Welcome to the 
    Agent Orange Association of Canada Forum 

   This is your place to share your experiences, your outrage or your opinions.
   Letters containing racism, obscenities or hate will not be published

Please send your comments and letters to Moderator (Click to activate)

February 2008 -  AOACNewsLetter   <==Click to read
August   2008  -  AOACNewsletter   <==Click to read 
______________________________________________________

The official website of the Agent Orange Association of Canada is growing with you 
______________________________________________________

January 5, 2008

Please note that our OFFICIAL NEW address is 7 Rose Abbey Drive, Kingston, Ontario, K7K 6W1. All members with questions or concerns should either email their concern or question to the Moderator link located at the top of this page, or by Canada Post to the address as posted above. 

 December 31, 2008

May your 2009 be a terrific year - best wishes for good health

---

December 24, 2008

WE WISH EVERYONE A VERY MERRY AND SAFE CHRISTMAS, MAY YOUR FAMILY BE BLESSED WITH PEACE AND JOYFUL MEMORIES.

MERRY CHRISTMAS.....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

---

Saturday, November 29, 2008

IN MEMORIUM - GLORIA SELLAR

Today's memorial service for Gloria Sellar at Royal Military College, Kingston, ON was attended by over 200 people. The service celebrated her storybook life and her close involvement in helping veterans poisoned by Agent Orange at CFB Gagetown.

The photo below was taken by emmy-winning photojournalist, Jonathan Silvers. In the background is an oil painting of her late husband Brigadier General Gordon Sellar who commanded the 1st Battalion Black Watch at CFB Gagetown.  


picture by Jonathan Silvers, August 3, 2005

---

Friday, November 21, 2008

Study links heart disease, Agent Orange toxin

AirForce Times
Springfield, Virginia
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
  
Scientists studying dioxin exposure in humans — including Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange — have found a correlation between the chemicals and the death rates of heart disease and cardiovascular disease.

The research, presented in Environmental Health Perspectives, shows that there are “consistent and significant dose-related associations” with heart disease and modest associations with cardiovascular disease.

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Environmental Protection Agency said they realized that most dioxin studies had centered on cancer rates, but no one had produced a review of research about cardiovascular disease.

“Future studies in both animals and humans should assess whether cardiovascular effects are present at environmentally relevant doses,” the authors wrote.

Environmental Health Perspectives’ editor, Hugh Tilson, said the report is of interest because cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death in many countries, and dioxin exposure can be prevented.

So many, many of our veterans who were at CFB Gagetown and the civilians who lived there and in the surrounding communities have died of cardio-vascular disease as well as cancer. Now we finally have a link that is positive for heart disease to being exposed to dioxin. It is disgusting that our Government has ignored the health issues resulting from the mass posioning of our troops and civilians during a 28 year period.

We believe, and have been saying for years now, that it is well past time for a full public inquiry into these mass poisonings. Make it happen. Contact your M.P. and express your outrage.

Cpl. Kenneth H. Young CD (ret)
Nanaimo, B.C.

Dear Editor,

Canadians and, in fact, people worldwide continue to hear from pesticide industry scientists how safe these pesticides are and yet everywhere they are used continues to have increased and multiple medical problems ranging from increased Cancers through increased allergies all the way to and including but not limited to immune deficiencies.

 Being a CFB Gagetown toxic chemical (pesticide) defoliation victim also known as, "The Gagetown Atrocity", I am totally against any use of these (in my body) already demonstrated deadly and dangerous chemicals and it matters very little how many scientists (who get paid to find them safe) make the claim that they are safe. But I am not writing this to argue their evidence against our evidence because just like the Butter-Margarine issue there will never be definitive proof as long as we continue to listen to people who have a demonstrated conflict of interest and are paid very well for their corroborating research/evidence.

Something that struck me as worrisome in this article was the statement that, "Dow Agrosciences argues that Quebec's ban opens the door to making public policy without scientific criteria." Making public policy without scientific criteria and I maybe naively always thought that, "we the people," was what democracy was all about and yet Dow Agrosciences seems to be indicating that, "we the people ," should be replaced by, "they the industry," when it comes to public policy. It further seems to be saying that if we the people elect a government without using the scientific criteria to which they agree that they could and would in the future take us to an international tribunal to reverse democratically elected decisions. And may even be demanding that all our governments Municipal, Provincial and Federal consult with a foreign-based industry before making any decisions, virtually making it the foreign CEO's who run this country.

When CEO's and/or companies believe that their Boardroom decisions and the wishes of their investors can or even should trump democratically elected governments and their democratically arrived at decisions or laws, in my opinion it is high time that we started withdrawing all support for any company who has the same mind set and also any politician who dares to support or accepts money from them.

This in my view is a direct assault on our democracy and the Canadian way of life.

October 13, 2008

Please remember and VOTE tomorrow.

We look forward to the results.

October 2, 2008

The Press
Christchurch, New Zealand

No New Zealand doctor had penned "Agent Orange exposure" as the cause of a Vietnam veteran’s death – until last week when Sergeant Rakai-Paka "Pat" Hauwai died of cancer.

On his death certificate his doctor attributed the 65-year-old’s death to Agent Orange.

National Returned Services Association spokesman Stephen Clark says the RSA believes it’s the first time such a cause of death has been listed.

For decades Mr Hauwai, his wife Cavell and his family had been fighting the Agent Orange battle alongside his Vietnam veteran mates and the Returned Services Association. They wanted the government to recognise the health effects of the veterans’ exposure to the herbicide and defoliant while fighting with the New Zealand Army in Vietnam.

In May this year the government apologised to the Vietnam veterans for their treatment and acknowledged the suffering of men like Mr Hauwai and their families.

Many veterans suffered from leukaemia, soft tissue sarcoma and similar diseases. Their descendants suffer similar problems as well as spina bifida, cleft lip, cleft palate and adrenal gland cancer among others.

But Manurewa RSA Malaya and Vietnam branch president Theo Brunt says the government acknowledgement was too little and for Mr Hauwai too late.

"So many of our guys passed away, same symptoms as Pat’s but no doctor acknowledged their deaths’ connection to Agent Orange.

"The government now acknowledges it a little, but of late a lot of the guys have been getting sick," Mr Brunt says.

A grieving Mrs Hauwai says she wants her husband’s death to give "a huge push" to the veterans’ fight.

"I am relieved his doctor has the guts to put Agent Orange on his death certificate. It now will force the government to recognise its effects on these veterans and their families,” she says.

Most of the 4000 New Zealand military personnel who were part of the 1964-1972 New Zealand campaign in Vietnam were exposed to the powerful herbicide whose dioxin component increased their risk to various types of cancer and genetic defects.

“Over the years many of our mates have died without really knowing the truth about Agent Orange.

“The medical profession got used to the government’s statement of denial and doctors hid behind a veil of bureaucracy to deny our mates and their loved ones the truth about the cause of their death.

---

September 17, 2008
The News, Pictou Co., N.S.
Re: Continuing The Fight by Adam Richardson

Sandy Skipton, Auburn, N.S. Sandy from NS writes: I am surprised that someone is sticking up for McKay as it pertains to the Gagetown tragedy.   Compensation was offered for ONLY the summers of 1966 and 1967 when the Americans sprayed chemicals at CFB GAGETOWN, yet, the chemicals were sprayed starting in 1956 and DND sprayed 3,326,000 litres and kilograms, of 2,4-D, 2,4,5-T, dioxin, picloram & hexachlorobenzene on CFB Gagetown until 1984. These numbers are taken directly from DND documents. Agent Orange, Agent Purple, Agent White.. all names given to the markings on barrels of CHEMICALS, to make them quickly identifiable to the solders that uploaded them for spraying. So Agent Orange is NOT a name of a chemical.... the very chemicals that were in the barrels were sprayed for several years and the government, including Peter McKay, don't want the full story to be exposed so 'they' chose to hide behind the barrel identification name of Agent Orange... I would NOT call this supportive Perhaps SOME victims were given a token cheque for $20,000 as ex-gratia compensation for their exposure (a life is worth $20,00??). The victims who died prior to the magic date of Feb 6, 2006 are swept under the carpet and their estates can not apply even though their families suffered right along side of them during all the years they were ill. The handicapped children and many victims still live on in pain but are not recognized because NOT all illnesses fit into the incomplete list that the government set for the compensation... btw, Feb 6, 2006 is the date that Lord Harper and his group were installed as our government. Harper promised in January 2006, during the last election “Our government will stand up for full compensation for persons exposed to defoliant spraying during the period from 1956 to 1984. We’ll disclose all information concerning the spraying to veterans and civilians, and will provide medical testing to anyone who may have been exposed.” It never happened, he LIED... and he continues to make promises during this election that he will find a way to squirm away from.... Please educate yourselves, on this topic of Chemicals at CFB Gagetown, by reading the information posted at www.agentorangecanada.com

Gail Radford-Ross from Saskatoon, SK writes: Both the Liberals and the Conservatives have down-played this issue since we found out we'd been poisoned on May 15, 2005. They refer to the two years, 1966 and 1967 when the US military were allowed to spray us with Agents Orange, Purple and White. But it was our Canadian government who gave them permission - a foreign country! - to spray us - men, women, children, and babies! Our Canadian governments kept the spraying a secret for 50 years. Then they downplayed the news by telling us that the chemicals disappeared before they hit the ground. Later tests in areas of Camp Gagetown showed levels of dioxin that were 143 times the CCME levels - decades after the chemicals were sprayed! One MP told us that we were lucky they sprayed the defoliants, otherwise tree branches might have broken off and injured the soldiers! Harper et al also continue to treat this as only a local issue in NB. Obviously nobody told him that military families MOVE - constantly! We're located all over Canada. Wonderfully treated by the government? NOT! Supported by the goverrnment members? NOT! This is a tragedy affecting hundreds of thousands of people, those of us still alive, that is. The government seems to hope that we'll all go away by dying off. But what about our ill, diseased, and/or deformed children and grandchildren? They're going to get the justice that many of us will not live to see. And they're going to ensure what so many of us are attempting to do - to see that this kind of government betrayal and lying and killing of Canadian citizens never happens again in Canada!

---

September 13, 2008

From 9 am to 5 pm, Saturday, September 20th, the Agent Orange Association of Canada will have an information table at the Oromocto Shopping Centre. Members will answer questions about the extent of the sprayings, help people with ex-gratia paperwork and aid veterans in their appeals to DVA..

Part of this initiative is also to assist people who wish to join our Association.

Look for us, talk with us, join us.

Kenneth Dobbie
President
Agent Orange Association of Canada

---

September 6, 2008

Russell Wangersky
The Western Star, Newfoundland

It’s Time To Retire Agent White

Learn to look for it, and you’ll spot it far more often in this province than you might expect. And once you see it, it can’t help but make you wonder if there isn’t a better way.

From just above Portugal Cove South on the Avalon Peninsula until Cape Broyle, it’s just about as obvious as can be: on both sides of the road, sometimes right back into the tree line, all of the plants are dead, their leaves curled and orange-brown or black long before the first nip of frost.

The dead and dying plants are grouped in a strange and unnatural pattern: they’ve died off almost in square boxes, boxes that end abruptly within a few metres of any stream or watercourse, and then start up again on the other side. Sometimes, the edges of the box are raggedy: sometimes, fully-grown birch trees are shot up along one entire side with rusty dead leaves, like the tree has been exposed all along one side to the heat of a brush fire.

But it’s not a brush fire: this is a chemical burn.

Many people may be familiar with a herbicide known as Agent Orange. A chemical defoliant, Agent Orange used to be used not only as a military weapon, but as an industrial herbicide to restrict brush along power lines and roadsides.

It was vintage “better living through chemistry”: the active chemicals in the mix actually disrupted the internal mechanisms of plants, leading them to essentially starve themselves to death.

But even if you know Agent Orange, you might not be as familiar with its cousin.

What’s being used in this province is a chemical called Tordon 101 — a chemical, by the way, that used to be known as Agent White.

Tordon is a mixture of two active chemicals: picloram and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, better known as 2,4-D.

And as you look at the dead and dying vegetation on both sides of the road, you have to wonder if the end justifies these particular chemical means.

The Sierra Club, for example, has said that some 97 per cent of 2,4-D applications eventually end up in ground water. Denmark and Norway have banned its use. Spray opponents have pointed out that picloram is remarkably long-lasting in the environment, and that 2,4-D has been connected to reproductive effects in humans and may be connected to cases of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, as well.

This year’s spray program is apparently the leftover pieces from budgeted work last year: in all, across the province, the provincial government has spent $371,756 to spray a whopping 448 hectares of roadside land with Tordon.

That’s slightly more that 1,100 acres that has been chemically stripped of vegetation.

The money’s being spent to improve highway sightlines — primarily, to give drivers a better opportunity to spot moose.

It’s presumably cheaper than cutting back brush.

Interestingly, though, while the province went through an environmental assessment process before aerial spraying Mimic to kill hemlock looper, or Avietiv to control balsam sawfly, there doesn’t seem to have been any effort to go through the process before spraying this time.

Even if you’re cutting down trees for a hiking trail, you have to go through the environmental assessment process.

The thinking is probably that, since Tordon has been used for so long in so many jurisdictions, there’s no real need to examine whether we should be spraying with a chemical whose fundamental action is to disrupt normal cell biology in plants and essentially make them kill themselves.

Then again, for years, fire extinguishers were filled with carbon tetrachloride — before, of course, it was widely known that the chemical caused liver and kidney damage, and increased cancer risks. Now, government agencies advise you to properly dispose of any carbon tetrachloride you might still have in your house somewhere.

Times change, to put it simply — and the impression a good spraying with Tordon leaves with anyone passing through is far from a pleasing one.

Drive by Goobies on the Trans-Canada Highway, where whole swaths of alders, fireweed and other plants are now festooned with black and withered leaves, and ask yourself if we shouldn’t be talking about finding a better way than depending on a mutagenic chemical to do our dirty work for us.

---

August 26, 2008
The Daily Gleaner
Marilynn Kirchgessner

August 21, 2008
Canadian Press

Ottawa under pressure to change criteria for Agent Orange compensation

FREDERICTON — Federal Liberals are calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his government to be more generous with compensation for victims of Agent Orange testing in New Brunswick.

Andy Scott, the Liberal MP for Fredericton, says it's unfair that so many people have been eliminated from compensation due to the government's decision to limit payments to people still living on Feb. 6, 2006 - the date the Conservatives came to office.

Scott says that due to the time limitation, less than half of the $95 million compensation package has been claimed.

A group called Widows on the Warpath also is pressuring the Conservative government to change the arbitrary date.

The group says as many as 20,000 widows would be eligible for the one-time $20,000 compensation payment if the time limitation was removed.

Ottawa announced the compensation program last year to help people whose health was damaged by the testing of Agent Orange and other defoliants at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown in the 1960s.

We, at the Agent Orange Association, have been slamming the government since last September, when the Conservatives made their totally inadequate compensation package available. Yet no one has taken any notice.

We did not hear anything from the Liberals, despite phone calls and letters to their leader, Mr. Dion, and his cabinet critics and more senior members of the Liberal Party.

What has to be remembered here is that both Liberals and Conservatives allowed and condoned the sprayings for 28 years and BOTH parties covered it up for over 50 years.

Both Mr. Thompson and Mr. Scott are showing their political colours once again now that there are rumours of an election.

We have to ask, what have you been doing for the last year Mr. Scott? Why has this suddenly become an issue now, when it should have been an issue when the compensation package was announced almost one year ago? Did the widows scare you into thinking you might lose your seat?

In our opinion, for you to get off your rear end after one whole year and bring this up now smacks of opportunism, rather than real concern for your constitutents. You ought to be replaced in the next election because you do not deserve your seat.  

And Mr. Thompson, you stated it was the best you could do. God, if it is the best you could do, you should stop pretending to be a cabinet minister and let someone who knows what they are doing take over the positon and do a REAL job at expanding the compensation issue. Go somewhere else and pretend.

Disgusting.

I believed it was a no brainer, a slam dunk when I presented my case for the second time before a Veterans Affairs Appeals Board hearing for the loss of my right lung due to what I believe was caused by my exposure to Agent Orange, Purple and White while living and training at CFB Gagetown, New Brunswick in the sixties.

I presented references of five other similar appeals cases for Agent Orange exposure which were approved, even though the claimants could show no direct contact with the above mentioned chemicals.

They simply did what any good solder would do while training in Gagetown, we crawled, ate, slept and lived in dioxin and hexchlorobenzene contaminated ground for weeks at a time day in and day out year after year.

I bombarded the hearing with documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act which proved conclusively that Agent Orange, Purple and White were sprayed in quantities that would stagger the mind from 1956 to 1984

And not just the two and a half barrels sprayed by the Americans during 1966 and 1967 that the Harper Government and Greg Thompson would have you believe.

Even though after being denied a pension on my first go around with Veterans Affairs, I still qualified for and received the Government' s $20.000 ex-gratia package.

So why was I denied yet a second time for a pension by VAC?

Simply put, Greg Thompson has changed the rules. He has tipped the scales in the Governments favour, totally abandoning thousands of Gagetown chemical victims by saying only the chemical mixers and the applicators and only if they could prove they were involved in aaccident such as a chemical spill will be considered.

Mr Thompson's new pension approval guidelines will not affect those who have already been approved for pensions for exposure to Agent Orange, at CFB Gagetown such as the five similar cases which I presented the Appeals Board in my case, but it will definitely affect the Governments bottom line as it was intended.

Now to be fair, the Canadian Government (Ottawa) claims that it wasn't actually testing these chemicals and that they were in fact conducting a defoliation program and even went so far as to claim that it was being done for our own good; so a branch wouldn't fall on our heads while training.

Ottawa went on to claim that the chemicals which they used weren't Agents Orange, Purple and White but let's face it the US hadn't coined the names of the Rainbow Chemicals yet and technically there never has been any chemical product registered under these names, and besides it was a Military designated name because of the paint strip around the barrels for easy identification in a time of war, which just happened to stick.

Now I have indicated that I believe Ottawa was testing these products on their own troops and that of the US and British military at Canadian Force Base (CFB) Gagetown in New Brunswick, Canada due to Ottawa's own words. Government Officials have stated that they neither knew that the chemical products contained (TCDD) Dioxin or (HCB) Hexachlorobenzene (both known carcinogens and without much doubt two of the most deadly man-made chemicals known to mankind),
nor even if they had that they didn't know that these two chemicals were harmful.

This clearly indicates that if these chemicals were in fact registered (not yet established) that little or no testing was done on behalf of the Canadian people by Health Canada and that the testing was actually being done at CFB Gagetown for both the Canadian and US Military, on our own Military personnel and with no regards to the collateral damage it might wreck on the surrounding civilian
population.

Ottawa kept this 29 year defoliation program, or at least what chemicals they were using, secret for over 50 years and to this writer it was a far better kept secret then the nuclear weapons testing being done world wide. This Government secrecy had the effect of compounding the problem which as many as 350,000 possible victims
were facing as they began to become sick with all sorts of exotic and rare medical conditions, which most if not all Canadian doctors had neither experience nor knowledge of. Soldiers ,if they became too sick, were just discharged to the public sector and to civilian doctors ill-prepared to recognize or treat chemical contamination, and soldiers couldn't even give the doctors the heads up on the
possibility of toxic chemical exposure being a factor.

The US military is not innocent in this fiasco either as they accepted a Canadian invitation to test their sprays in 1966 and again in 1967 where they chose to spray chemicals on their allies which they had already stopped spraying on their enemies in Vietnam because of health concerns and chemicals which were illegal to spray in the US.

Ottawa has so far done very little for the victims which they created at CFB Gagetown even though over 3.3 million liters and/kilograms of toxic chemicals were sprayed there by Canada. This would most likely make Gagetown the second most sprayed area in the world and, because of it size or lack thereof, may actually contain more liters/kilograms per acre then most places in Vietnam and where concentrations of as much as 14,300 % above (CCME) Canadian Council for Ministers of the Environment acceptable guidelines for dioxin was found only last year, forty years after the last chemicals claimed to contain dioxin were in fact sprayed.

What Ottawa (Canadian Government) has done for Gagetown victims is to offer a $20,000 one time Ex-grata (meaning they accept no guilt or responsibility) payment for soldiers and civilians who lived within a 5 klm radius of the Base in the summers of 66 and 67, while excluding any claims for compensation to anyone who had the bad form to have died before November 6th 2006--and then only if they can prove a
limited number of medical conditions for Dioxin contamination- - placing the blame squarely on the shoulders US Military's  2 and 1/2 barrels of chemicals while totally ignoring the over 6,500 barrels and over 1 million kilograms of Canadian sprayed chemicals of identical composition.

At this time there are as many as 4 Class Action Law Suits ongoing here in Canada, relating to CFB Gagetown and the chemicals used there, Ottawa refuses to call
for a full public and judicial inquiry, soldiers continue to train in a dioxin soaked training area and Veterans of the cold war Chemical weapons testing continue to die.

In 2007 after hearing on television and reading in newspapers about help for people who were exposed to Agent Orange, and after listening to Greg Thompson's promises, I sent in an application for the Ex Gratia payment.

My husband had been in CFB Gagetown during the spraying of 1966 and 1967 and many years before and after. When I received my letter telling me that I was denied the Ex Gratia payment, I was shocked.

My husband died in 2004, and because the new government came into power in 2006, all claims for soldiers who died before then were denied.

I couldn't believe the new government could decide that a simple date - Feb. 6, 2006 - could separate my husband and soldiers like him from the same treatment as others.

My husband suffered from many things, cancer being the most deadly. A list of illnesses was made to determine who would be eligible. My husband had inoperable lung cancer, cancer of the brain, spinal cord, and prostate, ulcers, and other health issues.

He served his country for 25 years and was willing to die for it. We, as military widows left out and ignored by our government, are not willing to let this go by the wayside.

If there are any other widows with similar stories out there or anyone who can help us fight this cause in any way, please go to our website: www.widowsonwarpath.com

We, in the Agent Orange Association of Canada, encourage anyone reading this to visit the widows' website, then write to your M.P.  Add your voices to the growing chorus of outrage.

Only by continuously telling this so called government how they have victimized the victims all over again by setting their date of coming to power as the cut off date for Ex-gratia compensation will justice be served. Make your voices and your votes count. Write letters, make phone calls and above all, increase your numbers of complaints about this odious and inadequate time-stamped compensation.

We call it a disgusting attempt to further cover the truth.

July 24, 2008
Marilynn Kirchgessner
Nasonworth, NB

I am responding to Mike Staples' article in The Daily Gleaner, July 23rd:
"Ottawa will pick up the leftovers from Agent Orange fund".

When DVA put together their inadequate compensation package that only applies to a small number of Agent Orange victims, they came up with a projected figure of 4,500 claimants for the $20,000 ex-gratia payment and put aside $95.6 million for these claims. DVA has issued only 1,500 cheques. If 3,000 applications were denied, then over $60 million dollars is still in the kitty.

The responsible thing to do would be for PM Harper to keep his promise of compensation to all exposed to the chemicals that DND and the Americans sprayed over 28 years and distribute these monies to the widows of those who died prior to his self-imposed political cut-off date of February 6, 2006. To not do so is telling the surviving widows that their loved one's life is worth nothing because they had
the misfortune of dying prior to the date the Conservatives took power. What kind of logic and compassion is this?

Contrary to what Mr. Thompson says, his government has not taken responsibility.

This is not an American issue. The Americans sprayed Agent Orange for 4 days in 1966 and 3 days in 1967.
 
DND sprayed Agent Orange, Agent White, Agent Purple (more deadly), plus other
toxic chemicals, for 28 years, long before the Americans arrived and long after they left.

Why does Thompson's compensation package not include compensation for health issues arising from exposure to Agent White and Agent Purple and dozens of other chemicals, not just the Agent Orange that the Americans  sprayed for a total of seven days?

I am amazed that Mr. Thompson doesn't think he could have done better. While in Opposition, he demanded that the Liberals call a Public Inquiry at least four times and criticized them for nvestigating itself.

Once elected, nothing changed. He had his chance to do better and he didn't.

Mr. Harper had his chance to keep his promise and take responsibility for what our governments did. He did neither. We will continue our fight until they do.

 July 22, 2008
London Free Press