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Veterans' health today, our children and grandchildren tomorrow?
Written by Sonny Parker Guest columnist
Mar. 22, 2014 | clarionledger.com
Veterans' health today, our children and grandchildren tomorrow?
The impact of health issues on the nations veterans will in time confront our children
and grandchildren in the form of genetically modified organisms (GMO).
The greatest threat to public health is genetically modified organism (GMO) plant
production by Monsanto Company (Agent Orange and Bt cotton) and Pfizer, Inc.
(Zyklon B. Holocaust gas). Both have research facilities in the Yazoo-Mississippi
Delta to produce GMOs.
Our nations veterans suffered from the impact of Agent Orange for years before the
Veterans Administration acknowledged causation of toxic exposure to dioxin, a
defoliant used in Vietnam to kill the jungle like conditions that provided cover for the enemy. The herbicide
utilized two chemicals--2, 4-D and 2, 4, 5-T that was linked to a variety of health disorders: headaches,
liver and blood disorders, nerve damage, cancer.
Now we know that veterans, who served in Vietnam and were exposed to Agent Orange, had their DNA
mutated by exposure to herbicides, and unknowingly passed on genetic mutations to their unborn.
Interesting enough the male and female veterans may have children born with spina bifida, but the woman
veteran exposed to dioxin may have child with a whole host of different medical conditions supporting
genetic mutation.
With this history now well defined the Agent Orange Benefits Act, was passed in 1996 to provide benefits
for Vietnam veterans children who were born with spina bifida, as a result of Agent Orange exposure.
These benefits include lifetime health care services for children with spina bifida
and any disability associated with spina bifida, a monthly monetary allowance ranging from
$200.00-$1,200.00, and Veterans Affairs (VA) vocational training/rehabilitation services.
In the late summer of 1966, the Zoology Department of Mississippi State University was asked to examine
evidence and information related to the fish kill that occurred in the Choccolocco Creek in March 1966 in
Anniston, Alabama. The research was conducted by Dr. Denzel Ferguson, who has since passed away in
1998, and two graduate assistants, George Murphy, now at Middle Tennessee State and Mack Finley,
now at Austin Peay.
The tests involved placing cages filled with 25 live bluegill fish at thirteen different locations in the system
of waterways that accepted wastes from the Monsanto Plant. A branch of Snow Creek originating in the
Monsanto plant was found to be devoid of life. All the 25 fish turned on their sides in 10 seconds and all
were dead in 3 minutes.
In August 21 2003 after a long running trial it was announced that Monsanto Company and Solutia, Inc,
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agreed to pay $700 million to settle claims by more than 20,000 Anniston residents, and plaintiffs lawyers
over Polychlorinated Bi phenyls,( PCB) contamination.` PCBs are man-made organic chemicals used in
hundreds of industrial and commercial agricultural applications prior to being outlawed in 1979.
My milk carton, Prairie Farms, family owned, cites Our farmers Pledge, not to treat their cows with
artificial growth hormones. Monsanto sued a farmer to have that pledge removed from his milk carton but
lost in court. Canada and 60 European countries required labeling of any product that uses artificial
growth hormones.
There is nothing in the farm bill that recently passed that protects the American family. It simply rewards
large corporations that produce GMOs and lobbyist who spent $150 million dollars on Congressmen, both
Republican and Democrat to assure passage.
An advisory committee of the Food and Drug Administration met on Tuesday, February 25, 2014 to
consider radical biological procedures that, if successful, would produce genetically modified human
beings.
Nothing could get more scary than that in my opinion.
Melvin Sonny Parker is an author and writer living in Clinton.