MSI Press Blog

  Some cancers arrive like lightning. Others arrive like ghosts — decades after the exposure that set them in motion. Agent Orange belongs to the second category. It is one of the clearest examples we have of how a single toxic exposure can echo through a lifetime. The culprit wasn’t the orange barrels. It was the dioxin inside them — TCDD — a chemical now classified as a known human carcinogen by every major scientific body that studies cancer. Dioxin doesn’t rush. It lingers. It settles into fat tissue. It alters how cells repair themselves. It disrupts immune signaling. And over time, those disruptions can become disease. For veterans exposed in Vietnam, Thailand, the Korean DMZ, and certain Air Force bases, the science is no longer in dispute. The National Academies have reviewed the evidence again and again, and the pattern is unmistakable. Cancers with the strongest link These are the cancers where the evidence is so consistent that the VA presumes Agent Orange is the cause...

  When Shane was in seventh grade, age 11, and bored, he learned that Doah's elementary school has received a gift of Apple IIc computers. Computers were very new at the time, and none of the faculty knew how to use them. The school put out a call for a volunteer parent to help. No parents were forthcoming; they did not know much about computers. Shane did. His dad Donny had been using computers since the day they first came out, and he taught Shane. Shane had an instinct for such things and quickly became proficient and even intuitive about new programs. So, he asked the principal for time off to be the volunteer at Doah's school. He was faithful to the schedule, and the school librarian, whose library housed the computer, took a shine to Shane and whenever some special program was taking place at school, she made sure he got to attend it.  That was Shane's first "job." Unpaid, of course,  He had another "job" the same year. On Thursdays he came into St...

  PTSD Awareness Month matters because trauma is far more common—and far more misunderstood—than most people realize. Trauma is not defined by the event itself but by what happens inside a person when their nervous system is overwhelmed beyond its ability to cope. It is a physiological injury, not a character flaw. And recovery is not about “getting over it,” but about helping the body and brain learn to feel safe again. People often imagine PTSD as flashbacks, nightmares, or dramatic reactions. Those can happen, but the truth is quieter and more complicated. Trauma can look like exhaustion that never lifts. Irritability that feels out of character. Difficulty concentrating. A body that startles too easily. A mind that shuts down under stress. A heart that wants connection but fears it at the same time. And here’s the part we don’t talk about enough: trauma is not a life sentence. The nervous system is built for healing. With the right support—therapy, community, safety, predictabi...