Jeffrey Smith: “ a dangerous march away from national sovereignty for Vietnam and its farmers”

In November last year, Brian Leung, a Southeast Asia-based journalist, observed:

“Vietnam continues to roll out the red carpet for foreign biotech giants, including the infamous Monsanto, to sell the controversial genetically modified (GM) corn varieties in the country. Jeffrey Smith and other critics say that by welcoming Monsanto, Vietnam has been too nice to the main manufacturer of Agent Orange, the toxic defoliant used during the Vietnam War that left a devastating legacy still claiming victims today”.

Just Means, an online publisher of news about corporate social responsibility, sustainability, energy, health, education, technology and innovation, added an update:

Monsanto sees a large potential in Vietnam as a main market for the company, and plans to increase its investments in the country in the future. Juan Ferreira, vice president of Monsanto said that the country has a combination of good soil, good governance, and appetite for investment, which paves the way for the entry of advanced technologies.

No mention of GM by name – but plenty of enabling activity

Ferreira said that with advanced technologies, it is possible to develop agriculture sustainably by using the same or less water and nitrogen and achieve greater yields. The technologies were not named. No reference was made to the Vietnamese government’s 2006 plan (see Leung) to develop GM crops as part of a “major program for the development and application of biotechnology in agriculture and rural development.”

In August 2014, it was announced that cultivation of the country’s first GM crops will be underway by 2015 and 30-50% of farmland covered with genetically modified organisms by 2020. The country’s agriculture ministry approved the imports of four corn varieties engineered for food and animal feed processing: MON 89034 and NK 603, products of DeKalb Vietnam (a subsidiary of U.S. multinational Monsanto), and GA 21 and MIR 162 from the Swiss firm Syngenta. The Vietnamese environment ministry has to date issued bio-safety certificates for Monsanto’s MON 89034 and NK 603 corn varieties and Syngenta’s GA 21, meaning farmers can start commercially cultivating the crops. The ministry is considering issuing a similar certificate for the other variety, MR 162.

Would Vietnam be throwing away its great advantage as a non-GMO producer?

There has been a surge in consumer rejection of GMOs in the U.S., with food companies scrambling to secure non-GMO supplies, according to the New York Times. Last year, China rejected 887,000 tons of U.S. corn because it contained Syngenta’s GM maize MIR 162 – the very same variety that has just been licensed for use in Vietnam. Could these terraced fields in Mu Cang Chai, in the northeastern region of Vietnam be bull-dozed for agri-business or other forms of maldevelopment?

GMOs in their current state have nothing to offer the cause of feeding the hungry, alleviating poverty, and creating sustainable agriculture, according to the IAASTD report.

The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development report, an exhaustive analysis of agriculture and sustainability, concludes that the high costs of seeds and chemicals, uncertain yields, and the potential to undermine local food security make biotechnology a poor choice for the developing world.

It is feared that introducing Monsanto’s modified corn and the toxic weed killer Roundup Monsanto plugs for use along with its crops could have tragic consequences, as did their product Agent Orange.

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Agent Orange components, dioxins and PCBs in Okinawa: U.S. military, ‘no immediate comment’

In February, news of Louise Say’s 1997 thesis The Military and the Environment was published on a sister site; and some points made in Chapter 1 were subsequently summarised here.

We hope our many American readers will note this finding in Okinawa.

 

Excavation of the former U.S. military dump in January – uncovered barrels, some of which bore markings of the Dow Chemical Company

Under the U.S./Japan Status of Forces Agreement the military is not obliged to clean up pollution at its bases. However, growing public awareness of the problem and anger at inaction has prompted both Washington and Tokyo to address it. In late June, officials met in the U.S. for a fourth round of meetings to discuss adding environmental clauses to the agreement.

Military veterans told The Japan Times that the burial of surplus chemicals — including Agent Orange — was standard operating procedure for the U.S. military on Okinawa.

In January, 61 rusting barrels containing three components of Agent Orange, a toxic compound used widely in the Vietnam War and blamed for poisoning that has resulted in birth defects and other health problems, were unearthed.

The components were herbicides 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D, and the highly toxic TCDD dioxin, according to two independent teams of experts representing Okinawa City and the Okinawa Defense Bureau. Twenty barrels also contained traces of toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which have been linked to cancers and can damage the nervous, immune and reproductive systems.

The Pentagon has denied Agent Orange was present on Okinawa, despite testimony from more than 250 U.S. veterans who say they were sickened by the defoliant on the island during the Vietnam War. Katsuhisa Honda, a defoliant and dioxins specialist at Ehime University, says that the results prove without doubt that defoliants were buried at the dumpsite.

Though no evidence of contamination of water or soil has been found, findings provide little comfort to some on the island. “Although the Okinawa Defense Bureau says it cannot conclude that these are defoliants, local residents’ worries haven’t been dispelled,” said Masaharu Noguni, the Mayor of neighboring Chatan Town. “There is testimony from U.S. veterans. (The bureau) should investigate the full extent of the toxic substances and remove them.”

An excavation last year unearthed more than 20 other barrels at the same site. They, too, contained high levels of dioxin — causing concerns among the parents of children who attend two on-base schools nearby. In response to their demands, Kadena officials conducted surface soil samples of the school playing fields and concluded that they posed no risk to human health.

At a town hall meeting at Kadena Air Base in January, Brig. Gen. James Hecker, the 18th Wing commander, reassured parents that he would do all he could to ensure that military families are safe. He added that the military would be more forthcoming with information. However, U.S. forces have blocked subsequent attempts under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the documents which recorded the previous use of land near where the barrels were unearthed.

The discovery of the barrels is the latest in a number of incidents that raised questions about health and safety practices:

• In March, The Japan Times reported that Kadena base officials had kept secret a large spill of PCBs in the late 1980s.
• In May, Air Force officials admitted that drinking fountains were dispensing water contaminated with lead, in a building used to check children for developmental problems. The poisoning had continued from 2010 to 2014 and it is unknown how many people have been affected.
• Large caches of barrels suspected to have been defoliants were uncovered on Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in 1981 and on former military land in Chatan in 2002, but the results of testing are not known.

Japanese authorities now plan to widen the area of excavation in the city of Okinawa to determine whether any barrels remain.

The U.S. military had no immediate comment. United States Forces Japan director of public affairs Lt. Col. David Honchul said commanders had not yet received the Okinawa Defense Bureau’s findings.

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Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/07/11/national/agent-orange-ingredients-found-okinawa-military-dumpsite/#.U8GneUBjVKM

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Should Dow Chemical be allowed to add to the load of toxic chemicals assailing the global public?

NationalJournal.com covers policy in Washington. It is produced by the USA’s National Journal, said to be aimed at ‘Washington insiders’.

In the National Journal, Clare Foran reports that Dow Chemical is seeking federal approval for a herbicide containing a chemical which was one of the main ingredients in Agent Orange.

In March Reuters named the product as Enlist, in full, the Enlist Weed Control System, and said that U.S. regulators indicated they are ready to grant approvals, after more than two years of scrutiny.

The Environmental Protection Agency, which is reviewing Dow’s application, says that the chemical, known as 2,4-D, drifts easily through the air and sometimes kills not just weeds but also crops beyond the fields where it is sprayed. It is banned in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and some areas of Canada.

Drift ‘improved’ not eliminated

 If sprayed in fields, the EPA says that trace amounts could end up in food and drinking water – but in such small quantities that it would not pose a threat to public health. Enlist combines this component with glyphosate, the chief ingredient in long-used Roundup.

Dow: its product bears little resemblance to the Vietnam War-era weapon

Garry Hamlin, a spokesman for Dow, said. “The idea that this product is anything like Agent Orange just doesn’t hold up. That had a unique contaminant, and it was phased out of use in the U.S. in the 1980s because of those concerns.”

But, critics argue, Dow has made false safety claims in the past

Dow’s Dursban insecticide was a widely used household pesticide for decades until numerous health concerns led the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to phase out certain uses in 2000 because of risks found with the active ingredient, chlorpyrifos. In 2010 an Indiana family was awarded more than $23 million for medical problems their children suffered after pesticides, including Dursban, were applied to their apartment.

An Agriculture Department researcher made tests using samples collected in the mid-1990s which found that a chemical in Dow’s product could still contain contaminants similar to those found in Agent Orange.

The study concluded that there was a “need for more investigation into possible human health effects.”

Dow AgroSciences announced approval for Enlist by Canada and Japan, but it was left to Carey Gillam (Reuters) to point out:

“Dow has not yet won China’s approval for import of Enlist crops, and Dow officials said they may go ahead with commercialization in the United States even without Chinese approval. Such an approach could jeopardize some U.S. grain sales to the world’s second-largest economy. A similar scenario involving a biotech corn developed by Syngenta has caused shipments of U.S. corn to be rejected by Chinese importers”.

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We thank Ian Panton of GM free Cymru for bringing this news to our attention.

Suppression of UN reports on the use of depleted uranium weapons

Richard Bruce draws our attention to a Global Research article written this month by Denis Halliday, who resigned from his position as UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq because of the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq, characterizing them as “genocide”.

It summarises the repeated refusal of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to publish evidence uncovered in Iraq that US military use of depleted uranium and other weapons have not only killed many civilians, but continue to result in the birth of deformed babies.

2004: a WHO expert report by three leading radiation scientists “on the long-term health of Iraq’s civilian population resulting from depleted uranium (DU) weapons” was “held secret”. The study cautioned that children and adults could contract cancer after breathing in dust containing DU, which is radioactive and chemically toxic.

In November 2012, a joint WHO- Iraqi Ministry of Health Report on cancers and birth defect in Iraq was to be released. “It has been delayed repeatedly and now has no release date whatsoever.” To this date the WHO study remains “classified”.

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According to Hans von Sponeck, former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, who took over from Halliday in Iraq: “The US government sought to prevent the WHO from surveying areas in southern Iraq where depleted uranium had been used and caused serious health and environmental dangers,” (quoted in Mozhgan Savabieasfahani’s Rise of Cancers and Birth Defects in Iraq: World Health Organization Refuses to Release Data,

Is the Anglo Saxon alliance exerting pressure on the United Nations? Are they protecting companies who manufacture these weapons, including:

Aerojet, US
Alliant Techsystems (ATK), US
BAE Systems, UK
General Dynamics, US

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Halliday ends with a reference to the millions of gallons of Agent Orange used in rural Vietnam which were manufactured and sold to the Pentagon by companies Dupont and Monsanto for huge profits:

“This tragedy in Iraq reminds one of US chemical weapons used in Vietnam. And that the US has failed to acknowledge or pay compensation or provide medical assistance to thousands of deformed children born and still being born due to American military use of Agent Orange throughout the country.

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Owen Paterson you are right – GM poses no problems

American farmers enjoy hand weeding their GM crops, using flame throwers or Agent Orange on the ‘superweeds’.

Children on farms with asthma who find it hard to breathe when the giant ragweed is pollinating – no problem, keep them indoors.

And buying more herbicides and hardware to eliminate the weeds increases the country’s GDP.

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Read more in the New York Times and on the BBC website.

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Chemical crimes, and those who do not forget: Agent Orange, lead manufacturers Monsanto and Dow Chemicals

In August, a ‘landmark’ project – the US clean-up of Vietnam Agent Orange fallout – was announced 50 years and 150000 birth defects later.

The United States has begun to clean up a dangerous chemical left from the defoliant Agent Orange – 50 years after it was first sprayed by American planes on Vietnam’s jungles to destroy enemy cover. The American war on Vietnam left a terrible legacy which persists to the present day for the Vietnamese people, its forests and its land. Despite this the country has made remarkable progress in many fields since and despite the international embargo that ended in 1994. However, it will take many more years of support, and international aid to overcome the legacy of Agent Orange one of the chemicals used in that war.

Len Aldis, who set up the British-Vietnam Friendship Society sent a comment to a sister site about Britain keeping out of the Vietnam war, detailing covert assistance given.

Petition against the manufacturers of Agent Orange headed by Monsanto and Dow Chemicals

He points out that over three million Vietnamese and thousands of American servicemen and women, and their children, continue to suffer from the serious illnesses and disabilities caused by Agent Orange and that their petition against the manufacturers of Agent Orange headed by Monsanto and Dow Chemicals, seeking Justice, was denied by the US Supreme Court on 2nd March 2009. The petition can be signed on the British-Vietnam Friendship Society’s website – link given above.

His campaigns seeking justice for the victims of Agent Orange have led to Len Aldis being invited to speak at a number of universities in the UK and in Vietnam. He has also spoken on the issue at public meetings in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France and Vietnam.

The Britain-Vietnam Friendship Society (BVFS) ran a booth selling Vietnamese handicraft products at the “Coin Street Festival” in London on June 14 to raise funds for Vietnamese child Agent Orange victims. Items on sale were collected by Len during his numerous visits to Vietnam. Len Aldis said that money from sales will be channeled to the Vietnam Red Cross to cover orthopedic surgeries or buy wheelchairs for AO child victims. He affirmed that the BVFS will continue the struggle to get justice for over 3.5 million Vietnamese AO victims.

On the 9th May at the Soviet Memorial in Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park in south London Len laid flowers, remembering the sacrifices made by the people of the Soviet Union, and the support given to the people of Vietnam in their struggle for freedom and independence.

Update

The Vietnam News reports that Len, who visited Viet Nam in August to commemorate the 51st anniversary of the spraying of Agent Orange, was asked by the Viet Nam Association of Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA) to present gifts to prime minister Cameron in person.

There was a selection of beautiful hand-embroidered linen and colourful hand-painted pictures made by the AO child victims from Hoa Binh Village, Tu Du Hospital in HCM City and children from the Cancer Hospital in Da Nang City.

Earlier, the British All Party Parliament Group on Viet Nam (APPG) and the Vietnamese Embassy in the UK organised a reception to celebrate the growing ties between the two countries, as well as an auction to raise funds for AO victims on June 18 this year at Portcullis House.

We salute Len.