The Tyranny of Contamination: The US Military is poisoning Okinawa.

Please republish and share, but only without editing and with credit and link to original included. Thanks! The Tyranny of Contamination: The US Military is poisoning Okinawa. By Pat Elder, World BEYOND War, December 31, 2018 https://worldbeyondwar.org/the-tyranny-of-contamination-the-us-military-is-poisoning-okinawa/ High concentrations of the deadly compounds Per-fluoro-octane sulfonate (PFOS) and Per-fluoro-octanoic acid (PFOA), together known as Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been found in the drinking water in communities adjacent to the U.S. Air Force’s Kadena Air Base and the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in the Japanese Prefecture of Okinawa. The chemicals are found in the fire-fighting foam used in routine fire-training exercises on base. The health effects of exposure to these chemicals include frequent miscarriages and other severe pregnancy complications. They contaminate human breast milk and sicken breast-feeding babies. PFAS contribute to liver damage, kidney cancer, high cholesterol, decreased response to vaccines, an increased risk of thyroid disease, along with testicular cancer, micro-penis, and low sperm count in males.     PFAS-laced foam fills Kadena Air Force Base, Okinawa after a drunk U.S. Marine activated a firefighting system in 2013. Researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health say that an approximate safe dose of PFOS and PFOA in drinking water is 1 ppt. Meanwhile, municipal water systems in Okinawa have been shown to contain more than one hundred times that level, while ground water is contaminated at a level one thousand times higher. The contamination is not confined to Okinawa. For instance, groundwater at China Lake, California was recently tested at 8 million ppt, according to a little-known report by the DOD.Although few in America who live adjacent to military bases are aware of the contamination, the situation is different in Okinawa, where researchers and activists have been sounding the alarm.