Defoliant Agent Orange, supposed to help GIs, may be killing them decades later
by Mike Billington and Jeff Montgomery
The U.S. military used chemical defoliants such as Agent Orange in Vietnam from the Delta to the demilitarized zone.
They were supposed to deny the Viet Cong ground cover from which to launch ambushes. They were supposed to save the lives of American GIs.
Now, more than 30 years after the war’s end, the National Academy of Science has affirmed a 21-year-old federal Environmental Protection Agency report that found one of the ingredients in those defoliants — dioxin — to be a highly toxic, cancer-causing agent.
Instead of saving their lives, it may now be killing those who survived the war.
Vietnam veterans, many of whom have suffered from cancer and other illnesses as a result of their prolonged exposure to Agent Orange, are left to wonder what this new report means to them, if anything…
“The [Department of Veterans Affairs] recognizes 11 different illnesses that they say are attributed to defoliants such as Agent Orange. “If, because of this new study, the VA is going to say that there are even more illnesses, that would have a big effect on Vietnam veterans who have other illnesses because they would finally be able to apply for their benefits,” said Tom Daws, state president of the Vietnam Veterans of America. “But at this point, we don’t know what the impact [of the defoliant study results] is going to be.”
Dioxin linked to birth defects
Two groups of veterans — women and those who served in duty stations outside the war zone during the Vietnam era — could be the most affected.
“The [National Academy of Sciences] report actually added more data about reproductive outcomes for females exposed to dioxin,” said Lois Gibbs, executive director of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice in Falls Church, Va.
Gibbs rose to prominence in 1978 when she organized the Love Canal Homeowners Association in Niagara Falls after learning that her son’s elementary school had been built on a toxic waste dump. She has studied the effects of dioxin on people for more than 25 years.
“The scientists … noted that children born to women exposed to dioxin have a higher number of learning disabilities, hyperactivity, and an inability to maintain attention,” she said. “Many have reported their male children have been born with genital defects.”
The VA compensates the children of female Vietnam veterans who were born with some birth defects attributable to dioxin exposure such as spina bifida and some other permanent mental and physical disabilities, spokeswoman Joanne MacKenzie said. The new study could increase the number of illnesses eligible for compensation.
U.S. military bases sprayed
Because the academy’s report reaffirms the highly toxic nature of dioxin, Vietnam-era veterans who served along the NATO-Warsaw Pact boundaries in Europe during the Cold War, in the Philippines, Thailand, Laos and other Asian countries also may be eligible for compensation, Daws said.
The reason: Veterans who served in those duty stations say chemical defoliants such as Agents Orange, Blue and White were used extensively there. Some veterans who served along the demilitarized zone in Korea are already eligible for compensation for dioxin-related illnesses, according to the VA.
“This stuff was also sprayed all over military bases in the good old USA, so what happens with that? Why shouldn’t those who served stateside be compensated as well if they have illnesses associated with dioxin?” asked Robert Corsa, a former Marine from Millsboro who was wounded in Vietnam.
According to environmental groups, chemical defoliants were used not only on U.S. military bases but also by state transportation departments to control weeds along highways.
“Anyone who became ill with cancer and the other diseases associated with dioxin should be entitled to compensation,” said Corsa, a former state Vietnam Veterans of America president.
‘No one is arguing any more’
The new findings also may force the VA to review the way in which it determines exposure. Currently, VA policy presumes exposure if a Vietnam veteran shows up at one of its medical centers with one of the 11 recognized illnesses.
“That’s crazy,” Daws said, “but it’s the way they do it. As far as we’re concerned, if you served in Vietnam, you were exposed to dioxin because it got into the ground and the water supply.”
Gibbs said the academy’s report affirming the EPA study “really strengthens the cases of Vietnam veterans because no one is arguing any more that dioxin isn’t toxic to the body’s immune system. And no one is arguing any more that the effects are going to go away. They’re permanent.”
Gibbs said Vietnam veterans living in the Delaware Valley, where dioxin contamination is high, are especially susceptible to health risks.
“You have someone who came home from Vietnam and moved into the Delaware Valley, where they have been exposed to even more because of the discharges,” she said.
“That makes them part of a very special population in terms of exposure,” she said.
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