A rain from hell began falling 54 years ago. Unto how many unborn generations?
When my sister was born in New York City Hospital in the sprawling metropolis of Manhattan in 1982, the doctors never connected her birth defect to a small pastoral Province in Canada many miles away.
Consultations of the Family Tree revealed no history of birth defects. The source of her injury remained a mystery for 26 years.
In 2008, a $20,000 check appeared in the mail.
We had always accepted Theresa's birth defect as the 'luck of the draw'. An inexplicable turn of Fate. Now it became something much more sinister.
Agent Orange?
I was bewildered. How could my family be a victim of Agent Orange? All I knew about the stuff was a vague connection to the Vietnam War, a hazy memory of planes and sprays.
Thousands of victims have nothing more than a hazy memory of the chemicals sprayed upon them. But their bodies never forget.
Cancer, immune system suppression, endocrine disruption, precocious puberty, allergies, birth defects, infertility, chloracne...
This is the downside of globalization, scientific advancement, and the march of progress. Hundreds of thousands of chemicals are being released into the atmosphere about which we know nothing. There is scant or no scientific research on the health and environmental effects of these chemicals. We also don't know what happens when these chemicals interact with each other.
I was shocked to learn about the similarities between Agent Orange and the pesticides we use today. Over 1,500 pesticide products contain 2,4-D, a chemical compound that was half of Agent Orange. 25 million people suffer from pesticide poisoning a year. Some of the manufacturers of pesticides have been found guilty of conduct 'so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency so as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in civilized society.' The world needs to know about the dangers these chemicals pose to their health and their environment.
For the first time in history, we must deal with chemicals that can do something worse than kill; they can destroy a bloodline. Dioxins can damage DNA, affecting not only the victim, but their offspring for generations to come.
We are only beginning to understand DNA and the way that our body uses it. We are only beginning to understand pesticides and their health effects. And yet the march of chemistry continues on. Bring on the genetic engineering, it can't hurt, right?
Two years ago I began a journey into the heart of Canada to investigate a family tragedy, and found a much larger story. One of international, generational proportions, a story of Kafkaesque absurdity.
My personal story is one of thousands. Upon reflection, I was lucky—I was in the right place in the right time, and I was able to tell my families' story. I can only hope I have done justice to those whose voices have been silenced.