The Division of Veterans Affairs has lengthy given Vietnam veterans incapacity compensation for sickness linked to Agent Orange, extensively used to defoliate Southeast Asian battlefields through the U.S. struggle.
Much less well-known: The highly effective herbicide mixture was additionally routinely used to kill weeds at home army bases. These uncovered to the chemical substances on the bases are nonetheless ready for a similar advantages and, in some circumstances, are hitting a well-recognized impediment — authorities opacity.
In February, VA proposed a rule that for the primary time would enable compensation for Agent Orange publicity at 17 U.S. bases in a dozen states the place the herbicide was examined, used or saved.
However the checklist excludes about 4 dozen bases the place Pat Elder, an activist and director of the environmental advocacy group Navy Poisons, says he’s documented the use or storage of Agent Orange. Amongst them is Fort Ord, a former Military base in Monterey County, Calif. Paperwork gathered by Elder and others, together with a report by an Military agronomist, a journal article and information associated to hazardous materials cleanups, set up using Agent Orange on the facility.
“In coaching areas, equivalent to Fort Ord, the place poison oak has been extraordinarily troublesome to army personnel, a well-organized chemical struggle has been waged towards this woody plant pest,” reads a 1956 article within the journal the Navy Engineer.
“Till Fort Ord is acknowledged by VA as a presumptive web site, it’s in all probability going to be an extended, tough battle to get some sort of compensation,” mentioned Mike Duris, a veteran who skilled on the base and was later recognized with prostate most cancers.
VA considers prostate most cancers a “presumptive situation” for Agent Orange incapacity compensation, which means the company presumes the sickness is linked to publicity to the chemical. It acknowledges that those that served in particular places have been seemingly uncovered and their sicknesses are tied to army service. The designation expedites affected veterans’ incapacity claims.
Agent Orange is a 50-50 combination of two chemical substances generally known as 2,4-D and a couple of,4,5-T. Herbicides with the identical chemical construction, though barely modified, have been extensively out there within the Fifties and ‘60s, offered commercially and used on virtually each base in the USA, mentioned Gerson Smoger, a lawyer who argued earlier than the Supreme Courtroom for Vietnam veterans to have the correct to sue Agent Orange producers.
2,4,5-T comprises the dioxin TCDD, a identified carcinogen linked to quite a few cancers, continual circumstances and start defects. The Environmental Safety Company banned using 2,4,5-T in the USA in 1979.
VA says it based mostly its proposed rule on data offered by the Protection Division, and that the Pentagon’s assessment “discovered no documentation of herbicide use, testing or storage at Fort Ord.”
Patricia Kime contributed reporting.
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