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Agent Orange: Treatment For Vets Still Lagging, Says Report
The Ford Foundation will release a report Tuesday calling for continued study of the environmental and health effects of Agent Orange, as well as for stepped-up diagnosis and treatment of US veterans exposed to it. Used as a defoliant in Vietnam to destroy vegetation used as food and cover for the Viet Cong, the dioixn--named for the orange stripe on its label--has been the subject of controversy ever since its first use in 1962. Over the ensuing ten years of hard combat, some 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and other toxic herbicides were sprayed over six million acres of Vietnamese jungle. (See the box below for a selection of Mother Jones' earlier coverage of Agent Orange and the federal government's history of inadequate response to veterans' complaints.)
Agent Orange's widespread use in Vietnam was not the only instance in which US soldiers were exposed to harmful chemicals without a clear understanding of the risks; see my recent piece about a group of vets suing the federal government for their unwitting treatment as guineau pigs during US Army and CIA chemical weapons experiments at Edgewood. But in terms of scale, Agent Orange is without parallel. Hundreds of thousands of US troops and many millions of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were exposed . The precise number of those placed in danger will never be known, nor will the number who have since died from health complications.
The aim of the Ford Foundation's report is to take a look at what's been done so far in terms of diagnosis and treatment of US vets (not as much as should have been) and to urge expanded care, not only for vets but for their children, many of whom now appear to be suffering next-generation effects from their parents' toxic exposures.
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Agent Orange tested secretly in Panama
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Apocalypse Still
Twenty-five years after the war ended, millions of Vietnamese continue to suffer the toxic consequences of America's most devastating chemical weapon -- Agent Orange.
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A Toxic Burden
Despite mounting scientific evidence, Washington refuses to accept the deadly legacy of its chemical warfare in Vietnam.
From the report:
There is, in short, a presumed entitlement to care, services, and monetary assistance for America's Agent Orange victims, but no overarching system for fulfilling that entitlement except the private knowledge, initiative, and perseverance of each individual veteran. More than 50 voluntary organizations--nearly all of them formed by veterans themselves--manage to reach and help many former service members. But these Veterans Service Organizations have many competing priorities and limited resources, and are responding to the consequences of more recent wars.
Meanwhile, the official list of diseases that are recognized as herbicide-related has grown only sporadically, in reponse to an underfunded and uneven process of epidemiological research adn bureaucratic deliberation. More than a decade after the war's end, only one illness--the disfiguring skin disease chloracne--was offically recognized as connected to wartime Agent Orange exposure. Others have since been added, little by little, often after prolonged scientific and governmental debate. Many illnesses that Vietnam veterans suspect are associated with contaminated herbicides, such as brain or testicular cancer, still are not considered service-related and thus are not eligible for benefits...
At a minimum, men and women who risked their lives for the US war effort in Vietnam--and who in the process were exposed not only to enemy hostility but to poison from their own side--are entitled to a simple, consistent way of learning about and receiving the compensation and support to which the law already entitles them. But more broadly, the process by which eligible illnesses are recognized and addressed under this law should not be mired in technical disputes and plodding deliberation nearly 35 years after the war's end. Research and data-gathering need to accelerate to a pace that begins to make up for decades of procedural delay and that fills in the gaps in basic information on exposure, medical consequences, and benefits delivered.
Agent Orange: Treatment For Vets Still Lagging, Says Report
Thanks for your continuing coverage, going back to 1999, on the matter of our exposure to toxic chemicals in Vietnam and our government's refusal to address our health problems and those of our children. Despite the lies fed us by our politicians, veterans, especially Vietnam veterans, are not honorably treated and are often left destitute from paying extraordinary medical bills that the VA should be paying. Rather than act as our advocate, the VA fights us at every turn and treats veterans as if we're looking for a hand-out.
AO - Congressional Political Failure - Honoring Vietnam Veterans
As Mr. Sutton expresses, thanking Bruce Falconer for the necessary continuing coverage on AGENT ORANGE - DIOXIN exposure for Vietnam Veterans.
Research, facts, medical history, and the hypocrisy of our congressional representatives to correct the injustices against our VN Veterans by the DVA, U.S. Government, provide medical care, compensation and care for all VN Veterans exposed to Agent Orange - Dioxin is the dishonor paid to our VN Veterans for serving their country. Failure to correct the inexcusable injustices of the Department of Veterans Affairs from the top brass down against our Vietnam Veterans exposed, dying, have died, and continue to die and suffer from the post in service related illnesses of Agent Orange is unacceptable.
No U.S Vietnam Veteran should have to wait 35 years after serving country honorably for a Public Law or an Equity Bill to provide, medical care, proper disability treatment, compensation suffer, die and be denied medical benefits by a political system designed to deny our veterans proper care.
An American political disgrace by the Department of Veterans affairs and our congressional representatives not to correct these injustices after 35 plus years of living-dying proof of associated illness, cancers, birth defects, deaths, disabilities of Vietnam Veterans.
Who really cares, honors and respects our VN Veterans, all Veterans?
35 plus years of not caring speaks for itself by our leadership or lack of leadership in Washington.
Take care of our Vietnam Veterans, all Veterans who have served, continue to serve our great nation when called upon to do so!
Carl Albanese
New York
Agent Orange History Project
Taking care of our Vietnam Veterans
What dos it say about a country, any country, that would demand military service from their citizens, subject to paying the 'ultimate price', to then ignore their health conditions brought about solely by that service demand..?
Apparently, whatever understanding the military had with it's warriors died long before Vietnam. I believe it has less to do with (lack of) leadership in Washington than it has to do with the nature of the US military itself.
Sadly, you can be sure that some version of this hypocrisy will be visited upon men and women long after the last soldiers have left Iraq/ Afghanistan.
Agent O - Benzene
Great story Bruce!
I agree with Carl about the lack of concern of the VA towards our Vietnam Veterans. WW II Vets are reportedly dying at a rate of 1,000 per week....they are mostly in their 80's to 100's. What is mystifying is that Vietnam Veterans are dying at the SAME rate...only they are in their late 50's to 60's years old.
Our VA seems to have a procedure in place much like the insurance industry:
DELAY & DENY until they give up and go away or die off and we don't have to deal with them.
At my VVA Chapter its a conclusion that if you get to about 63 without an AO-caused disease, you might make it to 70.
In May, 1990 Admiral Zumwalt (retired) who lost his son to Agent Orange cancers, spearheaded a scientific team for the White House to author a definitive report about the causes & effects of exposure to AO and the other toxins used on us in Vietnam. That report stated 28 diseases and conditions but Congress only placed 14 on the VA list of Presumptive diseases/conditions. And this was only reluctantly after many lawsuits and court actions by Veterans Service Groups.
http://www.mds-vietnam.com/page4.htm
Congresswoman Doris Matsui (CA) introduced HR 1230 which was placed into a committee ( that's where Congress puts legislation to stall or study it). We need to get EVERY Congress-Person to CO-SPONSOR HR 1230. This bill will help people with Bone Marrow Failure diseases
Also tell Congress to give Vietnam Veterans the "Welcome Home" we did not receive by supporting the Zumwalt Report and add the remaining diseases to the VA Presumptive list.
Agent Orange
tagged as:- result
you are so right! Had it not been for the death of admiral Zumwal's son, we would be 20 years behind. Now we are dieing of heart Attacks due to Sleep Apnea! Sleep apnea has killed Regie White of Green Bay Packers and Kirby Puckett of Mn Twins. We are dieing in our sleep and massive heart attacks caused by this. We should identify our enemies in congress and the senate and oust them. I wish we could nave a Vietnam Veterans March on Washington DC led by the Navy who is not being included in VA's research on Ischemic Hearts/Strokes which they recently approved of. The VA would leave Navy bodies in the ditches, and love to end the last war with WWII, because they are dieing 2000 a day.
glad to have found this site,,,
tagged as:- solution
15 years ago was diagnosed with mycoplasma pneumonis and just found out more about it 4 days ago..no one,or my research could help me out..now i know a bit more...........chemtrails come to mind..i hope i posted to the right spot....cat
glad to have found this site,,,
tagged as:- solution
15 years ago was diagnosed with mycoplasma pneumonis and just found out more about it 4 days ago..no one,or my research could help me out..now i know a bit more...........chemtrails come to mind..i hope i posted to the right spot....cat
Agent Orange: Treatment For Vets Still Lagging, Says Report
The poor US Veterans suffering and many thousands homeless suffering from Agent Orange , Depleted Uranium etc etc.
What about the Vietnamese and Iraqi people we never seem to hear about them.
The Cluster Bombs are still there and primed and the whole tragedy is surely our fault .
ICH documents "1,331,578 Iraqis slaughtered since the US invaded Iraq.
Like the "Great American Patriot" Colin Powell said ,the number of Iraqi dead is of no interest to him.
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agent orange
Thanks to the writer to noted the total lack of concern for non-American victims, whose lives and futures were taken from them through the use of illegal weapons in an illegal war. Such omission legitimizes not only past but future crimes. Iraqis, Afghans and who knows who else might well be told "If we don't care about our own, why on earth should we care about you."
Agent Orange
My 57-year-old brother died a year and a half ago. I have no doubt that his death was the result of his exposure to Agent Orange during his tour of duty in Vietnam in 1969-70. The week before his last trip to the VA hospital where he died, he told me about watching what he called "that sh*t" sprayed onto the jungles, about walking through it, and about wading into the rivers where the rain had washed it. He was simultaneously diagnosed with diabetes, congestive heart failure, and cancer of the lungs, liver, blood and brain. He died three weeks later. For 3 months after his death I read the obituary pages of a major city newspaper every day, writing down the names & basic info of servicemen who were dying in their late 50's and early 60's. I filled six pages of notebook paper. From one newspaper - in one city. Not one obituary said the deceased had been exposed to or died from Agent Orange. You just have to put the pieces together. If even half of them did, the totals would still be astronomical.
And I began to hear stories from friends, relatives, acquaintances - saying the same thing had happened to their cousin, brother, wife's cousin, etc. All had been in Vietnam, most were 'grunts' trudging through the jungles and rivers. All simply got terribly ill all of a sudden, from a number of health problems, and died quickly. These veterans are every bit as much casualties of that war as are the ones whose names are on the black wall.
But nobody seems to care...or want to do anything to help. Our soldiers served, for the most part, one year in Vietnam. The long term effects of Agent Orange on the Vietnamese people has been heartbreaking, with horrendous birth defects now affecting the third generation. And one more thing I found out when researching Agent Orange. Dow Chemical ran out of the funds they were ordered to set aside for compensation....in the early 80's.
This is just one more sad story of the history of corporate profits taking precedence over the lives of American soldiers. Do you think this will ever, ever stop?
Husband's Death by Agent Orange
Afyer a 7 month stuggle my husband of 35 years died on April 17,2009. He was 60 years old. He had health problems all through our married life starting with a blocked common bile duct, then pancreatitis, then a bleed from stomach varicis, uncontrollable type 2 diabetes ,then a rare blood infection. Approximately 10 years later he returned to the hospital and had a stroke-well this opened up the flood gates-he had kidney failure, heart failure and worst of all cirossis of the liver and he did not drink-although the VA doctors insisted he did.Blood clots became an issue and heart attack came next which he pulled through.. He was told by the VA doctors and doctors at another private hospital that his life was going to end soon. After rrehabilitation for his diabetic nueropathy at a local nursing home I was able to take him home. He had Easter with the family and died on the following fFriday of a heart attack they say. All of these symptoms were like a house of cards each relating to and causing his death. It finally has been determined his death is from Agent Orange and the VA will have to pickup the hospital bills. This is no consolation to me his widow who now has no husband. He was a good man an did not deserve to die like this.. He should have had 10-20 more years of life and be able to see his grandchildren grow up. Everytime I go to the cemetery and he is buried at a Veteran's cemetery I see and speak to more Vietnam Veteran widows. Their stories tug at my heart. Why isn't more being done?
Husband's Death by Agent Orange
Afyer a 7 month stuggle my husband of 35 years died on April 17,2009. He was 60 years old. He had health problems all through our married life starting with a blocked common bile duct, then pancreatitis, then a bleed from stomach varicis, uncontrollable type 2 diabetes ,then a rare blood infection. Approximately 10 years later he returned to the hospital and had a stroke-well this opened up the flood gates-he had kidney failure, heart failure and worst of all cirossis of the liver and he did not drink-although the VA doctors insisted he did.Blood clots became an issue and heart attack came next which he pulled through.. He was told by the VA doctors and doctors at another private hospital that his life was going to end soon. After rrehabilitation for his diabetic nueropathy at a local nursing home I was able to take him home. He had Easter with the family and died on the following fFriday of a heart attack they say. All of these symptoms were like a house of cards each relating to and causing his death. It finally has been determined his death is from Agent Orange and the VA will have to pickup the hospital bills. This is no consolation to me his widow who now has no husband. He was a good man an did not deserve to die like this.. He should have had 10-20 more years of life and be able to see his grandchildren grow up. Everytime I go to the cemetery and he is buried at a Veteran's cemetery I see and speak to more Vietnam Veteran widows. Their stories tug at my heart. Why isn't more being done?
Monsanto
Just wanted to point out that Monsanto (makers of the weed killer Roundup) created Agent Orange. Monsanto has now moved on to genetically modified crops and must be stopped.
Monsanto
You're right! Thanks for the correction. Dow Chemical manufactured napalm, another horrendous product that caused a great deal of suffering. I should have checked before posting. I'll be more careful from now on.
My closest cousin was a
My closest cousin was a pilot in "Operation Ranch Hand" (motto: "Sorry about that"), flying planes that sprayed Agent Orange, from about 1963 to 1966, I think.
In the late 1970s or early 1980's, long after he had resigned his commission and become a commercial airline pilot, the military (I'm not sure if it was USAF or the VA) began having him go to California every two years for a thorough medical examination. I gathered that he was one of a (randomly selected?) group of officers being monitored for ill effects from AO. This continued right into the 1990s; he was always given a clean bill of health. (I always had trouble understanding why ex-officers who'd been safely in the planes were being checked so carefully; I could only hope that the grunts who'd gotten sprayed on were getting such attention.)
It turns out the officers were not so safe in those planes after all -- and that those military medical checkups were not all that thorough. My cousin went to his doctor (civilian) sometime in the late 1990s because he had lifted a rather heavy rock and felt acute pain in his chest. The X-rays he was sent to have taken showed so many broken ribs that the technician asked, "Was the car totaled?" -- he assumed my cousin had been in a terrible collision.
The diagnosis was multiple myeloma; my cousin died last June (age 68) after years of chemo, remission, more chemo. I was furious when I heard the diagnosis, and I remain so. Not just because my strong, steady, reliable cousin was killed by that horrible poison, but because of all the innumerable others who were killed by it, both our troops and innocent people in Southeast Asia; furious because our government used it lavishly without making sure it wouldn't kill people.
The other side is that the man who is now my husband was messing around in Swift Boats (doing so was not part of his official duty) in the late 1960s -- he was grateful that the jungle had been cleared from the river banks. A couple of times a year the Agent Orange Newsletter shows up in our mailbox and we read the latest list of "presumptive" symptoms. Yep, Diabetes II is one of 'em. Sigh.
Agent Orange: Treatment For Vets Still Lagging, Says Report
From Vietnam to Iraq US military have burnt down innocent people's homes used cluster bombs and depleted uranium and caused over 2 million Vietnamese and more than a million Iraqi deaths in illegal US wars of aggression.
Systematic war crimes and massacres such as My Lai and Abu Ghraib and other American torture centers where American soldiers systematically used physical and psychological torture were far from being unauthorized, isolated events by rank-and-file soldiers acting on their own initiative but were inevitable outgrowths of US military and government policies.
The shameful comment that "they hate us for our freedom" and the other false patriotic cards that are played by the MSM are used to reassure the sheeple that US military died or are crippled in a noble cause because the USA can not face the fact that the losses were all for lies.
Alas the lies and the brain-washing of the lying corporate media and government propagandists is not preparing an America to live with the Blow Back which is surely coming when "Johny comes marching home".
Yes ---Psycho killer ques qu se ?????
Thanks for your service sir. Not a safe subject shithead .
After 9/11, Army denied benefits, SS granted benefits based on VA records. Saved for 2 years and hired a young woman to find witnesses to the unrecorded battles and shootouts that I had been in, so I could get Ptsd. Had a clean copy of a morning report with everyone and their service numbers. She started out strong and kept getting slower and slower. She carried two bags, 1 was projects to be done and the other projects completed.
Last time I met her, she handed me, both bags, started crying and said, 'Joe I can't do this anymore." I said 'why" she said, "They are all dead." 6 men left after 30 years from a finance unit that had 120 to 150 men. Never no brush, grass, flowers on our compounds, no siree. Prime meat. Half college graduates, first class physical shape. Murder, just pure bloody murder and only one guy's name on the memorial. You Monsanto people murdered us. You murdered us, you murdered children, you murdered women, you murdered Vietnamese men, you murdered the land, you murdered the water, you murdered the hills,and the valleys.
Was it worth it?
I hope that everyone one that worked for Monsanto died of Agent Orange. I hope your spouses developed weird tumors, got diabetes type II, had trouble breathing,
kid's born with weird diseases, tumors at birth, exposed spinal cords. And then slowly, slowly, slowly dying away.
Hate, me and and Vietnamese we run together, you murdered us, I hate you. They didn't send me to Nam to be butchered, that was the damn Americans. I was proud when I got on that plane at McChord in Dec 69, I was a broken shamed alcoholic when I got back to McChord in Nov 70. No, I don't live in your filthy country. I won't use that shit system called the VA. After last tumor they removed from my back, me backing across the room with a scaple in my hand, screaming "don't you read these fucking allergies sheets? Give me Penicillin, you'll kill me." "Well, there's no need to get excited." Shit.
Yeah they got their court order. If they can't handle it where I am, I fly back, get king quality medical care and fly out. They can't touch my ss disability or my va disability, bill the fucking Pentagon, assholes. I'm old but I'm tough. Last time was a burst appendix, in to hospital at 8:oo PM, wake up from the operation meds at 9 AM, out of the hospital and on my way to the airport by 945 am.14 hours max. When I called the hospital, bill without doctors, machines, meds, anything but a bed was $39000
Stop in Lima to have the best doctors see if they did it right. Best hospital, best techs, MRI, CT, xrays, blood work, top teaching doctors in Lima. My wife and interpreter were handing out $20 in packs. The americans didn't get one thin fucking dime. Probably shook them up when I demanded a safe to deposit my money and guns in, before I was to go into surgery. I carried one pistol to the airport with me and stood out there in front of mother and everyone and stripped down a .38 automatic and tossed the pieces in various garbage cans. You might want to upgrade Homeland Security to a grade 2 education, these grade ones aren't worth shit, just put them on welfare and send their food stamps. DUH? Why don't you have any luggage? They sell clothes in Peru you nitwit. You fly in and out of Peru a lot. I live there with my wife, you wanna tell me why she can't get a green card?
I can't carry but 10 Kilos because I lost 10 kilos of body mass when they took out that big stinking wad of puss, was it a tumor that rotted? No one knew, but the kind loving people in that little poor person's hospital got it out of me and kept me alive for 7 weeks as they cleaned it out going out, one step at a time. Each one stopping to touch me or pat me, nod at men, give me a smile, treat me like a human being. Saying in the old language, we care if you get better.
Only person who touched me when I had my appendectomy was the person who drew blood and inserted the catheter.
Bladder Cancer
Are there other Vietnam vets out there who also have bladder cancer caused by exposure to agent orange. I served in I Corp in the second most sprayed area of Vietnam. Ho An South looked like the western desert due to repeated spraying with agent orange. The doctor that examined me for the Agent Orange Registration told me that my badder cancer was caused by agent orange. The VA has just stonewalled my claim for five years. Please let me know if anyone has any information regarding bladder cancer and agent orange.
there are plenty of vietnam
there are plenty of vietnam veterans who have bladder cancer- i am but one of them. the problem is that the va does not recognize bladder cancer as a disease "triggered" by exposure to agent orange. if you are or were a smoker, the va will claim that your bladder cancer was caused by smoking, despite the fact that there are dead vietnam veterans who have died from bladder cancer and never smoked.
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