Agent Orange's effect on vets still murky decades later

[Monsanto, The Gift That Keeps On Giving]

Forty years after the last U.S. troops helicoptered out of
Saigon ending the Vietnam War, many veterans and their families
are still on the front lines battling for more research into the
effects of a controversial defoliant used to clear the southeast
Asian jungle.

With the veterans exposed to Agent Orange aging, the focus is
turning to the long-term effects on their offspring.

“We are not going to be around much longer,” said Bob Dew, who
served in the Marines and is treasurer and chairman of the Agent
Orange Town Hall Committee for Vietnam Veterans of America
Plymouth-Canton Chapter 528.

“There is not going to be anybody to tell the story or who knows
what happened unless we get the word out.”

More than 2.7 million Americans served in the Vietnam War,
according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, and more than
58,000 were killed. According to some estimates 850,000 are
thought to be alive today. As of September, there were 237,675
Vietnam veterans in Michigan.

The VA does recognize and offer compensation for several
diseases it and federal law presumes are associated with
herbicide exposure. The department also recognizes a long list
of birth defects among the veterans’ children that may be
associated with exposure to Agent Orange

But the Vietnam Veterans of America group and members of
Congress, including some in Michigan’s delegation, are pushing
three bills that require more research and provide medical
compensation to all eligible vets and their offspring.

That would be a huge benefit to Lori Weber of Canton.

She has been diagnosed with hip dysplasia, a birth defect that
the VA acknowledges is a common medical defect found in the
children of women who served in Vietnam. It does not acknowledge
a link between hip dysplasia to Agent Orange.

“Since my father served and not my mother, I do not qualify for
compensation,” said Weber, who has undergone 25 surgeries.

“I can’t heal, I can’t grow bone, my bone keeps dying,” said
Weber, who retired from teaching two years ago due to her
physical issues.

Weber, in her late 30s, said she lives on painkillers and is
often confined to her home. She uses forearm braces or a
wheelchair to get around.

“I can’t walk more than two blocks,” she said.

Weber said she fears she has passed a genetic time bomb to her
11-year-old son. A gifted student, Weber said her son struggles
with following multi-step directions, suffers from acid-reflux
and asthma. And her son’s limbs bend at odd angles as hers did
as a child.

She said the government must dedicate more effort to studying
Agent Orange and its effects.

“I am tired of doctors looking at me and saying, ‘I don’t know
how to help you.’ ”

To help veterans, their families and the public sort through the
issues related to Agent Orange, local chapters of the Maryland-
headquartered VVA are sponsoring town hall meetings about the
chemical.

VVA of Oakland County Chapter 133 has set an Agent Orange Town
Hall meeting Oct. 24. Other area chapters held hearings this
spring.

Trude Bennett of the University of North Carolina spoke at a May
meeting about the health impact of Agent Orange, manufactured by
Dow Chemical of Midland and other companies.

Bennett, an associate professor at the university’s Gillings
School of Global Public Health, has worked in Vietnam for the
past 15 years studying the harm to health and environment caused
by the use of herbicides during the war.

“I believe the U.S. government and the chemical manufacturers
bear great responsibility, and I understand that those exposed
continue to suffer and worry deeply about future generations,”
Bennett wrote in an email.

According to Dr. Ralph Erickson, the VA’s acting chief
consultant for post deployment health, there are two long-term
health studies being conducted by the Air Force Health Study and
the Army Chemical Corp of veterans involved in the handling and
spraying of Agent Orange.

Also, the Office of Public Health is designing a study to look
at the health of Vietnam-era veterans who served on the ground
offshore with the Navy or who served in other areas. Surveys are
expected to be sent out in early 2016 and findings are expected
to be published in 2017-18.

Placing a number on how many veterans were exposed to the
herbicide is difficult, said Edwin Martini, author of the book,
“Agent Orange: History, Science, and the Politics of
Uncertainty.”

“The short answer is that we really don’t know,” said Martini, a
history professor at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.
“When you take into account all the Vietnamese soldiers on both
sides of the conflict, the Vietnamese civilians and the American
troops serving there, the number is well into the millions.”

The VA says Agent Orange is an equal blend of herbicides, 2,4
dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic
acid. It got its name from the orange bands used on the 55-
gallon drums in which it was stored.

“None of the chemical companies have ever, and I don’t think
ever will, admit that Agent Orange was in fact responsible for
health concerns,” said Martini, who spoke at an Agent Orange
town hall meeting sponsored by the VVA Plymouth-Canton Chapter
528, in May.

Legally, they don’t have to, he said. In a settlement for a 1984
class-action lawsuit, manufacturers of Agent Orange got a clause
in the decision saying they did not admit to any guilt or any
wrongdoing and they did not admit Agent Orange is responsible
for adverse health effects.

A spokesman for Dow declined to comment.

“The scientific investigation of Agent Orange has gone on since
the Vietnam War and continues today,” according to Dow’s
website. “The very substantial body of human evidence on Agent
Orange does not establish that veterans’ illnesses are caused by
Agent Orange.”

The former Monsanto Co. was one of nine government contractors
who manufactured Agent Orange from 1965 to 1969, according to
Charla Lord, spokeswoman for Monsanto, headquartered in St.
Louis. In 2002, Monsanto Co. was spun off from its chemical ties
and identifies itself as a separate, independent agriculture
company today, Lord said.

According to Monsanto’s website, “U.S. courts have determined
that wartime contractors (such as the former Monsanto) who
produced Agent Orange for the government are not responsible for
damage claims associated with the chemistry.”

Brian Bobek, president of VVA Chapter 154 in Clinton Township,
encourages veterans to sign up for the VA’s Agent Orange
Registry Health Exam, which assesses health problems that may be
related to exposure.

Bobek, who served in the Army in Vietnam, said he was in an area
where Agent Orange was heavily used.

“I remember them telling us back in the day that this stuff is
harmless. It will just kill the foliage,” said Bobek of Macomb
Township.

Now 70, Bobek was diagnosed with prostate cancer six years ago,
one of the presumptive diseases linked to Agent Orange.

Erickson of the VA said that as of June 8 the agency has
conducted 636,049 initial Agent Orange examinations for the
registry, with 18,853 incomplete.

Data on Agent Orange’s effect on humans and their offspring is
sparse, Martini said.

“The area where the science is the weakest in terms of
demonstrating the possible link between Agent Orange and health
concerns is the area of birth defects, especially multi-
generational,” he said.

Bobek’s 44-year-old daughter had what he described as a mild
stroke at 19, which affected her speech and motor skills.

He said she fully recovered but Bobek said she still deals with
health issues rare for someone her age.

“Is part of her medical problem due to me? I don’t know,” he
said.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/07/22/
agent-orange-health-effect-generations/30550329/