Dig this Eric, & I'm NOT saying it's biochemically accurate, because I'm not a biochemist, but those planar molecules, especially if they possess highly-reactive end-constituents... (free radicals able to affect or strip-away valence electrons) ...& if they can slide between rungs of DNA lattice, between base pairs...could these be a source-process of genetic mutations ?
Dig this Eric, & I'm NOT saying it's biochemically accurate, because I'm not a biochemist, but those planar molecules, especially if they possess highly-reactive end-constituents... (free radicals able to affect or strip-away valence electrons) ...& if they can slide between rungs of DNA lattice, between base pairs...could these be a source-process of genetic mutations ?
Well, while I have never read conclusively that dioxin-like compounds are genotoxic, they are considered teratogenic. They cause many kinds of birth defects.
We have covered a lot of ground. I take a conservative approach to reporting; I say what I know. However, I have not read the entire reevaluation of the toxicity of dioxin released circa 1992 -- but I have it in my document vault. It is very probably genotoxic though I settled on the language "causes birth defects" and multigenerational effects. Mostly, the problem is hormone disruption.
There is still a high rate of birth defects in Vietnam, as well as in Laos and Cambodia, which were also heavily sprayed with Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. The North Vietnamese Army (the Viet Cong) used foot trails through the rainforest in all those countries in their efforts to evade the US Army; the US Army's response was to do its best to destroy the rainforest, using Agent Orange as a defoliant, so that the Viet Cong would have nowhere to hide. American soldiers were often exposed to enormous amounts of Agent Orange, too.
I know all about it. My brother served a year in the US Army in 'Nam, got sprayed with the Agent. Health impaired the rest of his life, his second daughter born without plastic sheathing to her sensory nerves, meaning the totally intact senses could not communicate with the totally intact brain. Plus general health problems. Did not survive to her 9th birthday. Quite a few such cases to people who were Vietnam vets or exposed to dioxin in other circumstances.
God, how horrible! I don't have any relatives who experienced the Vietnam War, but I've read a fair amount about it. I wonder what they teach kids about the War in American schools these days (if anything.)
Does you brother get any help from the VA in any way, (including monetary compensation, if there's nothing they can do to help him physically) due to his having been physically injured by the Agent?
By "plastic sheathing" are you referring to the myelin sheath, which is necessary to protect nerves?
The sheath which not only protects the nerves, but ensures that signals traveling along them don't just get dissipated into whatever is surrounding them, like insulation around wires.
Damage to children was never acknowledged by the US government. Only a couple of specific conditions were deemed to render an individual eligible for assistance. My brother died almost 26 years ago.
American schools teach in general (per texts used most commonly) that the war was an effort by the US government to help an ally repel aggression, but an effort which went awry, with bad policies sapping public support. Never mind that the US government violated the 1954 Geneva Agreement to have nation-wide elections in 1956, throughout the single Vietnam, a French colony at that point, temporarily divided into a zone controlled by the Viet Minh in the North and the French backed colonial authorities in the South. President Eisenhower in his autobiography stated the US got the authorities in the South to back out and declare independence because the US government knew Ho Chi Minh would win 80% of the vote in a fair election and the US could not abide that, as it would legitimate a "communist" regime. The Pentagon Papers back that up. The Saigon regime was never legally constituted. US aid was illegal, meant to sustain a US puppet regime.
Exactly. I'm so sorry your brother went through Hell, sorry about his daughter, sorry he died young (I assume he did, if he died 26 years ago), sorry for your own trauma and grief due to your being close to him and his terrible suffering.
Jeffrey, yes, your brother died way too young! And he suffered terribly all his life after his military service in Vietnam. That war was a horrific crime from start to finish. I'm 67, but it scarred me deeply, too. It seems to me that very few older Americans ever even refer to it these days, as though it were not the defining cataclysmic catastrophe of our generation.
Dig this Eric, & I'm NOT saying it's biochemically accurate, because I'm not a biochemist, but those planar molecules, especially if they possess highly-reactive end-constituents... (free radicals able to affect or strip-away valence electrons) ...& if they can slide between rungs of DNA lattice, between base pairs...could these be a source-process of genetic mutations ?
Well, while I have never read conclusively that dioxin-like compounds are genotoxic, they are considered teratogenic. They cause many kinds of birth defects.
We have covered a lot of ground. I take a conservative approach to reporting; I say what I know. However, I have not read the entire reevaluation of the toxicity of dioxin released circa 1992 -- but I have it in my document vault. It is very probably genotoxic though I settled on the language "causes birth defects" and multigenerational effects. Mostly, the problem is hormone disruption.
What Eric says about birth defects! Numerous birth defects have shown up in children of Vietnam War vets, and people exposed to dioxin elsewhere.
There is still a high rate of birth defects in Vietnam, as well as in Laos and Cambodia, which were also heavily sprayed with Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. The North Vietnamese Army (the Viet Cong) used foot trails through the rainforest in all those countries in their efforts to evade the US Army; the US Army's response was to do its best to destroy the rainforest, using Agent Orange as a defoliant, so that the Viet Cong would have nowhere to hide. American soldiers were often exposed to enormous amounts of Agent Orange, too.
I know all about it. My brother served a year in the US Army in 'Nam, got sprayed with the Agent. Health impaired the rest of his life, his second daughter born without plastic sheathing to her sensory nerves, meaning the totally intact senses could not communicate with the totally intact brain. Plus general health problems. Did not survive to her 9th birthday. Quite a few such cases to people who were Vietnam vets or exposed to dioxin in other circumstances.
God, how horrible! I don't have any relatives who experienced the Vietnam War, but I've read a fair amount about it. I wonder what they teach kids about the War in American schools these days (if anything.)
Does you brother get any help from the VA in any way, (including monetary compensation, if there's nothing they can do to help him physically) due to his having been physically injured by the Agent?
By "plastic sheathing" are you referring to the myelin sheath, which is necessary to protect nerves?
The sheath which not only protects the nerves, but ensures that signals traveling along them don't just get dissipated into whatever is surrounding them, like insulation around wires.
Damage to children was never acknowledged by the US government. Only a couple of specific conditions were deemed to render an individual eligible for assistance. My brother died almost 26 years ago.
American schools teach in general (per texts used most commonly) that the war was an effort by the US government to help an ally repel aggression, but an effort which went awry, with bad policies sapping public support. Never mind that the US government violated the 1954 Geneva Agreement to have nation-wide elections in 1956, throughout the single Vietnam, a French colony at that point, temporarily divided into a zone controlled by the Viet Minh in the North and the French backed colonial authorities in the South. President Eisenhower in his autobiography stated the US got the authorities in the South to back out and declare independence because the US government knew Ho Chi Minh would win 80% of the vote in a fair election and the US could not abide that, as it would legitimate a "communist" regime. The Pentagon Papers back that up. The Saigon regime was never legally constituted. US aid was illegal, meant to sustain a US puppet regime.
Exactly. I'm so sorry your brother went through Hell, sorry about his daughter, sorry he died young (I assume he did, if he died 26 years ago), sorry for your own trauma and grief due to your being close to him and his terrible suffering.
Thanks. He was short of his 54th birthday, that's pretty young in my book. I'm 75.
Jeffrey, yes, your brother died way too young! And he suffered terribly all his life after his military service in Vietnam. That war was a horrific crime from start to finish. I'm 67, but it scarred me deeply, too. It seems to me that very few older Americans ever even refer to it these days, as though it were not the defining cataclysmic catastrophe of our generation.