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- Written by Rebecca Hanlon Rebecca Hanlon
No one noticed it at first. The herbicide used to clear tracts of rainforest during the Vietnam War was given the name “Agent Orange” for the brightly colored stripes on the barrels. And while it did its job of killing vegetation, it also was doing something else in the DNA of men and women who served in the Armed Forces.
While U.S. forces would withdraw in 1973, the Vietnam War didn’t end until 1975. But between 1962 and 1971, the United States sprayed approximately 20 million gallons of dioxin-contaminated herbicides over some 6 million acres of Vietnam, according to a report by the National Organization on Disability.
All the while, veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange and other herbicides were slowly starting to experience their own changes. The Department of Veterans Affairs received its first reports of conditions related to Agent Orange in 1977.
Since then, it has been a long road of determining how Agent Orange might have affected those exposed to its chemicals—even plaguing future generations—and how the government can now provide assistance.
Vietnam Veterans of America, based in Silver Spring, Maryland, has been pushing legislation to help collect data from veterans and find ways to help the generations that continue to suffer from some of the effects, including spina bifida and an incomplete closing of a fetus’ spine, as well as issues related to learning, attention, and weak immune systems.
For decades, Vietnam veterans were denied disability and health benefits for exposure to Agent Orange. It wasn’t until 1991 that certain illnesses were finally linked to the herbicide.
But hope might finally be in sight. In 2015, senators pushed for a bipartisan bill that would allow veterans who served in Vietnam and on the surrounding shoreline and have a disease associated with Agent Orange to receive health and disability benefits.
Betty Mekdeci of Birth Defect Research For Children, Inc., in Florida knows how hard of a struggle it has been to provide relief for Vietnam veterans.
“It’s a shame that these veterans waited so long for someone to take notice,” Mekdeci said. “The research wasn’t there for such a long time, and it was like we were starting from scratch to get it.”
Working with the Vietnam Veterans of America, Mekdeci was able to start a national birth defect registry to help determine how children and grandchildren of veterans were reacting to Agent Orange exposure.
While spina bifida is the main defect seen in future generations of male veterans, there are 18 birth defects found in the children and grandchildren of female veterans, Mekdeci said.
As the data rolled in, Mekdeci said, they expected to see cleft palate and spina bifida pop up in the listings. But it was the nonphysical defects—the pattern of children with learning, attention, and immune disabilities—that caught her attention.
“Doctors didn’t know what to do. Families were frustrated,” she said. “We needed to do more research.”
Years later, Mekdeci has closely followed legislators who debate the passing of bills that would bring benefits to veterans and their children.
“Agent Orange turned birth defect research on its head,” she said. “We thought of birth defects as structural things—heart defects, cleft palate, missing limbs. But it isn’t just bones and organs that form during pregnancy. It’s all the things that make our bodies function.”
But getting help for veterans exposed to Agent Orange is still a challenge.
The official list of diseases recognized as related to Agent Orange has grown slowly and sporadically, mostly because of underfunding and uneven research, according to the National Organization on Disability.
More than a decade after the war, the skin disease chloracne, which causes disfiguration, was the only illness officially associated with Agent Orange exposure. Others have been added, including chronic B-cell leukemia, Hodgkin’s disease, ischemic heart disease, Parkinson’s disease, prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, and several groups of cancers found in soft tissue, such as muscle, fat, and blood.
Today, 14 illnesses are recognized by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as being a result of Agent Orange exposure.
According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, biological children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange may receive a monthly monetary allowance based on their level of disability, as well as vocational training for job placement and healthcare benefits.
While Vietnam Veterans of America has focused on the families of veterans, veterans of more recent wars have reported similar heath issues in younger generations. With hopes of initiating research on all toxic exposures to those in the Armed Forces, the Vietnam Veterans of America’s Agent Orange/Dioxin Committee has been hard at work pushing new legislation.
The organization introduced identical bills in both chambers of Congress, H.R. 1769 and S.901—the Toxic Exposure Research Act of 2015. Both bills have bipartisan sponsorship.
The Toxic Exposure Research Act of 2015 directs the VA secretary to select one VA Medical Center to serve as the national center for the research and diagnosis and treatment of health conditions of descendants of individuals exposed to toxic substances during service, according to a news release.
“We needed this type of research done years ago,” Mekdeci said. “It really can’t wait any longer. The more time passes, the more time we’re missing out on opportunities to prevent more harm. Our veterans deserve more than that.”