forces, in a program dubbed Operation Ranch Hand, used more than 13 million gallons of the compound in Vietnam — nearly one-third of the 20 million gallons of all herbicides used during the war in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. In Vietnam alone, 4.5 million acres were impacted by Agent Orange. Nguyen Phuong Tra, a spokesperson for Vietnam’s foreign ministry, said, “The [U.S.] verdict serves as a legal precedent which refutes previous claims that the herbicides made by Monsanto and other chemical corporations in the U.S. and provided for the U.S. army in the war are harmless. . . . Vietnam has suffered tremendous consequences from the war, especially with regard to the lasting and devastating effects of toxic chemicals, including Agent Orange.” Around the world, the U.S. case may be sparking […]
Posted in Agent Orange, dioxin, Monsanto, Uncategorized, Veterans Administraton | 1 Comment »
