I'm not sure about the increase since 2000 (could be better detection methods), but the military is known to use a bunch of toxic chemicals. On the motorcycle forums I frequent I have heard more than a few times about how "The stuff we had when I was in the Army/Navy/AF would have cleaned this up in seconds." And they were only talking about the degreasers and lubricants, not the munitions or other chemicals that were hanging around the base.
I could write a novel about this. My father was exposed to and handled Agent Orange in Vietnam. An uncle, as well. My uncle passed in 2007, riddled with cancers, fighting the VA every step of the way. That man served nearly 35 years before retiring. Their generation coined the phrase "Delay, deny, and hope that we die." due to their experiences with the VA.
I decided not to be a helpless by-stander when it was my fathers time to contend with the VA. I took nearly 3 years off of my life and moved back home to help him. He was eventually able to successfully obtain a disability rating and was able to get prior/existing health issues linked to his exposure, which secured disability back pay to the 90s. All of this, his experience and the back pay, specifically, is something of an outlier, as we understand it. As we understand it, most folks don't have the resources to navigate the system successfully. It wasn't a massive financial windfall, but it meant that my parents future was financially secure (their finances were in ruins by the mid-00s) and once he was mobile again, with his health issues under control and with an effective management plan in place, I was able to get back on with my own life.
There are also inter-generational effects with Agent Orange, but they're not very well understood (to my knowledge). That frightens me today, especially now that I've had my own children. There's a whole other dynamic there, too, in that I also served, and that I've been exposed to burn pits and a lot of diesel fumes and high RF environments and some solvents and etc... I feel like it's an inevitability in my own life's story that I'll eventually have to contend with the VA, as well.
My Grandfather was killed by the stuff too. He had a condition that wasn't one of the conditions that the VA established as linked to it. I've found some other cases online of other service members that had what he had. The other game the VA plays is they'll dispute you were ever even exposed to it in the first place.
I do, very frequently, in fact. I have many friends who are Vietnamese today (I live in Orange County, CA), and they have many stories about extended family in Vietnam and elsewhere about birth defects and such. My wife's mother is Vietnam-born Chinese. She came to the US as a refugee. They have family that was exposed as innocents caught in the middle of the conflict, just trying to escape with their lives. There are countless generations of people in Vietnam, and now abroad, that will never be properly acknowledged, let alone compensated, for what we did to them. And, in some cases, what is still happening to them today, as the byproducts of the herbicide can still be found in their food supply.
We don’t get to wash our hands of this. Particularly when we have neither brought them to justice nor recognized any transnational authority’s jurisdiction to do so.
The concept of "collective guilt" of a nation, race, religion or tribe—especially when it includes individuals who weren't even born at the time of wrongdoing—is incredibly destructive.
It leads to family feuds, tribal war that lasts centuries or even millennia and it's a very likely trigger for WW3.
There are inter-group grievances that will never be settled to the satisfaction of all parties. Not only that, but they're so inflammatory that even attempting to resolve the conflicts of centuries past, leads to further anger and cycles of violence going forward.
People need to be held accountable for their own actions, not the actions of others who look like them, have the same family name, live on the same patch of land or worship the same god(s).
Right, but culpability is like a spectrum. If I actually did it, I'm obviously the villain. But if I prosper from its effects while only opposing it in the abstract, then it's not obvious to me that I've actually reasonably washed my hands of it.
It happened whether you "prospered" from it or not. How does that alone make you any more culpable? You could argue a baby born today might have indirectly benefited from it. Is that baby culpable to any extent?
Today's kids have a big responsibility in front of them. It won't be easy to speak truth to the power that lies in the governments of the USA and China and elsewhere, but it's absolutely obvious that these entities don't intend to serve the interests of these children or their parents.
It is today's kids who must grow up ready to live in the absence of a powerful state. Even if they aren't culpable, they are responsible.
The VA prioritizes veterans who served in areas of Vietnam that were exposed to Agent Orange. They have a special designation that is, I believe, the highest priority of care at the VA. Second only to something like WWII veterans.
Today? Sure, I'd believe that. I'll try searching around, this is the first I've heard of it.
edit/ Cursory search seems to suggest this is fairly new -- I'm only seeing hits from news in 2019. Better late than never, but many servicemembers have languished and died in the meantime while the VA administration continues to delay processing.
I'm glad that they're at least not fighting so hard against service-connected illnesses and disability ratings. But, that still doesn't tell the full story, either. I'd be curious to learn what disability % different illnesses and times in service, branches, etc... are receiving. That could get closer to telling the truth.
Many of the Vietnam veterans my father and I know are < 50%, despite being incapable of working due to their service-connected health issues (nevermind the ageism, nevermind the loss of industry where these people live taking decent jobs away from entire regions, nevermind the fact they wouldn't be considered anyway because of their health issues, etc...). If you attempt to get a new rating, you can end up rated lower than where you started. And, so, it disincentivizes otherwise deserving people from pushing their luck, as it were.
My brother hurt his back on a training mission in the army. He was discharged and worked for a few years doing HVAC.
His back was hurting, he kept going to the VA. Eventually they gave him $3000 A month disability.
He was set for life! His own personal UBI. One little problem, they also gave him opioids for the back pain.
With no need for a job too keep him busy, it only took six months for the opioids to kill him.
I wrote this anecdote commend @scruple on taking the time to get his dad fixed up, and so that others in a similar place might recognize the situation and act. I do not think the VA did anything wrong in this case. I had a chance to get my brother to move in with me, but I failed to do so.
Can confirm this was used by enlisted electronic techs in the USAF in the 1980's. Similar for also questionable, but less lethal organic solvents like MEK. Gloves were specifically forbidden, and breathing gear wasn't present. I was young and didn't know better. Got several govt letters later asking me to opt out of lawsuits in exchange for free VA services.
They used to use this shit at my employer, back in the 80’s, for cleaning circuit boards. Forbid the use of gloves due to electro static discharge. People often complained it would burn their hands.
At least they now use d-limonene, which is a food addictive derived from orange skin oil.
Sounds like my dad's cancer was also caused by his military duty. I think he got a letter informing him that there was a statistically significant increase in cancer rates among the people who had been stationed at camp X on dates Y through Z.
Absolutely true. Was an electronic tech in the USAF in the 80's. We were routinely given access and direction to use a lot of (now) scary organic solvents without proper guidance, protection, etc.
IME, they're referring to SimpleGreen, undiluted. So say my military buddies. I don't doubt they use toxic chemicals though... My father used to tell stories about the injections he got in the Navy. He's since passed from cancer.
I don't know what it was, but the stuff we used for rifles wasn't related to Simple Green. It was a clear liquid that apparently causes neurological issues and you're supposed to wear safety equipment while using it because it can be absorbed through the skin. They didn't tell us that though, and just let everyone clean our rifles in it with our bare hands.
I’ve heard the microwave radiation exposure(to communicate with the drones in terrain that wouldn’t allow it) during the Iraq War endured by drone pilots was obviously way higher than legally allowed within the United States at least. Definitely high enough to cause cancer.
The fact that ionizing radiation causes cancer because it resonates with DNA bonds does not mean that other kinds of radiation could not cause other types of cancer.
Other kind of radiation will resonate with bigger molecules and could do things like denaturalize them.
Have you ever fried an egg. You are denaturalizing a protein that is liquid and becomes solid, and you have done that just with heat alone.
You can actually denaturalize an egg in the microwave oven, and there are certainly lots of health problems when the microwave oven leaks microwaves.
When you denaturalize something in the body, it stops working as it should. This creates a cascade of things that stops working as they should.
there's also waste burn pits which have been investigated in particular in relation to pulmonary diseases, but it wouldn't surprise me if it exposes people to carcinogens.
Yep, when I was in Iraq there was another base that was found to be throwing all kinds of things in the burn pit that weren't supposed to be in it. Stuff like old mattresses and amputed limbs were being thrown in an open air burn pit, and apparently the pit wasn't very far from sleeping quarters. After that was exposed, they started marking off "Exposed to burning waste" on everyone's medical records, even if they couldn't be sure you had been.
I get most of those but I am confused by lack of proper nutrition? That is a new one to me. Sure it is calorie dense and processed but I thought they had all of the vitamins - although infamously insufficient fiber.
Also I didn't know training ammo used it - I thought it was mostly used just as an armor piercing metal.
The radiological hazard of depleted U is generally considered to by far eclipsed by its chemical toxicity. I just want people to understand that any carcinogenic affects depleted U exposure may have are far more likely to be caused by its general chemical/heavy-metal toxicity. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium#Radiological_...
Heavy metal toxicity is basically the same as radiation exposure. It's extremely hard to purge the body of heavy metals after you're exposed, and it's one of the reasons plutonium is as dangerous as it is - because it gets incorporated into your bones. It would be surprisingly safe if it just passed right through you (hence the reason it can be safely handled).
You don't just "get over" heavy metal poisoning. It has long term effects exactly like radiation, and is more insidious because you can't just wave a geiger counter around to find it.
We've got a pretty good idea of what cancer rates are for various levels and types of radiation.
Toxic chemicals can cause cancer themselves - poisoning isn't the only option there. Coal tar, for example, has no (or minimal) radioactivity, but is still carcinogenic.
We actually have a rather poor understanding of long term effects of radiation. We have decent models for amounts of radiation that kill you over weeks, but long term low dose exposure is poorly understood.
Read about Agent Orange if you want to be pissed off for the rest of the day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#U.S._veterans