I had my heart cath yesterday (9-20) and will be returning next Monday for another test and to be scheduled for quadruple bypass surgery. It looks like I will be in the hospital for about a week and then will be home for around four weeks in recovery.
They said it was good thing we caught it as the minor heart attack was a warning of worse things to come. It was not the results I wanted to hear, but better this than the alternative that could have happened.
Posting won’t be as frequent in the coming weeks but I will try to check email every day and stay in touch as best I can. Thanks to all for your prayers and good thoughts. I’m sure they helped.
I'll post the date when I'm sure.
Showing posts with label agent orange. Show all posts
Showing posts with label agent orange. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Health Update
A few months ago while having an exam at the VA hospital, the doctor mentioned that I had signs of an infarct and should have an EKG. After the EKG was done, I was asked when I had my heart attack. I told them “never” and they told me I was wrong and I had signs of one and scheduled me for an echo and stress test.
Previously I was seeing a cardiologist and he told me I had valvular heart disease with mitral regurgitation, but it was a common thing and not to worry about it unless I required anesthesia, otherwise I was fine. So I didn’t worry anymore about it until the results came up at the VA.
I had the stress test and the doctor called the next day and said I was being scheduled for a “procedure”. I’m scheduled on September 20 for a heart cath and an internal camera to access any damage that I may have. If stents are needed, they will be done at that time with anything else to follow if necessary.
Everyone tells me this is just a minor surgery and not to worry, but to me no surgery is minor and if you are playing around in my heart it is pretty damn serious to me.
The VA doctor seems to think that this is related to my service in Vietnam and the exposure to Agent Orange there. I already have type II diabetes, hypertension, neuropathy and PTSD from my time there and now this. I’ve been in good spirits, but the closer it gets the more nervous I am.
I’ll post my results on Facebook and the blog and email everyone on the list when I get the results. So just keep a good thought for me.
Previously I was seeing a cardiologist and he told me I had valvular heart disease with mitral regurgitation, but it was a common thing and not to worry about it unless I required anesthesia, otherwise I was fine. So I didn’t worry anymore about it until the results came up at the VA.
I had the stress test and the doctor called the next day and said I was being scheduled for a “procedure”. I’m scheduled on September 20 for a heart cath and an internal camera to access any damage that I may have. If stents are needed, they will be done at that time with anything else to follow if necessary.
Everyone tells me this is just a minor surgery and not to worry, but to me no surgery is minor and if you are playing around in my heart it is pretty damn serious to me.
The VA doctor seems to think that this is related to my service in Vietnam and the exposure to Agent Orange there. I already have type II diabetes, hypertension, neuropathy and PTSD from my time there and now this. I’ve been in good spirits, but the closer it gets the more nervous I am.
I’ll post my results on Facebook and the blog and email everyone on the list when I get the results. So just keep a good thought for me.
Friday, August 26, 2011
The Vietnam War Continues
The Vietnam War was over for me over forty years ago, or so I thought. In September 1970 I left Vietnam to return home. The horrors of war were replaced by nightmares and dreams. We were called "baby killers". We were spit on and treated as criminals by those who wanted peace at any cost.
Mostly we were ignored. We were told that Agent Orange had no side effects, no health risks, and our dreams would go away. The problem is there were side effects, there were health risks, and the dreams got worse.
An unknown number of veterans have died from wounds not suffered on the battlefield, but from the illnesses caused by Agent Orange. Many others carry the mental wounds of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and too many of us don't or won't ask for help.
I've had type 2 diabetes for over twenty years; hypertension and PTSD for longer than that; and, now I've been diagnosed with Ischemic Heart Disease. All of these are related to Agent Orange exposure. I will have more tests and a heart cath in the near future.
Hopefully with treatment, I will not become another casualty of the Vietnam War for a long time. I know the day is coming and I'm doing my best to prepare for it.
Think of all the Veterans and keep positive vibrations heading their way. If you enjoy living in a free country, thank the vet - not the politician.
Mostly we were ignored. We were told that Agent Orange had no side effects, no health risks, and our dreams would go away. The problem is there were side effects, there were health risks, and the dreams got worse.
An unknown number of veterans have died from wounds not suffered on the battlefield, but from the illnesses caused by Agent Orange. Many others carry the mental wounds of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and too many of us don't or won't ask for help.
I've had type 2 diabetes for over twenty years; hypertension and PTSD for longer than that; and, now I've been diagnosed with Ischemic Heart Disease. All of these are related to Agent Orange exposure. I will have more tests and a heart cath in the near future.
Hopefully with treatment, I will not become another casualty of the Vietnam War for a long time. I know the day is coming and I'm doing my best to prepare for it.
Think of all the Veterans and keep positive vibrations heading their way. If you enjoy living in a free country, thank the vet - not the politician.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Agent Orange
I don't delve into politics too often. I have my views and you have yours. Sometimes they meet and work together, most of the time it's easier to agree to disagree. I don't believe in shouting at each other or loading the audience with your hand picked people. Let's have an honest discussion and let the FACTS fall where they may. There is not a Democratic or Republic answer. The answer must be for all Americans.
With all that being said, here is an article reposted from VA Watchdog dot org. The true will come out, even if it takes 40 years. If you look at the way the government takes care of our veterans and find out how extremely difficult it is to get on disability when overwhelming proof is there, THAT should be enough to make you question "government sponsored HEALTH CARE".
I freely admit that I'm a Viet Nam vet with Agent Orange issues. I would be happy to read any of your comments. Send them to the-baryon-review@bellsouth.net.
AGENT ORANGE DANGERS KNOWN AS EARLY AS 1965
Dow Chemical employee: "This material is exceptionally toxic; it has a tremendous potential for producing chloracne and systemic injury."
Note from Larry Scott, VA Watchdog dot Org ... This information is no surprise to any Vietnam veteran. But, to the uninitiated, it is an excellent tutorial on how veterans of Vietnam have been jerked around by the government and the chemical corporations for over 40 years. Use our search engine for more about Agent Orange.
-------------------------
Chemical companies, US authorities knew dangers of Agent Orange
Those responsible for exposing Vietnamese citizens and US troops to toxic defoliants kept silent about known health implications, a review of documents finds.
US chemical companies that made Agent Orange and the government and military authorities who ordered its spraying on Vietnam knew the human health toll it could take, according to official and unofficial documents detailing the history of the deadly defoliant.
A review of the documents related to the use of Agent Orange – a dioxin-laden herbicide – in Vietnam, including decades-old declassified papers from the companies that manufactured it and the government and military that used it, provides compelling evidence that those in charge also concealed evidence of the devastating effects it could have on people.
Mum’s the word
A declassified letter by V.K. Rowe at Dow’s Biochemical Research Library to Bioproducts Manager Ross Milholland dated June 24, 1965 clearly states that the company knew the dioxin in their products, including Agent Orange, could hurt people.
In reference to 2,4,5,-trichlorophenol and 2,3,7,8, -tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (components of Agent Orange), Rowe stated:
“This material is exceptionally toxic; it has a tremendous potential for producing chloracne and systemic injury.”
Rowe worried the company would suffer if word got out.
“The whole 2,4,5-T industry would be hard hit and I would expect restrictive legislation, either barring the material or putting very rigid controls upon it.”
So he said the company should keep quiet about the toxicity: “There is no reason why we cannot get this problem under strict control and thereby hopefully avoid restrictive legislation ... I trust you will be very judicious in your use of this information. It could be quite embarrassing if it were misinterpreted or misused ... P.S. Under no circumstances may this letter be reproduced, shown, or sent to anyone outside of Dow.”
Dow played its cards right, never getting in serious trouble. The spraying of Agent Orange in Vietnam went on for another six years.
Dow did not return phone calls and emails requesting comment on the Agent Orange issue.
‘Undisputed’
In the latest case of US veterans trying to sue Dow and Monsanto for their cancers related to Agent Orange exposure, Supreme Court Documents related to a petition for a Writ of Certiorari in Daniel Raymond Stephenson, et al., petitioners, v. Dow Chemical Company, Monsanto Company, et al., respondents, further implicates the companies in cover-ups and misinformation.
The petitioners state that the companies knew their dioxins, such as those used in Agent Orange, were harmful and lied about it while concealing information, including the fact that several factory workers had fallen sick after exposure to dioxin.
Several key facts “remain undisputed,” according to the document:
“Respondents never shared the information in their sole possession about health risks attributable to dioxin,” it said.
“Respondents used proprietary, defective manufacturing processes that dangerously contaminated 2,4,5- T with dioxin.” That is, the chemical companies could have manufactured their products without dioxin, as other companies had done, but the process was slower and more expensive, so they chose a more dangerous method.
The companies “secretly tested their products for dioxin and hid its extreme toxicity from the military,” according to the petitioners.
The petitioners stated that the companies had been hiding information during the ongoing court process: “Respondents also misrepresent today’s medical understanding of the injuries caused by exposure to dioxin. Instead of telling this Court that the NAS/IOM has found that numerous cancers have been related to exposure to dioxin-contaminated 2,4,5-T (ingredient in Agent Orange) they quote a twenty-year-old Second Circuit opinion to say: ‘Even today, . . . no . . . evidence that Agent Orange was hazardous to human health.’”
The petitioners said the companies had misrepresented the health effects with “patently false” assertions that none of their workers had gotten sick from dioxin poisoning.
Inside job
Though numerous studies have uncontroversially demonstrated the devastating effects of dioxin exposure on humans, the companies that manufactured Agent Orange have gone out of their way to offer their own unique perspective.
Through 2004, Dow and Monsanto funded several friendly studies by Dr. Alvin L. Young to show that the exposure of US ground forces to Agent Orange should be of minimal health concern.
Young’s schizophrenic reports go back and forth from saying that dioxins are not harmful to saying they are harmful and his largely debunked studies have drawn the scorn of prominent members of the scientific community.
“Young is paid by the chemical companies,” Dr. Wayne Dwernychuk, a retired senior/advisor at Hatfield Consultants, told Thanh Nien Daily. “I don’t believe a word he says.” Hatfield Consultants is a research leader in the field of contamination from dioxin herbicides in Vietnam.
Not overly concerned
Though reports point to the fact that chemical companies like Dow and Monsanto knowingly hid evidence of dioxin-related medical problems from the government, the declassified 1990 Zumwalt Report suggests that US military experts knew that Agent Orange was harmful at the time of its use.
The report quotes a 1988 letter from Dr. James R. Clary, a former government scientist with the Chemical Weapons Branch, to Senator Tom Daschle. Dr. Clary was involved in designing tanks that sprayed herbicides and defoliants in Vietnam, according to the report.
Clary told Daschle:
“When we (military scientists) initiated the herbicide program in the 1960’s, we were aware of the potential for damage due to dioxin contamination in the herbicide. We were even aware that the ‘military’ formulation had a higher dioxin concentration than the ‘civilian’ version due to the lower cost and speed of manufacture. However, because the material was to be used on the ‘enemy,’ none of us were overly concerned. We never considered a scenario in which our own personnel would become contaminated with the herbicide. And, if we had, we would have expected our own government to give assistance to veterans so contaminated.”
Chemical warfare: calling a spade a spade
Supporters of the US’s Agent Orange Campaign prefer to call it an “herbicide program” rather than chemical warfare. But official documents reveal that the US Senate knew its real name.
In US Senate Congressional Records dated August 11, 1969, a table presented to senators showed that congress clearly classified 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T (main components of Agent Orange) in the Chemical and Biological Warfare category.
The table also includes Cacodylic Acid, a main component of Agent Blue, another chemical sprayed on Vietnam to kill plants, in the official Chemical and Biological Warfare category. The table describes it as “an arsenic-base compound... heavy concentrations will cause arsenical poisoning in humans. Widely used in Vietnam. It is composed of 54.29 percent arsenic.”
As Vietnam War Scholar and US Veteran W.D. Ehrhart put it concisely in a Thanh Nien Daily interview last week: “It would be hard to describe Agent Orange as anything other than a chemical weapon. Dioxin is a chemical.” So is arsenic.
Reported by Jon Dillingham
With all that being said, here is an article reposted from VA Watchdog dot org. The true will come out, even if it takes 40 years. If you look at the way the government takes care of our veterans and find out how extremely difficult it is to get on disability when overwhelming proof is there, THAT should be enough to make you question "government sponsored HEALTH CARE".
I freely admit that I'm a Viet Nam vet with Agent Orange issues. I would be happy to read any of your comments. Send them to the-baryon-review@bellsouth.net.
AGENT ORANGE DANGERS KNOWN AS EARLY AS 1965
Dow Chemical employee: "This material is exceptionally toxic; it has a tremendous potential for producing chloracne and systemic injury."
Note from Larry Scott, VA Watchdog dot Org ... This information is no surprise to any Vietnam veteran. But, to the uninitiated, it is an excellent tutorial on how veterans of Vietnam have been jerked around by the government and the chemical corporations for over 40 years. Use our search engine for more about Agent Orange.
-------------------------
Chemical companies, US authorities knew dangers of Agent Orange
Those responsible for exposing Vietnamese citizens and US troops to toxic defoliants kept silent about known health implications, a review of documents finds.
US chemical companies that made Agent Orange and the government and military authorities who ordered its spraying on Vietnam knew the human health toll it could take, according to official and unofficial documents detailing the history of the deadly defoliant.
A review of the documents related to the use of Agent Orange – a dioxin-laden herbicide – in Vietnam, including decades-old declassified papers from the companies that manufactured it and the government and military that used it, provides compelling evidence that those in charge also concealed evidence of the devastating effects it could have on people.
Mum’s the word
A declassified letter by V.K. Rowe at Dow’s Biochemical Research Library to Bioproducts Manager Ross Milholland dated June 24, 1965 clearly states that the company knew the dioxin in their products, including Agent Orange, could hurt people.
In reference to 2,4,5,-trichlorophenol and 2,3,7,8, -tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (components of Agent Orange), Rowe stated:
“This material is exceptionally toxic; it has a tremendous potential for producing chloracne and systemic injury.”
Rowe worried the company would suffer if word got out.
“The whole 2,4,5-T industry would be hard hit and I would expect restrictive legislation, either barring the material or putting very rigid controls upon it.”
So he said the company should keep quiet about the toxicity: “There is no reason why we cannot get this problem under strict control and thereby hopefully avoid restrictive legislation ... I trust you will be very judicious in your use of this information. It could be quite embarrassing if it were misinterpreted or misused ... P.S. Under no circumstances may this letter be reproduced, shown, or sent to anyone outside of Dow.”
Dow played its cards right, never getting in serious trouble. The spraying of Agent Orange in Vietnam went on for another six years.
Dow did not return phone calls and emails requesting comment on the Agent Orange issue.
‘Undisputed’
In the latest case of US veterans trying to sue Dow and Monsanto for their cancers related to Agent Orange exposure, Supreme Court Documents related to a petition for a Writ of Certiorari in Daniel Raymond Stephenson, et al., petitioners, v. Dow Chemical Company, Monsanto Company, et al., respondents, further implicates the companies in cover-ups and misinformation.
The petitioners state that the companies knew their dioxins, such as those used in Agent Orange, were harmful and lied about it while concealing information, including the fact that several factory workers had fallen sick after exposure to dioxin.
Several key facts “remain undisputed,” according to the document:
“Respondents never shared the information in their sole possession about health risks attributable to dioxin,” it said.
“Respondents used proprietary, defective manufacturing processes that dangerously contaminated 2,4,5- T with dioxin.” That is, the chemical companies could have manufactured their products without dioxin, as other companies had done, but the process was slower and more expensive, so they chose a more dangerous method.
The companies “secretly tested their products for dioxin and hid its extreme toxicity from the military,” according to the petitioners.
The petitioners stated that the companies had been hiding information during the ongoing court process: “Respondents also misrepresent today’s medical understanding of the injuries caused by exposure to dioxin. Instead of telling this Court that the NAS/IOM has found that numerous cancers have been related to exposure to dioxin-contaminated 2,4,5-T (ingredient in Agent Orange) they quote a twenty-year-old Second Circuit opinion to say: ‘Even today, . . . no . . . evidence that Agent Orange was hazardous to human health.’”
The petitioners said the companies had misrepresented the health effects with “patently false” assertions that none of their workers had gotten sick from dioxin poisoning.
Inside job
Though numerous studies have uncontroversially demonstrated the devastating effects of dioxin exposure on humans, the companies that manufactured Agent Orange have gone out of their way to offer their own unique perspective.
Through 2004, Dow and Monsanto funded several friendly studies by Dr. Alvin L. Young to show that the exposure of US ground forces to Agent Orange should be of minimal health concern.
Young’s schizophrenic reports go back and forth from saying that dioxins are not harmful to saying they are harmful and his largely debunked studies have drawn the scorn of prominent members of the scientific community.
“Young is paid by the chemical companies,” Dr. Wayne Dwernychuk, a retired senior/advisor at Hatfield Consultants, told Thanh Nien Daily. “I don’t believe a word he says.” Hatfield Consultants is a research leader in the field of contamination from dioxin herbicides in Vietnam.
Not overly concerned
Though reports point to the fact that chemical companies like Dow and Monsanto knowingly hid evidence of dioxin-related medical problems from the government, the declassified 1990 Zumwalt Report suggests that US military experts knew that Agent Orange was harmful at the time of its use.
The report quotes a 1988 letter from Dr. James R. Clary, a former government scientist with the Chemical Weapons Branch, to Senator Tom Daschle. Dr. Clary was involved in designing tanks that sprayed herbicides and defoliants in Vietnam, according to the report.
Clary told Daschle:
“When we (military scientists) initiated the herbicide program in the 1960’s, we were aware of the potential for damage due to dioxin contamination in the herbicide. We were even aware that the ‘military’ formulation had a higher dioxin concentration than the ‘civilian’ version due to the lower cost and speed of manufacture. However, because the material was to be used on the ‘enemy,’ none of us were overly concerned. We never considered a scenario in which our own personnel would become contaminated with the herbicide. And, if we had, we would have expected our own government to give assistance to veterans so contaminated.”
Chemical warfare: calling a spade a spade
Supporters of the US’s Agent Orange Campaign prefer to call it an “herbicide program” rather than chemical warfare. But official documents reveal that the US Senate knew its real name.
In US Senate Congressional Records dated August 11, 1969, a table presented to senators showed that congress clearly classified 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T (main components of Agent Orange) in the Chemical and Biological Warfare category.
The table also includes Cacodylic Acid, a main component of Agent Blue, another chemical sprayed on Vietnam to kill plants, in the official Chemical and Biological Warfare category. The table describes it as “an arsenic-base compound... heavy concentrations will cause arsenical poisoning in humans. Widely used in Vietnam. It is composed of 54.29 percent arsenic.”
As Vietnam War Scholar and US Veteran W.D. Ehrhart put it concisely in a Thanh Nien Daily interview last week: “It would be hard to describe Agent Orange as anything other than a chemical weapon. Dioxin is a chemical.” So is arsenic.
Reported by Jon Dillingham
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