Npr echoes of vietnam agent orange update#
Npr echoes of vietnam agent orange full#

Without this additional information, data is often correlational. Not to mention, we still don’t understand the mechanisms of how many PFAS compounds harm people at the cellular level. There are lots of factors, like a person’s overall health, to account for. Upham said it’s difficult - legally and scientifically - to connect PFAS exposure with specific illnesses. “Treating PFAS like one chemical is overly simplistic,” Upham said. He studies how PFAS affect cell communication and looks at factors that may counteract the chemicals’ toxicity. There are over 5,000 different PFAS compounds, each one with different effects on the human body and different levels of toxicity.īrad Upham is an environmental health professor at Michigan State University. PFAS exposure is associated with increased risk of certain cancers, developmental effects in children, decreased fertility, and weakened immune systems. Minor details his family's experiences in his book 'Mitchell's Memoir.' Craig Minor (red shirt, right) poses with his family. The problem is, they’re the very perpetrators - the very poisoners - they would implicate themselves and be responsible.”Ĭourtesy Photo Lt. “ has all the health records and they know all the people who were there,” Minor said. He also advocates for the DOD to acknowledge contamination on military sites and add PFAS exposure to the VA’s Presumptive List. Today, Minor makes himself available to veterans and servicemembers, who may have been exposed to PFAS and who are reckoning with health issues. “This is not something where you can keep kicking the can down the road, and finally some day, you say, ‘oh my god, you were right’ and look around and there’s only two people left.” Minor said the DOD hides behind other agencies, and it has to take the lead. “The color of money with work is clean up money, not health,” she said. Health, she said, is the responsibility of other agencies.

Npr echoes of vietnam agent orange update#

He said this potentially widespread poisoning has gone unrecognized.Īn air force official said in February at a Wurtsmith update meeting, the air force’s responsibility at Wurtsmith is to focus on clean up efforts. Minor calls the contamination on military bases like Wurtsmith, Cold War “battlefield wounds.” He likens it to Agent Orange in Vietnam or the burn pits in Iraq. Since learning of his exposure to PFAS, he’s reached out to veterans and officials from the Department of Defense, warning of a crisis. “We were shocked, but immediately, when I heard it, I sensed in the spirit it was true and started researching it,” Minor said. The mysterious illnesses: his unidentifiable prostate issues, enlarged liver and spleen, low-functioning kidneys, elevated blood pressure - and his son’s severe cerebral palsy. Minor says at that moment, it all started to make sense.

Npr echoes of vietnam agent orange full#

He had been stationed at the base, at a time when AFFF fire fighting foam, full of PFAS, was likely being dumped on the ground. His ears perked up when he heard the former Wurtsmith Airforce Base in Oscoda listed as a site of contamination.

Craig Minor had been watching the news with his family a few years ago when he first learned of PFAS.