diabetes Canadian Military Base Exposed

[Berta]

email from Armrd Angel (Agent Orange Quilt of Tears)

(By the Way the precious cargo - our beloved Jennie's Quilt of Tears -is still traveling around the country as a memorial to all AO veterans- with the help of Armrd Angel (Sheila)and others deidicated to this extraordinary quilt.)

http://www.agentorangequiltoftears.com/

email from Sheila :

"Study finds Agent Orange put some people at risk at CFB Gagetown

Charles Mandel, CanWest News Service

Published: Tuesday, August 21, 2007

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.ht...54c&k=59335

Only individuals who had direct contact with herbicides at CFB Gagetown in New Brunswick are at risk of contracting a number of diseases associated with exposure, including various cancers, Parkinson’s disease and Type 2 diabetes, a study released Tuesday says.

“We know now that base Gagetown and area is a safe place to train our soldiers,” said Dennis Furlong, the fact-finding and outreach co-ordinator hired by the federal government to study the effects of the use of herbicides at CFB Gagetown.

“The news out of this for the population is that they can be reassured that scientists are happy that the amount of risk here is negligible,” Furlong said.

Calling it good news for the people of the area, Furlong said the epidemiological study of provincial cancer and mortality rates dating back to 1980 shows no difference in cancer or deaths in and around the base compared to the rest of New Brunswick’s 700,000 people.

But Jim Burke, a former Gagetown base soldier who now lives in Saint John, N.B., reacted angrily when he heard the study results.

“I think they’re full of crap,’’ Burke said.

Burke claims he was sprayed with Agent Orange when he was driving an anti-tank jeep at Gagetown in the early 1960s. He recalls a plane flying in low and then covering soldiers in a white fog.

“It was like a white scum. That was Agent Orange, because within the next two or three weeks all the foliage on the left and right-hand side of that road died.”

Today Burke, 63, says he has congestive heart disease and has suffered two heart attacks.

He takes no comfort from the report’s findings and draws a comparison between it and how the government reacted in the case of Maher Arar, the Ottawa man who was detained in Syria for 10 months and tortured.

“I’m very bitter,” Burke said, “because they can take somebody the United States put in prison and got back a big apology and grant the guy $10.5 million dollars because he was mistreated. Well, we were mistreated too.”

The report will be forwarded to the federal government over the next week. Ottawa is reportedly looking at a compensation package for veterans.

The study investigating the potential health effects from the use of herbicides — including Agent Orange — at the army base from 1952 to the present says at-risk individuals included those directly involved with herbicide application.

People helping with post-application activities such as brush-clearing may have also experienced “elevated exposures,” according to the report done by Intrinsik Environmental Services Inc. of Mississauga, Ont.

The report said sufficient evidence existed to support conclusions of “positive associations” between exposure to the herbicides and the development of soft tissue sarcoma and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

“There was also preliminary evidence of positive associations between exposure to chlorophenoxy herbicides and laryngeal cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, Hodgkin’s disease, multiple myeloma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, spina bifida, spontaneous abortions, Parkinson’s disease and Type 2 diabetes,” according to the report.

The study says most people who lived and worked at or near CFB Gagetown were not at risk.

The U.S. military tested Agent Orange at Gagetown for three days in 1966 and for four days in 1967. While probably only dozens of people were involved in the application, according to Furlong, he said, “we do know that a lot of members of the Canadian forces were in the area and in the vicinity.”

Pesticides were used on the base to clear the woods. Furlong said Gagetown is the only “live fire” base in Canada and that shells are shot 15 to 20 kilometres. "They have to have visibility and that’s why we do defoliation. When there’s unexploded ordnance in the area, you can’t send in machinery, nor can you send in human resources to do it by foot. It has to be done by air.”

The study concludes that bystanders located directly downwind of the target area at the time of spraying may have experienced short-term exposures to herbicides from inhalation and “direct dermal contact with off-target drift.”

However, the report contends that elevated short-term exposure does not indicate risks of long-term irreversible health effects.

In July 2005, the Merchant Law Group launched a class action suit on behalf of an estimated 440,000 soldiers and families living near or on CFB Gagetown against the Department of National Defence, the Dow Chemical Company and Pharmacia Corp. over the use of Agent Orange, Agent Purple and Agent White.

The Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador certified the class action suit in early August.

The report is the final one from Furlong, who will close his office at the end of August."

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[Testvet]

Because of socialized medicine they don't need SC to get medical treatment I have read that all of the military assigned to gagetown at any point in the past 50+ years involved in the exposures would get a one time payment of 20-24,000 just depends on what their government decides. and all of their disability is like our SSD program doesn't matter if it's military or civilian there you are eihter disabled or not the part that intrigues me is the payments for vets exposed after 1973 and they quit spraying it, are they admitting the people exposed from 1973 - 2007 are getting ill from the half life's of the toxic elements? if Canada admits there are medical problems years after the initial use, would it help in the fight with the VA to get vets SC for exposures in places like Guam, Korea Alaska, Edgewood Arsenal, Panama etc that have medical conditions linked to AO? possibilities maybe