Ask Your VA Claims Questions | Read Current Posts
Read VA Disability Claims Articles
Search | View All Forums | Donate | Blogs | New Users | Rules
- 0
diabetes Canadian Military Base Exposed
Rate this question
-
Similar Content
-
diabetes I am seeking information concerning possible herbicide(s) stored, used and spilled on Asco 1 2
By Gopher,
- 9 answers
- 2,460 views
-
- 11 answers
- 3,328 views
-
Reopen Diabetes II or file secondary to Hypoythyroid
By L2dee2,
- diabetes
- diabetes secondary to hypothyroid
- (and 8 more)
- 5 answers
- 2,324 views
-
- 27 answers
- 16,983 views
-
Question
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."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL.com.
GRADUATE ! Nov 2nd 2007 American Military University !
When thousands of Americans faced annihilation in the 1800s Chief
Osceola's response to his people, the Seminoles, was
simply "They(the US Army)have guns, but so do we."
Sameo to us -They (VA) have 38 CFR ,38 USC, and M21-1- but so do we.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Top Posters For This Question
1
1
Popular Days
Aug 24
2
Top Posters For This Question
Testvet 1 post
Berta 1 post
Popular Days
Aug 24 2007
2 posts
1 answer to this question
Recommended Posts