Veteran's Forum
This Page Is For Veteran Input
If You Have Some Ideas Or Issues You Want To Pass On
Send To Webmaster@
Vietnam Veterans of America
P.O.Box 6836
Las Cruces, NM 88006-6836
or by email 
Received from : Mike Alexander
| Thursday March 30 4:21 PM ET |
Agent Orange linked to diabetes in Vietnam vets
By Charles Aldinger
WASHINGTON, Mar 30 (Reuters) -- A new US Air Force report shows a significant link between Agent Orange and diabetes in veterans who took part in spraying the dioxin-laced chemical defoliant in the Vietnam War, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.
The report could lead to additional health benefits for thousands of veterans of the decade-long war that ended in 1975.
``It shows a statistical, but not biological, link at this stage,'' Defense Department spokesman Ken Bacon told Reuters. He said that the study of 1,000 Air Force veterans who serviced or flew aircraft that dumped Agent Orange on jungles will be reviewed by experts to determine if diabetes should be added to a list of nine illnesses linked to the herbicide, including cancer.
The report does not include actual numbers of those who developed diabetes, but will fuel debate over the controversial chemical in providing the strongest evidence to date linking diabetes and Agent Orange. The New York Times, which obtained an executive summary of the report, said that it concluded that there were 47% more diabetes cases among those most exposed to the herbicide.
The report focuses on veterans in ``Operation Ranch Hand,'' a US spraying campaign in the 1960s to deprive North Vietnamese soldiers and Communist rebels of cover by defoliating the Vietnamese countryside.
The study, begun in 1982, compared the health of the 1,000 airmen to a similar number of veterans who served in the war but had no direct Agent Orange exposure. It does not prove that dioxin causes diabetes, but indicates that there appears to be a connection between its level in the blood and onset of the disease.
Defense Secretary William Cohen visited Vietnam this month in an historic step to improve military-to-military links with the communist government and offered to take part in joint health research on Agent Orange.
Many US lawmakers have accused the US military of dragging its feet on the Agent Orange controversy. Representative Bernard Sanders, a Vermont Independent, told The New York Times that only 7,600 veterans had been awarded special compensation payments for health problems that might be linked to the herbicide.
Diabetes is not among the nine diseases, including some respiratory cancers and Hodgkin's disease, that the Department of Veterans Affairs has linked to Agent Orange based on scientific studies.
A total of 19 million gallons (72 million liters) of Agent Orange, named after the striped orange barrels used to transport it, and other herbicides were sprayed over South Vietnam in a program beginning in 1962. Seven years after the program began, studies linked the chemical to birth defects and the use of all defoliants was stopped.
``The report will be studied by the National Academy of Sciences and the Centers for Disease Control'' before the Department of Veterans Affairs makes a final recommendation to President Bill Clinton or his successor on whether to add diabetes to the list, Bacon told Reuters.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that most diseases ''presumptively'' linked
to Agent Orange are rare ones, although the list includes lung cancer and common prostrate
cancer in men. Even so, the newspaper said, fewer than 11,000 veterans of the war had
received benefits under the program.
| Saturday April 15 1:17 PM ET |
Veterans Group Accuses VA Secretary
DENVER (AP) - Veterans Affairs Secretary Togo West rejected the recommendation of a task force that Vietnam War soldiers who developed diabetes after being exposed to Agent Orange should be compensated, The Denver Post reported Saturday.
The newspaper said it had obtained documents showing the VA's Agent Orange Task Force had recommended honoring the claims, but West decided more research was needed.
``It was a deliberately deleterious action by the secretary. He is the politico and he is standing in the way,'' said Rick Weidman, director of government relations for the Vietnam Veterans of America. His group says West is siding with cost-cutters.
Jim Bensen, a spokesman for West, said the secretary was following the law when he sent the issue back for ``a more comprehensive look at all the evidence.''
About 19 million gallons of Agent Orange and other chemicals were used to defoliate trees in the jungles of Vietnam beginning in 1962. Their use was stopped in 1971, two years after studies first linked Agent Orange to birth defects in laboratory animals.
VA files obtained by The Post indicate the Agent Orange Task Force unanimously recommended on April 30, 1999, that diabetes be added to the list of ailments linked to Agent Orange. Chaired by Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer, then the VA's undersecretary for health, the panel said in its report that it had reached its conclusion after four meetings of a working group and ``careful deliberation.''
Both Kizer and Joe Thompson, who runs the VA benefits program, separately concurred with the task force findings and urged West to list diabetes. Thompson predicted in a May 5, 1999, memo to West that the task force finding ``will reverberate throughout the VA and our stakeholder community.''
In a June 17, 1999, memorandum to Kizer, West declared that ``a number of unresolved issues prevent me from making a fully informed determination regarding the task force's recommendation that I establish a presumption of service connection for diabetes.''
The Air Force in March announced that it had found the ``strongest evidence to date'' that exposure to Agent Orange is linked to diabetes. The National Academy of Sciences then said it was reviewing the Air Force study and would report to Veterans Affairs.
At the time, Veterans Affairs said a decision on whether diabetes will be linked to Agent Orange exposure would be made after a federal review of another study on dioxin and diabetes, due to be completed in May.
The law governing Agent Orange does not require researchers to establish a causal relationship between exposure and diabetes for medical claims to be paid. All that is required is a finding that ``a relationship is as likely as not'' to exist between an ailment and exposure to the chemical.
Chapter 431's ... Billion Dollar Color Guard [1996]
This page was last updated on 07/31/05.