The Department of Veterans Affairs website states Agent Orange was a powerful herbicide used by U.S. military forces during the Vietnam War to eliminate forest cover and crops for North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops.The U.S. program, codenamed Operation Ranch Hand, sprayed more than 20 million gallons of various herbicides over Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos from 1961 to 1971. Agent Orange, which contained the deadly chemical dioxin, was the most commonly used herbicide. It was later proven to cause serious health issues among the Vietnamese people as well as among returning U.S. servicemen and their families.Vietnam war veterans served their country when the country didnít support their involvement, witnessed atrocities of war, and were exposed to chemicals that would manifest themselves in many malignant ways. It appears the exposure to Agent Orange herbicides has not only affected the veterans who served in Vietnam. The VA, as stated on the Agent Orange website, has recognized that certain birth defects among veteransí children are associated with veteransí qualifying service in Vietnam or Korea.Marjorie Cohen, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, states, ìThe U.S. government was aware that the use of poison as a weapon of war was forbidden by international law well before it authorized its use in Vietnam. In fact, the U.S. government suppressed a 1965 report, called the ìBionetics Study,î that showed dioxin caused many birth defects in experimental animals. It was not until the results of that study were leaked that the use of Agent Orange/dioxin was stopped.î Per the Environmental Protection Agency, this chemical can cause cancer, disrupt the immune system and interfere with hormones.An investigation by ProPublica and The Virginian-Pilot has found the VAís medical staff have physically examined more than 668,000 Vietnam veterans possibly exposed to Agent Orange, documented health conditions and noted when and where they served. For at least 34 years, the agency asked questions about their childrenís birth defects, before and after the war.While the Department of Veterans Affairs collected reams of information, thousands of veterans struggled for decades for the government to answer their question: Could Agent Orange, the herbicide linked to health problems in Vietnam veterans, have also harmed their children? It took until 1997 for the VA to recognize the connection and compensate veterans with children suffering from spina bifida. Since then, the VA lists a greater number of associated ailments on their website.The birth defect data accrued by the VA, by its own admission, does not appear to have been analyzed by VA scientists or any other organizations. In a written response to the ProPublica findings, the VA stated, ìThe VA believes that research to understand the relationship between exposure and intergenerational transmission of disease, if conducted, should be done where scientists with expertise in the relevant fields of inquiry can provide leadership.î Continuing, the VA said it should play ìan ancillary role.îOne example of Agent Orangeís effects in offspring is Heather Bowser of Canfield, Ohio. She was born three years after her father, William, returned from Vietnam. She said he was stationed at Bien Hoa Air Base, less than 10 miles from where the U.S. Air Force launched the aircraft conducting defoliating missions. On return from short missions, Bowser said excess Agent Orange was dumped by the aircraft in the river alongside his base. At birth, Heather weighed 3 pounds, 4 ounces and was missing her right leg below the knee and several of her fingers. She had no big toe on her left foot, and the remaining toes were webbed.Five years ago, Heather Bowser co-founded Children of Vietnam Veterans Health Alliance, which has since grown to nearly 4,000 members who swap stories or vent about doctors who dismiss their concerns about Agent Orange. ìOur stories are very similar Ö very similar birth defects, very similar health issues later,î she said. ìNeural tube defects, shortened limbs, webbed toes, missing limbs, extra vertebrae, missing vertebrae, autoimmune disorders. The list goes on.îMembers of federal scientific advisory panels from the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Medicine have repeatedly urged the VA to research Agent Orangeís effect on offspring. A panel of the Institute of Medicine reiterated that recommendation in 2007, 2009, 2012 and 2014. This year, yet another IOM panel reported the VA made no progress on the research into generational effects of Agent Orange.ìItís like a sign that says ëDig Hereí and theyíre not digging,î said Dr. David Ozonoff, a professor of environmental health at Boston University and co-editor-in-chief of the online journal ìEnvironmental Health,î after reviewing ProPublicaís findings. ìIt raises questions about whether they want to know the answer or are just hoping the problem will naturally go away as the veterans die off.îCongress passed a bill, H.R. 6414, in 2016, requiring the VA to pay for an analysis of all research done thus far on the ìdescendants of veterans with toxic exposure.î It also requires the agency to determine the feasibility of future research; and, if such studies are possible, to pursue them.Since the 1980s, the VA has awarded money to veterans who successfully proved their exposure to Agent Orange. According to the VAís website, the Agent Orange Settlement Fund was created from a class action lawsuit brought by Vietnam veterans and their families against the major manufacturers of these herbicides. The class action case was settled out-of-court in 1984 for $180 million. The Payment Program operated from 1988 to 1994 and distributed a total of $197 million in cash payments. Of the 105,000 claims received by the Payment Program, about 52,000 Vietnam veterans or their survivors received cash payments, which averaged about $3,800 each.The VA recently advertised a study by the National Academy of Medicine on whether Vietnam veterans, generally, have ìdifferent patterns of illness that are unlike their non-Vietnam deployed military counterparts, and members of the U.S. population.î The study is said to also include the children of those veterans. After 18 months of review by his department, Department of Veterans Affairs Sec. David J. Shulkin announced, in November 2017, that he plans to ìfurther exploreî adding ailments to the list of compensable conditions the VA presumes were caused by exposure to Agent Orange and other herbicides used during the Vietnam War. (As of March 28, Shulkin is no longer with the Department of Veterans Affairs.)If researchers conclude that troopsí wartime exposures can affect future generations, the implications go well beyond Vietnam veterans and their descendants. Veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will have the same concerns about their exposure to burn pits, depleted uranium and other toxins that may have caused birth defects in their children, too.
