Vietnam veterans from Australia who were exposed to the defoliant Agent Orange will now be compensated by their government for cancers associated with the exposure, but American veterans may have to wait until further evidence of a link is found.
In October, the Australian Veterans' Affairs Minister Con Sciacca announced the policy change based on a report commissioned following release of a 1993 report by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Vietnam Veterans and Agent Orange, that linked Agent Orange to cancers such as Hodgkin's disease, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and soft tissue sarcoma, as well as the skin diseases chloracne and porphyria cutanea tarda. The Australian report, prepared by two Australian medical professors, also linked Agent Orange to leukemia and three respiratory cancers of the lung, larynx, and trachea.
Although it has not been determined how many Australian veterans will be eligible for compensation or how much money they may receive, Australian veterans groups have estimated that up to 90% of the 50,000 Australians who served in Vietnam were exposed to chemical herbicides used to defoliate the jungles of Vietnam. More than 11 million gallons of Agent Orange were sprayed on jungle and inadvertantly on soldiers from 1962 to 1971.
The man who ordered much of the spraying, retired U.S. Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, former chief of U.S. naval forces in Vietnam, has called for the U. S. government to spend $50 million a year to study the effects of Agent Orange used in Vietnam. Zumwalt has stated that he would like to see studies focusing on the link between dioxin, the chemical in Agent Orange suspected of causing health effects, and cancer, birth defects, reproductive problems, and nervous system damage. Plans are underway for studies to be conducted in Vietnam by U.S. government health agencies, including the NIEHS, to examine such links.
Green for orange. While Vietnam veterans in Australia will be paid for respiratory cancers caused by Agent Orange, the U.S. government continues to research the issue.
Source: UPI/Bettman
In April, a team of scientists from universities and organizations around the world including the EPA, World Health Organization, International Agency for Research on Cancer, and the Municipal Institute for Medical Investigation in Spain will travel to Vietnam to join leading Vietnamese dioxin researchers in determining what type of studies should be conducted. The trip is funded by the NIEHS, which is under a congressional mandate to study the effects of Agent Orange. Zumwalt has previously traveled to Vietnam to secure permission from Vietnamese officials for epidemiological studies comparing individuals in villages that were sprayed with villages in unsprayed areas.
According to Christopher Portier, chief of the NIEHS Laboratory of Quantitative and Computational Biology and one of the trip's organizers, the possible activities for the team include visits to hospitals to assess what types of records are kept that may be used in epidemiology studies, visits to provinces where heavy spraying occurred to examine what types of health problems are prevalent, and a two-to-three day workshop with Vietnamese medical and research personnel to discuss the problems and possibilities of conducting large-scale epidemiology studies on Agent Orange and other herbicides in Vietnam.
Currently, the U.S. government compensates veterans exposed to Agent Orange suffering from chloracne, certain soft tissue sarcomas, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Veteran's and other activist groups hope that trips like the one scheduled for April will produce evidence to compel the government to include additional cancers and noncancer effects among those for which veterans may be paid.
Using chemotherapy and hormonal therapies to treat breast cancer has been successful, but preventing the cancer from returning continues to be a major problem. Researchers at Duke University have developed a unique way of using immunotherapy to tackle this problem.
The treatment, developed by a team led by Kim Lyerly, co-director of Duke's Center for Molecular Therapeutics, involves the injection of a patient's own tumor cells that have been genetically modified into the body to activate extra immune cells that would stop or slow the growth of tumors. Preliminary tests on animals have been successful, and the Duke researchers hope to begin tests soon on women with breast cancer.
The body's own ammunition. Genetically modified tumor cells may activate the body's immune system to stop or slow the growth of tumors.
Source: H. Kim Lyerly
Lyerly said the idea for the treatment stemmed from observations that mice with cancer could be immunized to fight off their cancers. The researchers found that mice with breast cancer responded when injected with their own modified immune cells.
Lyerly conducted experiments in which he removed cancer cells from mice and altered the genetic material within each cell. The cells, which were reinserted into the mice, were engineered to secrete interleukin 2, one of the body's natural immune system boosters. After the treatment, the lungs of the mice were weighed and the tumor nodules were counted. According to Lyerly, there was a significant reduction in the number of tumor nodules and the weight of the lungs of treated mice, as compared to the control mice.
Lyerly said the treatment is not meant to cure breast cancer, but rather to work with current forms of treatment to prevent the cancer from returning. According to the American Cancer Society, there are 182,000 cases of breast cancer nationwide each year, and 46,000 deaths each year are attributed to breast cancer. The rate of recurrence following current forms of treatment depends on the type of cancer.
The Duke research team has received approval from the National Institutes of Health to test the treatment on women with advanced breast cancer. Preliminary tests will determine whether the treatment is safe. Lyerly said that one possible problem with the treatment is that it could induce autoimmunity against undiseased parts of the body.
Lyerly and co-workers are now working to submit an application to the FDA, which usually approves or disapproves of an application within a month. Lyerly said the team is working quickly to submit the application, but some safety issues still have to be resolved. The researchers will begin tests as soon as possible if the FDA approves the experiment. Lyerly said the tests will be conducted on women who have failed to respond to other forms of treatment. The women would receive dermal injections of their own treated cells approximately four separate times.
Based on the original tests, the researchers caution that they do not expect a tremendous response. "We don't think we'll see much, but we can test for induction of immunity," Lyerly said. "And we want to make sure that it's safe."
A mandate by the federal government that agencies incorporate environmental justice into their decision-making has been applauded by environmental justice advocates. However, it seems that agreement as to how this should be done is far from being settled. A first attempt by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission prompted controversy among all parties involved.
Last year, the NRC attempted to address environmental justice in an environmental impact statement (EIS) prepared for the construction of the Claiborne Enrichment Center in Homer, Louisiana. The proposed site is located between two predominately African-American communities. The NRC and the EPA, the agency responsible for reviewing the EIS under the National Environmental Policy Act, drew intense criticism from environmental justice advocates, who charged the EPA with setting a dangerous precedent for future reviews.
The EPA Region VI in Dallas, Texas, reviewed the first draft of the EIS in January 1994, saying, "based on the type of project and the location of the preferred site, we are concerned that your draft EIS did not specifically address the issue of 'environmental justice.'" Several public comments on the draft alleged that the site was chosen because it was a minority community.
A few weeks after EPA's review, President Clinton signed the executive order on environmental justice, which directs federal agencies to analyze, "the environmental effects, including human health, economic and social effects, of federal actions." In response to the executive order and EPA's comments, the NRC added a section in the final August EIS to cover the issue of environmental justice which states: "[NRC] staff recognizes that to the extent the CEC affects the environment, those living closest will be the most affected. All aspects of CEC operation will be required to comply with State and Federal environmental regulations . . . staff found no evidence of racial considerations being used in the site selection process, and the staff does not believe that facility operation will result in significantly disproportionate adverse impact."
The EPA Region VI responded to the NRC's addition in a letter on 25 October 1994, saying, "Although the final EIS does contain a section on [environmental justice], we fail to find any specific analysis supporting the NRC's conclusion "that the facility is not an example of" environmental injustice. The EPA pointed out that the NRC staff failed to weigh the cumulative impacts of the facility and other polluting industries near the community, and that while the NRC staff examined race and population data at the parish level, information such as the city or community census data "would be more appropriate in this case."
Although the EPA made these comments, the NRC did not change the text of the final EIS. The EPA has been criticized for not taking further action against the statement.
Critics say that the EPA should have referred the EIS to the White House Council on Environmental Quality for review. The CEQ oversees federal NEPA compliance. Under NEPA regulations, the EPA has 25 days from the issuance of a final EIS to refer it to the CEQ. After the 25-day period, the EPA can only refer the EIS for review if the NRC concurs, which is not likely at this point.
The EPA has defended its actions, saying that officials were unable to challenge the EIS due to lack of guidance from the White House on including environmental justice in the EIS process. According to one EPA source quoted in Inside EPA, the White House has not dictated what should merit a review by the CEQ in such a situation. "We don't have a standard to do that," the source said, noting that "there is no guidance out there yet."
EPA Region VI and NRC officials met in November to further discuss the issue. "The NRC wanted to sit down and talk about the comments we made," said Yvonne Vallette, a life scientist in the environmental services division of the Region VI EPA. "They weren't sure how to handle environmental justice."
Following the meeting, the EPA hoped that the NRC would create a supplemental document to the final EIS providing further information on environmental justice, but the NRC sent a letter to the EPA in December declining the EPA's advice. "NRC basically said thanks, but no thanks," Vallette said.
Vallette said that this situation was unusual because the executive order was issued after the draft EIS was reviewed, and the EPA is not supposed to raise new issues on a final draft.
The NRC will hold a licensing review on March 15, which the EPA will monitor. "We'll be looking at how safety and environmental justice issues will be made available to the public," Vallette said.
Meanwhile, EPA officials are meeting with the CEQ to develop guidelines on incorporating environmental justice concerns into federal documents, which
will increase public participation in the EIS process.
Congress should address the weaknesses of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), implement changes to make the act more effective, and consider making TSCA the first line of defense against threats to the public health and the environment, the General Accounting Office recommended in a report released last September. In Toxic Substances Control Act: Legislative Changes Could Make Act More Effective, the GAO urged Congress to "strengthen the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate chemicals by allowing TSCA to be used in preference to other environmental laws, where appropriate, and to establish a framework for taking action that is less burdensome for the EPA."
Congress enacted TSCA in October 1976 to address the risks posed by existing chemicals and to provide safeguards against the introduction of additional contaminants. But of the 72,000 substances in EPA's inventory of TSCA chemicals, the agency has issued controls for only nine substances under the act.
Spokespersons for industry and the environmental community have different opinions of the GAO report. "We are still evaluating the report's recommendations, but we are not encouraged by them," explained Charles Walton of the Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA). "The CMA believes it has many inaccuracies."
Environmentalists, on the other hand, say the report and its findings are long overdue. "The EPA is not going to be more aggressive in implementing TSCA unless prodded by Congress," said Pat Costner, a spokesperson for Greenpeace's Toxic Waste Campaign. "The EPA's record on TSCA is dismal. There is such a huge backlog of chemicals that unless something formidable is done, the EPA is always going to have to play catchup."
While the report noted that the EPA has regulated few chemicals under TSCA, it highlighted two factors as largely to blame for the EPA's poor performance: TSCA's requirement that the EPA use the least burdensome regulation to control substances, which has restricted the EPA from using its authority, and the EPA's tendency to interpret TSCA as giving preference to dealing with chemical risks under other laws.
The EPA acknowledges that TSCA's usefulness has been limited and agrees that Congress should move to strengthen the EPA's ability to control harmful chemicals. "We generally agree with the report's findings, although the agency believes it has been more productive than the GAO says it has been," explained Tom Tillman, chief of the EPA's communications and outreach branch. "TSCA has a lot of potential, but whether TSCA is doing what it's intended to do is another question."
The report addressed one of TSCA's most controversial areas, confidential business information (CBI), under which industry has been allowed to withhold health and safety data, by recommending a process be implemented that "would both protect legitimate CBI claims under TSCA and discourage the chemical industry from filing inappropriate claims." Robert Hagerman, a spokesperson for Dow Chemical Company, who testified at a congressional hearing about TSCA last July, concedes that the large number of inappropriate claims filed under CBI is a big problem, but says industry is working hard to eliminate such claims. "We are just starting to gear up to address the issue," Hagerman said.
Industry strongly disagrees with at least one GAO recommendation: the need for TSCA to permit sharing CBI with state governments. Walton says that's already being done. "The CMA, EPA, and the states have been working together on devising a mechanism that would allow states access to CBI," he said, "but industry feels it should be done on a volunteer basis."
Environmentalists say Congress should take the initiative on the issue. "TSCA's data is about all we have to determine the environmental health effects of commercial chemicals," explained Karen Florini of the Environmental Defense Fund. "Providing wider access to that data would help protect the environment and the public against possible risks from chemicals."
The report also noted that providing wider access to TSCA data would help reseachers and scientists review the EPA's risk assessment decisions better. To improve standards in this area, the report recommended that Congress consider following the lead of countries like Canada and Germany, which place the burden of proving chemical safety on the manufacturer or processor.
Industry spokespersons complain that making companies spend more money on testing would make new products cost prohibitive and could reduce efforts to find safer substitutes. Besides, they contend, governments and industries in foreign countries have not been satisfied with regulations that put the burden of proof of safety on the manufacturer or processor. "Our first-hand knowledge of those countries is that government and industry is expending a great deal of energy to get around the law," Hagerman said.
While a substantial portion of environmentalists don't support risk assessment per se, they do want to see a more detailed and thorough assessment of chemical effects. "The EPA has only assessed about two percent of the chemicals in use. That is a pitiful record, and something should be done about it," said Costner.
Some sources are not sure that Congress will move quickly to act upon the report's recommendations and doubt that TSCA reform will be high on the congressional agenda for the next two years at least. But they add that lawmakers will eventually have to address the report's recommendations. "In the meantime, the report is still going to be around, and we will still be quarreling about the controversial issues surrounding TSCA," said Hagerman.
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The Internet offers a mind-boggling array of on-line resources. To the new user on the information highway, or "newbie," jumping on the Internet with no idea what's available or where to find it can be like starting a road trip without a map. For the more adventurous with time to kill this may be fine, but for researchers looking to make the most of their time on the Internet, one of the best maps available is a copy of the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF)
Guide to the Internet.
This guide, formerly known as The Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet (no offense was intended but maybe some was taken, so the name has been changed), was written for people who have little or no experience with network communications. The guide spans a broad range of topics such as setting up, e-mail, Usenet, telnet, FTP, Gopher, WAIS, WWW, news of the world, education and business on the net, and net jargon. The price is right too: the guide is distributed free of charge. The EFF has on-line archives that may be accessed via FTP, Gopher, or the World Wide Web (WWW):
FTP: ftp.eff.org
Gopher: gopher.eff.org
WWW: http://www.eff.org/
The Guide to the Internet is one of the many services provided by the EFF, a nonprofit civil liberties and public interest organization working to protect freedom of expression, privacy, and access to on-line resources and information. The EFF home page on the WWW contains information on EFF services and forums, EFF publications, board and staff homepages, and other interesting Internet sites and resources.
Users of NCSA Mosaic, NetScape, or other types of WWW browsers can take a look at the EFF Network Resources Archive at:
(http://www.eff.org/pub/Net_info/Resources/00-links_resources.html)
The archive provides links to regional, foreign, and local information and resources, the Internet phone company, Internet business directory, weather reports, eathquake reports, the WWW resume server, and more. One example of what users may find browsing the archive is the Internet index located at:
(http://www.openmarket.com/info/internet-index/94-12.html)
The index provides information such as the following facts: number of countries on the Internet in 1994: 81; number of countries on the Internet in 1993: 60; number of peer-reviewed scholarly journals published electronically on the Internet (as of December, 1994): over 70.
Users interested in receiving these "factoids" monthly may subscribe to the Internet index by sending e-mail to the following address: internet-index-request@ OpenMarket.com. In the body of the e-mail message type "subscribe-internet-index".
Information from the Internet index clearly indicates that the Internet is growing by leaps and bounds. By retrieving the EFF's Guide to the Internet a user can learn what the Internet offers, become an informed Internet user, and bolster the statistics collected by the Internet index.
Last Update: April 13, 1998