Legacy's of War

Published on Friday, April 13, 2012 by Common Dreams

Legacy of US Weapons-Caused Birth Defects Still Haunts Iraq

- Common Dreams staff

War's cruel legacy continues to unleash itself on the children of Iraq as weapons used by the U.S. have left Iraqi children with horrific birth defects, and the problem shows no signs of abating, Inter Press Service is reporting today.
"In 2004 the Americans tested all kinds of chemicals and explosive devices on us: thermobaric weapons, white phosphorous, depleted uranium...we have all been laboratory mice for them," hospital spokesman Nadim al-Hadidi told Inter Press Service (IPS).
IPS notes that the Iraqi Health Ministry, in close collaboration with the WHO, is set to embark on its first ever study on congenital malformations in the governorates of Baghdad, Anbar, Thi Qar, Suleimania, Diala and Basra this month.
Iraqi children being born with birth defects has been devasting families for years. A July 2010 study showed that increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the heavily bombarded city of Fallujah surpass those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
And the Guardian reported back in 2009 that Falluja doctors were "dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants, compared to a year ago, and a spike in early life cancers that may be linked to toxic materials left over from the fighting."

* * *

Inter Press Service: Those Laboratory Mice Were Children

FALLUJAH, Iraq - At Fallujah hospital they cannot offer any statistics on children born with birth defects – there are just too many. Parents don’t want to talk. "Families bury their newborn babies after they die without telling anyone," says hospital spokesman Nadim al-Hadidi. "It’s all too shameful for them."
"We recorded 672 cases in January but we know there were many more," says Hadidi. He projects pictures on to a wall at his office: children born with no brain, no eyes, or with the intestines out of their body.
Facing a frozen image of a child born without limbs, Hadidi says parents’ feelings usually range between shame and guilt. "They think it’s their fault, that there’s something wrong with them. And it doesn’t help at all when some elder tells them it’s been ‘god’s punishment’."
The pictures are difficult to look at. And, those responsible for all this have closed their eyes. [...]
Researchers found there had been a 38-fold increase in leukaemia (17-fold in the Japanese locations). Reputed analysts such as Noam Chomsky have labelled such conclusions as "immensely more embarrassing than the Wikileaks leaks on Afghanistan."
Samira Alaani, chief doctor at Fallujah hospital, took part in a study in close collaboration with the World Health Organisation. Several tests conducted in London point to unusually large amounts of uranium and mercury in the hair root of those affected. That could be the evidence linking the use of prohibited weapons to the extent of congenital problems in Fallujah.
Other than the white phosphorus, many point to depleted uranium (DU), a radioactive element which, according to military engineers, significantly increases the penetration capacity of shells. DU is believed to have a life of 4.5 billion years, and it has been labelled the "silent murderer that never stops killing."

* * *

The Independent: Toxic legacy of US assault on Fallujah 'worse than Hiroshima' (from 24 July 2010)

Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.
Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents.

* * *

The Guardian: Huge rise in birth defects in Falluja (from 13 November 2009)

Doctors in Iraq's war-ravaged enclave of Falluja are dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants, compared to a year ago, and a spike in early life cancers that may be linked to toxic materials left over from the fighting. [...]
"We are seeing a very significant increase in central nervous system anomalies," said Falluja general hospital's director and senior specialist, Dr Ayman Qais. "Before 2003 [the start of the war] I was seeing sporadic numbers of deformities in babies. Now the frequency of deformities has increased dramatically." [...]
Other health officials are also starting to focus on possible reasons, chief among them potential chemical or radiation poisonings. Abnormal clusters of infant tumours have also been repeatedly cited in Basra and Najaf – areas that have in the past also been intense battle zones where modern munitions have been heavily used.

Autism and Disappearing Bees: A Common Denominator?

"The brain of insects is the intended target of these insecticides.  They disrupt the bees homing behavior and their ability to return to the hive, kind of like “bee autism.”   But insects are different than humans, right?   Human and insect nerve cells share the same basic biologic infrastructure.  Chemicals that interrupt electrical impulses in insect nerves will do the same to humans.  But humans are much bigger than insects and the doses to humans are  miniscule, right?
During critical first trimester development a human is no bigger than an insect so there is every reason to believe that pesticides could wreak havoc with the developing brain of a human embryo.   But human embryos aren’t out in corn fields being sprayed with insecticides, are they?  A recent study showed that every human tested had the world’s best selling pesticide, Roundup, detectable in their urine at concentrations between five and twenty times the level considered safe for drinking water.
The autism epidemic and disappearing bees are real public health emergencies created by allowing our world to be overwhelmed by environmental toxins.  Environmental protection is human protection, especially for the smallest and most vulnerable among us."

Insecticides linked to honeybee die-offs

Published: March. 15, 2012 at 3:41 PM

WASHINGTON, March 15 (UPI) -- Die-offs of honeybees critical for pollinating food crops -- part of so-called colony collapse disorder -- is linked to an insecticide, a U.S. journal reports.

Researchers from the University of Padua in Italy writing in the journal Environmental Science & Technology say the springtime die-offs have been linked to technology used to plant corn coated with insecticides.

In some parts of Europe where farmers use the technology to plant seeds coated with so-called neonicotinoid insecticides, widespread deaths of honeybees have been reported since the introduction of the technique in the late 1990s, they said.

Such insecticides are among the most widely used in the world, popular because they kill insects by paralyzing nerves but have lower toxicity for other animals.

Scientists said they suspected the bee die-offs might be due to particles of the insecticide made airborne by the pneumatic drilling machines used for planting that forcefully suck seeds in and expel a burst of air containing high concentrations of particles of the insecticide coating.

They found that honeybees that flew through the emission cloud of the seeding machines used in mid-March to May corn planting were dying.

Future work on the problem should focus on a way to prevent the seeds from fragmenting inside the pneumatic drilling machines, the researchers said.

© 2012 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Make Democracy Money Proof

"At the end of the day, if you could deliver votes to politicians much more cheaply and effectively, in fact close to free,the problems wouldn't go away, but they'd be less severe. We may have a window of opportunity to change the system." [Sean]Parker said

Atrazine and the Roots of ALEC's State Data Quality Act

The herbicide atrazine, one of the most heavily used herbicides in the United States has been found in almost 94 percent of U.S. groundwater and can harm human health in multiple ways. ALEC has promoted "model" legislation friendly to Syngenta, atrazine's primary manufacturer, across the country. At least once, this legislation was introduced to ALEC by a lobbyist paid by Syngenta.

The "Data Quality Act"

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More Damning Evidence Points to Pesticide as Cause of Mass Bee Deaths | Common Dreams

- Common Dreams staff

A new study published in Naturwissenschaften - The Science of Nature by a leading bee expert provides damning evidence that a widely used pesticide, even at low levels, is responsible for the recent catastrophic decline in honey bees. Dr. Jeff Pettis of the USDA's Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, MD led the study.
Colony collapse disorder, as this phenomenon is known, has been getting worse since 2006.
The news has brought renewed calls for these pesticides, which only became widely used in the 1990s, to be banned as honey bees are key to human’s survival – pollinating 70 per cent of the crops which produce most of the world’s food.
The pesticide that the study (pdf) looked at was imidacloprid, one of the most widely used pesticides worldwide. It is neonicotinoid insecticide produced by Bayer CropScience.

Hey Erwin Listen up

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See the video here.


Bad for your Health




Bad for Public Education 

Today

A forum prompted by the Christian Peacemakers Teams’ weeklong delegation against depleted uranium usage at Aerojet Ordnance was held at East Tennessee State University Tuesday.

Several individuals spoke out against DU and the harmful side effects suffered by those who come in contact with it. There also was talk about the soil and water samples released by CPT earlier this week, which showed traces of DU in Limestone Creek downstream of Aerojet Ordnance, as well as in the soil of non-residential and residential areas near the facility.

The CPT is planning an occupation of Aerojet, 1367 Old State Route 34, on Saturday beginning at 11 a.m.

“It can pierce the armor on tanks and take out underground bunkers, but it doesn’t treat the human body very nicely and that’s its handicap,” said Cliff Kindy, coordinator for the CPT depleted uranium campaign. “If anything’s going to change in Iraq, we’ve got to do the work here. What would it take to stop the production of depleted uranium weapons?”

Gathering support while educating others about DU was part of the forum’s focus. Ann Harris, executive director of whistleblower support group We The People, discussed the complex stages involved before DU munitions can be made.

“When they (the military) eject depleted uranium out of any Abrams tank or out of any facility, 70 percent of it goes into a big cloud of dust and you’re breathing it in.”

Another speaker, John Paul Hasko, said contact with DU has taken the life of at least one of his former co-workers at Aerojet. With the health of locals, especially children, on his mind, Hasko called for Aerojet to pay for an epidemiological study of the graduating classes of David Crockett High School from 1977 to 1997.

“Do you know what the real problem is with DU? We humans don’t have a four and a half billion year half life, we only have this life to make it right for the children,” Hasko said.

During Kindy’s talk, he mentioned that Aerojet was invited to the Uranium Weapons Production in Our Own Backyard forum, but didn’t not attend.

“Why wouldn’t they talk about what they’re doing?” he said. “If they’re selling a good product, certainly the community would be happy to know what they’re doing.”

Retired Army Maj. Doug Rokke was originally scheduled as the keynote speaker, but severe health issues kept him from making the trip from Illinois. He served as the former director of the Army’s DU project and says interaction with it has given him upper respiratory problems, cataracts, fibromyalgia and osteoporosis.

Robbie and Somer Seaton of Afton attended the forum in order to learn more about DU and possibly join the CPT and its delegation against Aerojet. Since their 9-year-old son Memphis died of an adult brain tumor five months ago, the couple is searching to figure out why he developed the tumor as well as why Robbie’s father suffered lung cancer and why many of their livestock and pets have developed cancer.

“Our whole cause is to find answers and protect other children,” Somer said. “And so everything we went through wasn’t in vain.”

At the occupation of Aerojet on Saturday, the CPT will look at alternatives for the facility and listen to stories from veterans.

“I think we need to begin to put this together and to understand it in ways that we don’t at this point,” Kindy said. “You’re going to be the people that make those changes, it’s not going to happen without you.”

Read more: http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/News/article.php?id=95308#ixzz1cEDHCk00

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Revisiting

Just STOP spraying roundup Made my dog sick and deformed and killed kittens

Links listed below, will provide mirror site for information later this evening... I am looking for cohorts, like minded conscious folks, Alliances to fight this madness that has convinced good folks that roundup is safe. I am here to tell you that Roundup and similar products are far from what is considered safe for any all life.

A few months ago, my landlord (he takes the name seriously, days of serfdom, I am obliged and beholding to him)sprayed a tremendous amount of roundup on every outline of three gardens all containing eatables, drive, grounds around trees which keep falling over in high winds ... dead. I have three cats that enjoy the yard, gardens and sunning in the driveway, I received no notification to keep them indoors or that Jeff T. was even going to spray roundup. I don't mean to defame you and I am not, this is just the cold hard facts you need to be aware of. Kittens had at least a week or more before due date, they were still born within 24 hours one lived a few days. Second round of roundup as if fifty gallons on an acre of land wasn't enough, the second weekend of June. I am working in my garden while it is sprayed all around me within 50ft. I get tremendously sick, nausea back aches like a kidney, and I never get back aches, I go to doctor miss two weeks of work till better. In the meantime, my dog is dying, kittens are born again but without tails, with shorter curly tails, ears are backwards, nose is turned like a pigs. WTF  do I do?

Wonder

links to read and learn mirrored here as of 7/01/2011

I googled .... here

Dangers of Roundup Weed Killer for Pets

 pesticide health effects 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/57277946/RoundupandBirthDefectsv5

 More of Claire's work

Watch 'The World According to Monsanto' shown today on FSTV available there for a deal 877-378-8669

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Let’s all unf*ck it up!

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Radiationnetwork.com

GE's Fukushima Plum

Wonder where it is going?