Vietnam vets suffered genetic damage from Agent Orange - Study

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Vietnam/10055869.html


Wellington: New Zealand troops exposed to the defoliant Agent Orange in the Vietnam War suffered significant genetic damage, according to a study by university molecular scientists released on Friday.

US forces used Agent Orange to strip away jungle foliage to make it harder for communist fighters to hide during the war.

The chemicals have been blamed for a range of illnesses, birth defects and other health problems among the Vietnamese people and troops who fought there.

The New Zealand study investigated the rate of "sister chromatid exchange" in veterans' cells, a test that analyses the way chromosomes self-replicate.

[Monkeyman]

1. And Bush veto's stem cells

[JohnyCanuck]

2. Thankfully there are no jungles in the desert

so today's vets don't have to worry about genetic damage from defoliants, just genetic damage from breathing in depleted uranium dust from expended US munitions.

Northern Arizona University biochemist Diane Stearns and her Navajo students are not only gaining knowledge, they are adding to that knowledge with new discoveries about uranium.

The fact that uranium, as a radioactive metal, can damage DNA is well documented. But what Stearns and her collaborators recently have found is that uranium can also damage DNA as a heavy metal, independent of its radioactive properties.

A cell with damaged DNA takes on the appearance of a comet with a "tail" of fragmented DNA. (photo available upon request)

Stearns and her team are the first to show that when cells are exposed to uranium, the uranium binds to DNA and the cells acquire mutations. When uranium attaches to DNA, the genetic code in the cells of living organisms, it can change that code. As a result, the DNA can make the wrong protein or wrong amounts of protein, which affects how the cells grow. Some of these cells can grow to become cancer.

"Essentially, if you get a heavy metal stuck on DNA, you can get a mutation," Stearns explained. Other heavy metals are known to bind to DNA, but Stearns and her colleagues are the first to identify this trait with uranium. Their results were published recently in the journals Mutagenesis and Molecular Carcinogenesis.

http://vocuspr.vocus.com/VocusPR30/DotNet/Newsroom/Query.aspx?SiteName=nau&Entity=PRAsset&SF_PRAsset_PRAssetID_EQ=107192&XSL=PressRelease

U.S. Colonel Admits 500 Tons of D.U. Were Used in Iraq

By Jay Shaft
Coalition For Free Thought In Media
5 May 2003

In three separate interviews a U.S. Special Operations Command Colonel admitted that the U.S. and Great Britain fired 500 tons of D.U. munitions into Iraq.

He has also informed me that the G.B.U.-28 BLU 113 Penetrator Bunker Buster 5000 pound bomb contains D.U. in the warhead. Until now, as far as I know, the materials used to make the warhead of the G.B.U-28 have remained shrouded in mystery.

He also admitted that privately the Pentagon has acknowledged the health hazards of D.U. for years.

SNIP

U.S.C.: Well����� (long pause, followed by heavy profanity)�. Okay, I�ll give you some dirt if that�s what you�re looking for. The Pentagon knows there are huge health risks associated with D.U. They know from years of monitoring our own test ranges and manufacturing facilities.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0305/S00050.htm

[ismnotwasm]

3. This is infuriating

I can't recall details off the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure they've suspected or known about this for years. If I recall right--I should do a bit of research, but certain damage was thought to be passed to children, and possibly grandchildren, of those exposed.

One time several years ago I found a website with pictures of fetuses miscarried from agent orange exposure in some hospital in Vietnam. I've never been able to find it again. There were so many, I've never gotten the picture out of my mind

And our Vets had to fight for years to get coverage for exposure damage. What was it 6-7 years ago, Vietnam vets exposed to Agent orange finally got coverage for diabetes induced by exposure?

They send them to war, and ignore them as much as possible when they come home. Vets seem have to rely so much on other Vets for support, for advocacy, for a voice.

I dread the thought of my daughter or son-in-law both Vets, coming up with symptoms of DU exposure.

[Mnemosyne]

4. K and R The US will admit the truth

about Agent Orange when most of those vets are gone. Cheaper that way. :grr:

[me b zola]

5. k&r for all of our Vietnam Vets

...and also for all of those who are now being poisened, and gentically altered, by depleted uranium.

:cry: :grr: :cry: :mad: :cry: :grr: :cry:

:argh:

[JohnnyLib]

7. Ditto (in the pre-Limbaaaah sense)

I've dealt with vets affected by OA in RVN all these years--seen some of their damaged children--seen the bureaucratic crap they endure. Can't pin all this on one party; it's more like big government covering it's big ass and chasing it's tail.

Yeah, this hits a nerve.

[DemoTex]

6. AO = paraquat

Paraquat is one of the most toxic chemicals ever produced commercially. I was exposed to AO in 1970 when a convoy I was running got sprayed by a flight of three C-123 Provider "Ranch-Hands," working over QL-1 between Nha Trang and Cam Rahn Bay.

I have had multiple skin cancers (basel cell and squamous cell) that may or may not be linked to my AO exposure. A large squamous cell cancer was stripped from my back last week.

That, however, is not what worries me. What worries me is the massive exposure of the beautiful, gentle innocents in Viet Nam. They are not unlike the victims of UXOs (Un-exploded ordnance), the gifts that keep on giving. I look at the pictures of Vietnamese children on crutches, missing a leg, and the poignant Leon Russell lyric comes to mind: "Stray dogs that live on the highway walk on three legs." To the US government, the people of Viet Nam are nothing better than stray dogs. In fact, we do more for stray dogs than we do for the people we fucked up so badly.

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Agent Orange 'caused gene damage' (BBC)

Agent Orange contained highly toxic dioxins which have since been blamed for causing cancers and other illnesses.

They have also been blamed for birth defects suffered by the children and even grandchildren of Vietnam veterans and Vietnamese civilians.

This has been strongly contested by the two main companies which made it - Dow and Monsanto - and the US government, the BBC's Bill Hayton in Hanoi says.

A team from New Zealand's Massey University has now shown that the group of 24 Vietnam veterans it tested suffered significant genetic damage, compared with a similar sized group of soldiers who did not serve in Vietnam, our correspondent says.

This may be crucial evidence in the lengthy legal battles still being waged in courts in the US and other countries to prove or disprove the link between Agent Orange and a legacy of illness across three continents, our correspondent says.
***
more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5224690.stm

[Viva_La_Revolution]

12. Dow and Monsanto...

two of the biggest criminal enterprises in existence. :mad:

[KT2000]

9. Check out Vanity Fair

Hitchens and a photographer went to Viet Nam to visit the hospitals for the children damaged by Agent Orange. You would not believe it until you see the pictures. They did not even print the photos of the worst genetically damaged children.
It is a horror - children in a perpetual state of seizures, stumps for arms and legs, a boy with nothing below his waist.
It is criminal.
I urge everyone to see the article and photos.
These poor souls.

[OneBlueSky]

10. magnify this to the third power (or more) to understand what DU . . .

(depleted uranium) is doing not only to our own troops, but to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (and God knows who all else as the contamination continues its windblown travels) . . .

[roguevalley]

11. my cousin Ross died from this, bone cancer.

[KT2000]

13. Bless his heart

I did not know him, but I know he was treated unfaily by his government.

[NNN0LHI]

14. The Vietnamese people affected by this tried to sue US chemical companies

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4336941.stm



Vietnam's Red Cross says 150,000 children were severely affected

10 March, 2005,

Agent Orange legal case dismissed

A US federal court in New York has dismissed a legal action brought by Vietnamese plaintiffs over the use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.

The plaintiffs had sought compensation from the firms that manufactured the chemical, which allegedly caused birth defects, miscarriages and cancer.

They said use of the defoliant - to strip away forest cover during the war - was a war crime against millions.

But Judge Jack Weinstein ruled there was no legal basis for their claims.