DoD: At least 126 bases report water contaminants linked to #cancer, birth defects
▻https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/04/26/dod-126-bases-report-water-contaminants-harmful-to-infant-development
The foam used to put out aircraft fires has been tied to cancers and childhood development issues, and the military is working on developing a replacement.
#eau #APFO #PFOA #etats-unis
The United States Used Depleted Uranium in Syria | Foreign Policy
▻http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/14/the-united-states-used-depleted-uranium-in-syria
Officials have confirmed that the U.S. military, despite vowing not to use depleted uranium weapons on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria, fired thousands of rounds of the munitions during two high-profile raids on oil trucks in Islamic State-controlled Syria in late 2015. The air assaults mark the first confirmed use of this armament since the 2003 Iraq invasion, when it was used hundreds of thousands of times, setting off outrage among local communities, which alleged that its toxic material caused cancer and birth defects.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesman Maj. Josh Jacques told Airwars and Foreign Policy that 5,265 armor-piercing 30 mm rounds containing depleted uranium (DU) were shot from Air Force A-10 fixed-wing aircraft on Nov. 16 and Nov. 22, 2015, destroying about 350 vehicles* in the country’s eastern desert.
Studies of pregnant mice with #Zika cement #microcephaly link | Fox News
▻http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/05/11/studies-pregnant-mice-with-zika-cement-microcephaly-link.html
Studies from three different teams of scientists offered proof on Wednesday that Zika can reach and destroy brain cells in the fetuses of pregnant mice, findings that solidify the link between the mosquito-borne virus and birth defects.
It’s official: #Zika causes fetal defects - POLITICO
▻http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/politico-pulse/2016/04/its-official-zika-causes-fetal-defects-early-aco-participants-captured-mor
A CDC study published in the New England Journal of Medicine definitely links the Zika virus with microcephaly and a range of other serious brain defects in infants, confirming what has been suspected for months.
— Tom Frieden: “There is no longer any doubt” that the virus is leading to an outbreak of brain problems in infants across South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The CDC director added that “never before in history has there been a situation where a bite from a mosquito could result in a devastating malformation.”
— What’s still unclear: CDC pointed out that it’s still learning when during pregnancy the virus poses the greatest risk to the fetus, what other types of birth defects Zika causes, and what percentage of Zika-infected women give birth to affected children.
article accessible
Zika Virus and Birth Defects — Reviewing the Evidence for Causality — NEJM
▻http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsr1604338
SUMMARY
The Zika virus has spread rapidly in the Americas since its first identification in Brazil in early 2015. Prenatal Zika virus infection has been linked to adverse pregnancy and birth outcomes, most notably microcephaly and other serious brain anomalies. To determine whether Zika virus infection during pregnancy causes these adverse outcomes, we evaluated available data using criteria that have been proposed for the assessment of potential teratogens. On the basis of this review, we conclude that a causal relationship exists between prenatal Zika virus infection and microcephaly and other serious brain anomalies. Evidence that was used to support this causal relationship included Zika virus infection at times during prenatal development that were consistent with the defects observed; a specific, rare phenotype involving microcephaly and associated brain anomalies in fetuses or infants with presumed or confirmed congenital Zika virus infection; and data that strongly support biologic plausibility, including the identification of Zika virus in the brain tissue of affected fetuses and infants. Given the recognition of this causal relationship, we need to intensify our efforts toward the prevention of adverse outcomes caused by congenital Zika virus infection. However, many questions that are critical to our prevention efforts remain, including the spectrum of defects caused by prenatal Zika virus infection, the degree of relative and absolute risks of adverse outcomes among fetuses whose mothers were infected at different times during pregnancy, and factors that might affect a woman’s risk of adverse pregnancy or birth outcomes. Addressing these questions will improve our ability to reduce the burden of the effects of Zika virus infection during pregnancy.
“They really don’t want this out”: The biggest Iraq War scandal that nobody’s talking about - Salon.com
▻http://www.salon.com/2016/02/16/burn_pits
Thousands of soldiers have suffered similar fates since serving in the vicinity of the more than 250 military burn pits that operated at bases throughout Iraq and Afghanistan. Many who haven’t succumbed to their illnesses yet have passed along the legacy of their poisoning to their children. “The rate of having a child with birth defects is three times higher for service members who served in those countries,” according to the book.
The impact on local civilian populations is even more widespread. Although collecting data in these war-ravaged areas is extremely difficult, the studies that have been conducted reveal sharp increases in cancer and leukemia rates and skyrocketing numbers of birth defects. The toxic legacies of these burn pits will likely continue to devastate these regions for decades.
So what are the “burn pits”? When the U.S. military set up a base in Iraq or Afghanistan, instead of building incinerators to dispose of the thousands of pounds of waste produced each day, they burned the garbage in big holes in the ground. The garbage they constantly burned included “every type of waste imaginable” including “tires, lithium batteries, asbestos insulation, pesticide containers, Styrofoam, metals, paints, plastic, medical waste and even human corpses.”
Here’s where the story gets even more infuriating. As a result of the privatization of many aspects of military operations, the burn pits were operated by Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR), a former subsidiary of #Halliburton, the company where Dick #Cheney was CEO before ascending to the White House. During the Bush administration, Halliburton made nearly $40 billion from lucrative government contracts (despite many corruption scandals), Dick Cheney and his corporate allies got incredibly rich, and the soldiers whose lives have likely been destroyed by this reckless operation… are pretty much screwed.
Virus Zika — Wikipédia
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_Zika
Le virus Zika, abrégé ZIKV pour Zika Virus en anglais, est un arbovirus membre de la famille des Flaviviridae et du genre Flavivirus, responsable de la fièvre Zika chez l’Homme. Il tire son nom d’une forêt en Ouganda où il a été identifié pour la première fois en 1947. Répandu dans les régions tropicales d’Asie et d’Afrique, il est responsable en 2007 d’une épidémie sur les îles Yap, en Micronésie, où il infecte près des trois quarts des habitants de l’île. Il est, depuis cet épisode, considéré comme émergent à potentiel épidémique et gagnant régulièrement de nouvelles régions.
Transmis par la piqûre d’un moustique infecté, il peut entraîner un syndrome proche des autres arboviroses, avec fièvre, éruption cutanée, céphalée et douleurs articulaires, spontanément résolutif. C’est par ailleurs le seul arbovirus pour lequel une transmission sexuelle a été mise en évidence.
As Zika virus spreads, El Salvador asks women not to get pregnant until 2018 - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/as-zika-virus-spreads-el-salvador-asks-women-not-to-get-pregnant-until-2018/2016/01/22/1dc2dadc-c11f-11e5-98c8-7fab78677d51_story.html?tid=sm_fb
MEXICO CITY — The rapid spread of the Zika virus has prompted Latin American governments to urge women not to get pregnant for up to two years, an extraordinary precaution aimed at avoiding birth defects believed to be linked to the mosquito-borne illness.
What until recently was a seemingly routine public health problem for countries that are home to a certain type of mosquito has morphed into a potentially culture-shaping phenomenon in which the populations of several nations have been asked to delay procreation. The World Health Organization says at least 20 countries or territories in the region, including Barbados and Bolivia, Guadeloupe and Guatemala, Puerto Rico and Panama, have registered transmission of the virus.
Toxic fallout from US war produces record child birth defect rates in Iraq
▻http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/10/13/fall-o13.html
In a report presented at the University of Michigan last Wednesday, “The epidemic of birth defects in Iraq and the duty of public health researchers,” Dr. Muhsin Al Sabbak, a gynecologist from Basra Maternity Hospital, and Dr. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, an environmental toxicology researcher, reviewed the ever-growing mountain of data showing that rates of cancer, child cancer and birth defects (BD) have reached historically unprecedented levels in Fallujah and other Iraqi cities since the 2003 US invasion.
The presenters argued that the extreme levels of pathological genetic anomalies in Iraqi cities, documented by numerous studies, are being generated by a hellish mixture of nano-particularized heavy metals and other toxins generated by the US military occupation and heavy bombardment of Iraqi cities.
Levels are now much higher than those recorded among survivors of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the presenters said, citing various studies conducted during the past decade.
Birth Outcomes and Maternal Residential Proximity to Natural Gas Development in Rural Colorado
▻http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/wp-content/uploads/122/1/ehp.1306722.pdf
Abstract
Background: Birth defects are a leading cause of neonatal mortality. Natural gas development (NGD) emits several potential teratogens and US production is expanding.
Objectives: We examined associations between maternal residential proximity to NGD and birth outcomes in a retrospective cohort study of 124,842 births between 1996 and 2009 in rural Colorado.
Methods: We calculated inverse distance weighted natural gas well counts within a 10-mile radius of maternal residence to estimate maternal exposure to NGD. Logistic regression, adjusted for maternal and infant covariates, was used to estimate associations with exposure tertiles for congenital heart defects (CHDs), neural tube defects (NTDs), oral clefts, preterm birth, and term low birth weight. The Association with term birth weight was investigated using multiple linear regression.
Results: Prevalence of CHDs increased with exposure tertile, with an odds ratio (OR) of 1.3 for the highest tertile (95% CI: 1.2, 1.5) and NTD prevalence was associated with the highest tertile of exposure (OR = 2.0, 95% CI: 1.0, 3.9, based on 59 cases), compared to no gas wells within a 10-mile radius. Exposure was negatively associated with preterm birth and positively associated with fetal growth, though the magnitude of association was small. No association was found between exposure and oral clefts.
Conclusions: In this large cohort, we observed an association between density and proximity of natural gas wells within a 10-mile radius of maternal residence and prevalence of CHDs and possibly NTDs. Greater specificity in exposure estimates are needed to further explore these associations.
Hormone-disrupting chemicals found in water at fracking sites
▻http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-fracking-health-20131217,0,5154343.story
Water samples collected at Colorado sites where hydraulic fracturing was used to extract natural gas show the presence of chemicals that have been linked to infertility, birth defects and cancer, scientists reported Monday.
The study, published in the journal Endocrinology, also found elevated levels of the hormone-disrupting chemicals in the Colorado River, where wastewater released during accidental spills at nearby wells could wind up. [...]
The process [of fracking] is exempt from some regulations that are part of the Safe Drinking Water Act, and energy companies do not have to disclose the chemicals they use if they consider that information a trade secret. [...]
Over the last three years, researchers have assessed more than 700 chemicals that could be used in the fracking process and estimated that about 100 are known or suspected EDCs [endocrine-disrupting chemicals]. [...]
Research into fracking’s possible effects on public health is in its early phase, and Nagel and other scientists said the study was a first step that warranted follow-up work
Ten Years Later, U.S. Has Left Iraq With Mass Displacement & Epidemic of Birth Defects, Cancers
Qui sera jugé pour ces crimes ?
| NationofChange
▻http://www.nationofchange.org/ten-years-later-us-has-left-iraq-mass-displacement-epidemic-birth-de
In part two of our interview, Al Jazeera reporter Dahr Jamail discusses how the U.S. invasion of Iraq has left behind a legacy of cancer and birth defects suspected of being caused by the U.S. military’s extensive use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus. Noting the birth defects in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, Jamail says: “They’re extremely hard to bear witness to. But it’s something that we all need to pay attention to ... What this has generated is, from 2004 up to this day, we are seeing a rate of congenital malformations in the city of Fallujah that has surpassed even that in the wake of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that nuclear bombs were dropped on at the end of World War II.” Jamail has also reported on the refugee crisis of more than one million displaced Iraqis still inside the country, who are struggling to survive without government aid, a majority of them living in Baghdad. Click here to watch part 1 of the interview. [includes rush transcript]
Du coup, un billet à relire :
Irak : après les feux de la guerre, les cancers - Les blogs du Diplo
►http://blog.mondediplo.net/2012-12-05-Irak-apres-les-feux-de-la-guerre-les-cancers
Par Agnès Stienne
Tony Blair déclarait à l’automne 2012 que « les forces britanniques devaient être fières de leur intervention en Irak, lors de l’invasion américaine, car le pays a connu une forte croissance économique depuis que Saddam Hussein a été chassé du pouvoir en 2003 », et se réjouissait d’« une chute de la mortalité infantile ». Ces déclarations enthousiastes ont indigné les médecins irakiens, qui doivent faire face à une progression alarmantes des cancers et des malformations congénitales des nouveaux-nés dans les villes bombardées par la coalition internationale.
Les « #Normes »
Obama ▻http://www.lavoixdelamerique.com/content/obama-na-pas-pris-de-decision-sur-la-syrie/1739443.html :
les Etats-Unis doivent « s’assurer que lorsque les pays enfreignent les normes internationales (...) ils doivent répondre de leurs actes
Fred Kaplan ▻http://www.slate.fr/story/76844/syrie-otan-obama-kosovo :
Obama (...) prend très au sérieux la question des normes internationales.
Bertrand Badie ▻http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/chat/2013/08/29/syrie-une-diplomatie-de-punition-est-elle-possible_3468637_3232.html
La « diplomatie punitive » [de Obama] évoque .. une déviation par rapport à la norme...
Gary Younge ▻http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/08/us-little-credibility-syria-chemical-weapons :
For all America’s condemnations of chemical weapons, the people of Falluja in Iraq are experiencing the birth defects and deformities in children and increases in early-life cancer that may be linked to the use of depleted uranium during the US bombardment of the town. It also used white phosphorus against combatants in Falluja.
Its chief ally in the region, Israel, holds the record for ignoring UN resolutions, and the US is not a participant in the international criminal court – which is charged with bringing perpetrators of war crimes to justice – because it refuses to allow its own citizens to be charged. On the very day Obama lectured the world on international #norms he launched a drone strike in Yemen that killed six people.
Obama’s rogue state tramples over every law it demands others uphold | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/09/obama-rogue-state-tramples-every-law
Obama warned last week that Syria’s use of poisoned gas “threatens to unravel the international norm against chemical weapons embraced by 189 nations”. Unravelling the international norm is the US president’s job.
In 1997 the US agreed to decommission the 31,000 tonnes of sarin, VX, mustard gas and other agents it possessed within 10 years. In 2007 it requested the maximum extension of the deadline permitted by the Chemical Weapons Convention – five years. Again it failed to keep its promise, and in 2012 it claimed they would be gone by 2021. Russia yesterday urged Syria to place its chemical weapons under international control. Perhaps it should press the US to do the same.
In 1998 the Clinton administration pushed a law through Congress which forbade international weapons inspectors from taking samples of chemicals in the US and allowed the president to refuse unannounced inspections. In 2002 the Bush government forced the sacking of José Maurício Bustani, the director general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. He had committed two unforgiveable crimes: seeking a rigorous inspection of US facilities; and pressing Saddam Hussein to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention, to help prevent the war George Bush was itching to wage.
...
Smallpox has been eliminated from the human population, but two nations – the US and Russia – insist on keeping the pathogen in cold storage. They claim their purpose is to develop defences against possible biological weapons attack, but most experts in the field consider this to be nonsense. While raising concerns about each other’s possession of the disease, they have worked together to bludgeon the other members of the World Health Organisation, which have pressed them to destroy their stocks.
In 2001 the New York Times reported that, without either Congressional oversight or a declaration to the Biological Weapons Convention, “the Pentagon has built a germ factory that could make enough lethal microbes to wipe out entire cities”. The Pentagon claimed the purpose was defensive but, developed in contravention of international law, it didn’t look good. The Bush government also sought to destroy the Biological Weapons Convention as an effective instrument by scuttling negotiations over the verification protocol required to make it work.
Looming over all this is the great unmentionable: the cover the US provides for Israel’s weapons of mass destruction. It’s not just that Israel – which refuses to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention – has used white phosphorus as a weapon in Gaza (when deployed against people, phosphorus meets the convention’s definition of “any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm”).
As for the norms of international law, let’s remind ourselves where the US stands. It remains outside the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, after declaring its citizens immune from prosecution. The crime of aggression it committed in Iraq – defined by the Nuremberg tribunal as “the supreme international crime” – goes not just unpunished but also unmentioned by anyone in government. The same applies to most of the subsidiary war crimes US troops committed during the invasion and occupation. Guantánamo Bay raises a finger to any notions of justice between nations.
None of this is to exonerate Bashar al-Assad’s government – or its opponents – of a long series of hideous crimes, including the use of chemical weapons. Nor is it to suggest that there is an easy answer to the horrors in Syria.
But Obama’s failure to be honest about his nation’s record of destroying international norms and undermining international law, his myth-making about the role of the US in world affairs, and his one-sided interventions in the Middle East, all render the crisis in Syria even harder to resolve. Until there is some candour about past crimes and current injustices, until there is an effort to address the inequalities over which the US presides, everything it attempts – even if it doesn’t involve guns and bombs – will stoke the cynicism and anger the president says he wants to quench.
’Falluja Babies’ and Depleted Uranium — America’s Toxic Legacy in Iraq | Alternet
▻http://www.alternet.org/world/falluja-babies-and-depleted-uranium-americas-toxic-legacy-iraq?akid=10215.
Dr Mozghan Savabieasfahani is an environmental toxicologist based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She is the author of more than two dozen peer reviewed articles, most of which deal with the health impact of toxicants and war pollutants. Her research now focuses on war pollution and the rising epidemic of birth defects in Iraqi cities.
“After bombardment, the targeted population will often remain in the ruins of their contaminated homes, or in buildings where metal exposure will continue,” Dr Savabieasfahani told Al Jazeera.
“Our research in Fallujah indicated that the majority of families returned to their bombarded homes and lived there, or otherwise rebuilt on top of the contaminated rubble of their old homes. When possible, they also used building materials that were salvaged from the bombarded sites. Such common practices will contribute to the public’s continuous exposure to toxic metals years after the bombardment of their area has ended.”
She pointed out how large quantities of DU bullets, as well as other munitions, were released into the Iraqi environment.
Depleted Uranium Contamination is Still Spreading in Iraq
▻http://truth-out.org/news/item/15168-depleted-uranium-contamination-is-still-spreading-in-iraq
There is an absence of data and “crucial information” on the amount and types of depleted uranium weapons used, their targets, and the remediation efforts undertaken shortly after the war by the provisional government, making it difficult for international aid organizations and Iraqi authorities to assess and manage contamination with the ultimate goal of reducing harm to civilians.
Iraq War Anniversary: Birth Defects And Cancer Rates At Devastating High In Basra And Fallujah ▻http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/20/iraq-war-anniversary-birth-defects-cancer_n_2917701.html
Irak : impossible d’aller plus loin que la photo de ce nourrisson, arrivé dans la guerre, l’uranium et le phosphore.
Ten Years Later, U.S. Has Left Iraq with Mass Displacement & Epidemic of Birth Defects, Cancers | Democracy Now !
▻http://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/20/ten_years_later_us_has_left
In part two of our interview, Al Jazeera reporter Dahr Jamail discusses how the U.S. invasion of Iraq has left behind a legacy of cancer and birth defects suspected of being caused by the U.S. military’s extensive use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus.
Comment les habitants de Fallujah en Irak paient, des années après, le prix des bombardements et de la guerre américains...
Isenberg Institute of Strategic Satire
►http://iissonline.net/?p=3180
The study’s conclusions are only the latest in a series of studies that have suggested a link between bombardment and a rise in birth defects. Previous studies prompted the World Health Organization in 2010 to undertake an inquiry into the prevalence of birth defects in the area. The WHO’s report, due out next month, is widely expected to show an increase in birth defects after the conflict. It has looked at nine “high-risk” areas in Iraq, including Fallujah and Basra. Where high prevalence is found, the WHO is expected to call for additional studies to pinpoint precise causes.
#Irak
Researchers Studying High Rates of #Cancer and Birth Defects in Iraq - Spiegel Online
►http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/researchers-studying-high-rates-of-cancer-and-birth-defects-in-iraq-a-873225
The guns have been silent in Iraq for years, but in Basra and Fallujah the number of birth defects and cancer cases is on the rise. Locals believe that American uranium-tipped munitions are to blame and some researchers think they might be right.
(et aussi ►http://seenthis.net/messages/101385)
Dr. Michael Hendryx, measuring mining’s toll on health | Living on Earth
►http://www.loe.org/blog/blogs.html?seriesID=1&blogID=17
This week the Journal of Community Health published a study that found people who live near mountaintop removal coal mines have cancer rates twice as high as people living elsewhere in Appalachia. Last month, a peer-reviewed study linked mountaintop removal mining to high rates of birth defects.
And in February, a study pegged the public health costs of coal in Appalachia at about $80 billion a year.
Aside from all being about coal, these studies have something else in common: they were all co-authored by Dr. Michael Hendryx, an associate professor of community medicine at West Virginia University. Since landing in West Virginia five years ago, Hendryx has been filling a void in medicine’s understanding of the health impacts of coal mining.
