Documents dioxins 19 results

"Le peuple vietnamien s'est battu longtemps pour sa liberté, son indépendance et son unité. Le Viêt-nam forme aujourd'hui un grand pays de 80 millions d'habitants, qui vit en paix, mais dont le développement est entravé par les conséquences de l'agent orange, ce défoliant épandu massivement sur le Sud Viêt-nam pendant la guerre américaine et qui contenait de la dioxine. Ce fut là, en violation des conventions humanitaires, la première guerre chimique de l'histoire, la seule de cette ampleur qu'ait connue le monde à ce jour. C'était à l'époque une catastrophe sanitaire et environnementale. Ce l'est encore aujourd'hui, car les effets de la dioxine persistent et celle-ci poursuit son œuvre de destruction dans le silence. La population vietnamienne est atteinte dans sa chair, dans ses enfants, dans son environnement. Cette situation dramatique suscite de nombreuses questions sur les plans humanitaire, scientifique, politique et juridique. Celles-ci sont présentées dans cet ouvrage qui rappelle tout d'abord l'origine et la nature du problème, puis fournit quelques pistes sur les perspectives dans un certain nombre de domaines (environnemental, sanitaire, social, juridique). En publiant cet ouvrage, l'AAFV entend porter cette tragédie à la connaissance de l'opinion publique internationale, en vue de susciter un vaste mouvement de solidarité pour que soient menées des actions à la mesure des besoins et pour que les victimes obtiennent enfin réparation, la paix ne pouvant s'instaurer sur un crime impuni."

"Si l'histoire de l'utilisation des poisons (venins et toxiques) remonte à la nuit des temps, la synthèse chimique a permis d'en démultiplier les effets maléfiques. Ainsi la guerre du Viêt Nam fut la plus grande guerre chimique de l'histoire de l'Humanité. L'objet de ce livre est d'expliquer précisément comment et pourquoi. On y apprend de quelle façon, aujourd hui encore, un demi-siècle après le début des épandages, la dioxine pénètre dans l'organisme, quelles maladies elle engendre, et les terribles effets tératogènes qu'elle inflige aux enfants. La description scientifique des agents chimiques utilisés est aussi précise que la technologie méthodique mise en oeuvre. Celle de l'effroyable catastrophe écologique fait prendre conscience que la destruction du règne végétal précède et précipite une dévastation plus terrible encore. Les nombreuses photographies exceptionnelles, signées de très grands noms, illustrent l'ampleur de la tragédie actuelle. Cartes géographiques, documents d'archives inédits et témoignages états-uniens viennent démontrer l'intentionnalité de ce véritable écocide. L'auteur propose en outre un nouveau calcul renversant du volume des agents chimiques déversés au Viêt Nam. Dans cet ouvrage exhaustif, il aborde la partie juridique avec les procédures intentées au nom des victimes vietnamiennes dans un lourd silence médiatique. À l'image du Tribunal international d'opinion qui s'est tenu en 2009 à Paris, ce livre a pour but d'informer le public, premier pas d'une prise de conscience sur la route de la réparation des torts et des souffrances, car il existe aussi un espoir... Un document bouleversant, comme l'Histoire officielle ne la raconte jamais, pour comprendre l'ampleur de la tragédie que vivent au quotidien une multitude de victimes de l'Agent Orange. "

"As the public increasingly questioned the war in Vietnam, a group of American scientists deeply concerned about the use of Agent Orange and other herbicides started a movement to ban what they called “ecocide.”
David Zierler traces this movement, starting in the 1940s, when weed killer was developed in agricultural circles and theories of counterinsurgency were studied by the military. These two trajectories converged in 1961 with Operation Ranch Hand, the joint U.S.-South Vietnamese mission to use herbicidal warfare as a means to defoliate large areas of enemy territory. Driven by the idea that humans were altering the world's ecology for the worse, a group of scientists relentlessly challenged Pentagon assurances of safety, citing possible long-term environmental and health effects. It wasn't until 1970 that the scientists gained access to sprayed zones confirming that a major ecological disaster had occurred. Their findings convinced the U.S. government to renounce first use of herbicides in future wars and, Zierler argues, fundamentally reoriented thinking about warfare and environmental security in the next forty years. Incorporating in-depth interviews, unique archival collections, and recently declassified national security documents, Zierler examines the movement to ban ecocide as it played out amid the rise of a global environmental consciousness and growing disillusionment with the containment policies of the cold war era."

"The National Exposure Registry (NER) was created as a comprehensive group of data repositories that sought, over time, to relate specific environmental exposures to dioxin, trichloroethylene (TCE), benzene, and trichloroethane (TCA) to registrants' health conditions. Some parts of the NER were well conceived, whereas others were not. The most important design deficiency of the NER was its inability to adequately assess exposure. This was the key missing element and the Achilles heel of the NER program. At least three other important issues were never satisfactorily resolved in the design of the NER. They were unverified self-reporting, appropriate control groups, and the use of biomarkers. The many health effects that were observed to be in excess when compared with national norms might be explained by methodological differences in data analysis and reliance on self-reported nonverified data. Creating and maintaining a population-based chemical exposure registry is a more difficult challenge than creating and maintaining an outcome registry, such as a cancer registry."

"The increasing incidence of a variety of cancers after the Second World War confronts scientists with the question of their origin. In Western countries, expansion and ageing of the population as well as progress in cancer detection using new diagnostic and screening tests cannot fully account for the observed growing incidence of cancer. Our hypothesis is that environmental factors play a more important role in cancer genesis than it is usually agreed. (1) Over the last 2e3 decades, alcohol consumption and tobacco smoking in men have significantly decreased in Western Europe and North America. (2) Obesity is increasing in many countries, but the growing incidence of cancer also concerns cancers not related to obesity nor to other known lifestyle-related factors. (3) There is evidence that the environment has changed over the time period preceding the recent rise in cancer incidence, and that this change, still continuing, included the accumulation of many new carcinogenic factors in the environment. (4) Genetic susceptibility to cancer due to genetic polymorphism cannot have changed over one generation and actually
favours the role of exogenous factors through geneeenvironment interactions. (5) Age is not the unique factor to be considered since the rising incidence of cancers is seen across all age categories, including children, and adolescents. (6) The fetus is specifically vulnerable to exogenous factors. A fetal exposure during a critical time window may explain why current epidemiological studies may still be negative in adults. We therefore propose that the involuntary exposure to many carcinogens in the environment, including microorganisms (viruses, bacteria and parasites), radiations (radioactivity, UVand pulsed electromagnetic fields) and many xenochemicals, may account for the recent growing incidence of cancer and therefore that the risk attributable to environmental carcinogen may be far higher than it is usually agreed. Of major concern are: outdoor air pollution by carbon particles associated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; indoor air pollution by environmental tobacco smoke, formaldehyde and volatile organic compounds such as benzene and 1,3 butadiene, which may particularly affect children and food contamination by food additives and by carcinogenic contaminants such as nitrates, pesticides, dioxins and other organochlorines. In addition, carcinogenic metals and metalloids, pharmaceutical medicines and some ingredients and contaminants in cosmetics may be involved. Although the risk fraction attributable to environmental factors is still unknown, this long list of carcinogenic and especially mutagenic factors supports our working hypothesis according to which numerous cancers may in fact be caused by the recent modification of our environment."

"La ricerca degli effetti sulla salute umana dell'esposizione a "distruttori endocrini" è un punto focale nella comunità scientifica, sia europea che internazionale, per l'estrema distribuzione di questi contaminanti negli ambienti di vita e di lavoro e per le conseguenze che una tale esposizione può determinare sia sulla salute fisica che psicologica dei soggetti. Viene presentato un quadro generale degli studi condotti finora riguardo a specifiche esposizioni professionali che coinvolgono singole sostanze chimiche (bis-fenolo A, stirene,…) o gruppi omogenei di tossici (pesticidi, metalli, diossine, ftalati,…). Seppur nella notevole diversità delle vie di esposizione e dei meccanismi tossici di azione, nonché nella difficoltà di definire con accuratezza la condizione di esposizione lavorativa, si evidenziano correlazioni significative tra la potenziale dose e gli effetti registrati che necessitano di studi più approfonditi. In particolare ancora sono fortemente discusse le metodologie epidemiologiche applicate, che si ritiene sovrastimino l'esposizione; la "misura" o l'accurata descrizione delle condizioni espositive risulta l'elemento critico di tutto il processo, che si sta cercando di ottenere con l'applicazione di procedure standardizzate e di test statistici, dando delle indicazioni di massima per la definizione di un protocollo di valutazione del rischio nell'esposizione professionale. Gli studi condotti finora si sono orientati alla valutazione degli effetti sul sistema riproduttivo,maschile in particolare; considerata però l'ampia gamma di equilibri e sistemi in cui i distruttori endocrini possono intervenire è stato richiesto un maggiore impegno da parte della comunità internazionale per lo sviluppo di ricerche che investighino gli effetti su altri organi del sistema endocrino (primo fra tutti la tiroide), nonché sul sistema immunologico e su quello neurologico."

(Riassunto degli autori)

"Di tutti i possibili giri d'Italia il più sorprendente è quello che cerca di trovare un filo per tessere in un'unica narrazione la crisi da polveri, carbonio e ossidi della Pianura Padana, le malattie che nascono in fabbrica o sui treni dei pendolari, i veleni delle acque che lentamente sconfinano in Adriatico, i roghi che si levano dalle discariche della camorra, il lezzo dei petrolchimici, da Porto Marghera a Gela. Un giro che però porta a incrociare anche l'impegno dei nuovi agricoltori, l'onda lunga dei ciclisti, le speranze dei genitori antismog. Anche di fronte alle condizioni ambientali ci sono i sommersi e i salvati. Di ambiente si può morire o rinascere. Una città può avere un'urbanistica che produce salute o bronchiti e obesità, così come la campagna può risanare o inoculare veleni. La Terra stessa, con il progressivo aumento della temperatura media, rimescolerà le carte delle malattie e ridisegnerà le mappe del clima. Ci adatteremo? Che cosa ci aspetta nei prossimi cinquant'anni? Ma non è solo il luogo in cui si vive a fare la differenza. Sono anche il cibo, le abitudini, la mente. Il viaggio raccontato in questo libro, a cavallo fra reportage e divulgazione, è anche dentro di noi. Come l'ambiente. La salute è abbozzata nei geni ma viene scritta dalle nostre scelte, da come sapremo custodire l'ecosfera."

"Dioxins in breastmilk and PCB's in Eskimo blood-samples show that toxic chemicals accumulate in the Human system through our foodchain, even in the least industrialized regions. Since a few years, 122 countries have been preparing an internationally binding treaty to eliminate 12 of the worst bio-accumulative toxins, the so-called ‘dirty dozen'. The dirty dozen belong to the group of ”persistent organic pollutants” (POPs) and include chemicals such as dioxins, PCBs and DDT. POPs are suspected to cause cancer, auto-immune diseases as well as birth defects and developmental disorders of children.
POPs enter our body primarily through what we eat, particularly products which are at the high end of our foodchain such as meat, fish, diary products and animal fat. Many products have ‘hidden' sources of POPs, e.g. fish-oil is often very contaminated and is used in a great number of food products such as cookies and sweets. Women accumulate these POPs in their body-fat and give these toxins to their babies during pregnancy and breastfeeding."