VA and Agent Orange

[3mtrship]

I received a real nice column from a friend of mine today who writes. I am posting it here for all of you guys and gals to read.

Agent Orange

This column will deal with those men and women who served in Vietnam between 1962 and 1971.

Recently I decided to make my way through the Veterans Administrations Agent Orange Registry paperwork and lab tests at Bay Pines VA Hospital. First allow me to try and explain what Agent Orange is and what it was developed for and its application.

The herbicide (defoliant) was produced by several companies such as Dow Chemical, Monsanto, and Diamond Shamrock.
The herbicides main function was to kill unwanted plant life such as tall grass, leaves on tress which provided cover for the enemy. Agent Orange contained equal amounts of the two active ingredients, 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, which is a known dioxin. The actual name, "Agent Orange," came from the orange band around the drums in which it was stored.

The United States Military under the ‘Operation Ranch Hand’ program sprayed Agent Orange in all 4 military zones of Vietnam, covering approximately 6 million acres. Some of that acreage was sprayed more than once during the time of its use.

During the Vietnam War nearly 20,000,000 US gallons of chemical herbicides and defoliants were applied to Vietnam, eastern Laos and parts of Cambodia, US Air Force records show at least 6,542 spraying missions took place. The spray was applied by helicopters, low-flying C-123’s, trucks, boats, and backpack sprayers.

The first batch of herbicides was unloaded at Tan Son Nhut Air base in South Vietnam, on January 9, 1962. The first official acknowledgement of the programs came from the State Department in March 1966.

Many experts at the time, including Arthur Galston, the biologist who developed and intensively studied TCDD, opposed herbicidal warfare, due to concerns about the side effects to humans and the environment by indiscriminately spraying the chemical over a wide area.

It has come to light in recent years that Agent Orange had also been dispersed in Korea. Korean forces utilized small amounts of Agent Orange in 1968-69 in the area from the Civilian Control line to the southern boundary of the Demilitarized Zone.

While researching this column I discovered my last duty base assignment in North Florida had been a ‘test’ site for Agent Orange prior to its usage in Vietnam.

Even if you’re not a patient at a VA Hospital or Clinic you should at least make yourself aware of what Agent Orange is and what you may face in the future health wise.

According to the VA Health sites an individual does not have to be a patient to become involved in the registry. You only have to have been in one of the areas of concern.

Should you be interested in contacting someone regarding Agent Orange call your local VA Hospital (Bay Pines) or go online at one the following site to educate yourself.

http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposure ... gistry.asp
http://www.veteranshour.com/agent_orange_updates.htm

If you would like to contact me please do so at PGRTerry@gmail.com and remember “It’s not about the war, it’s about the warriors.” God bless America and those who serve in uniform.

Kind Regards Jim

[3mtrship]

Here is another press release from Vietnam Veterans of America (http://www.vva.org) newsletter.

(Washington, D.C.) "Veterans exposed to Agent Orange are at least twice as likely to develop prostate cancer; their recurrence rates are higher; and recurring cancers are more aggressive," noted Dr. Thomas Berger, Executive Director of VVA's Veterans Health Council, before today's Congressional Men's Health Caucus Prostate Cancer Task Force. Berger urged his fellow Vietnam veterans to get screened, noting "it's worth the fight."

Said Berger, "Some three million veterans served in Southeast Asia, and no one knows for sure how many of these veterans were exposed to Agent Orange." In 1996 the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences concluded there is "limited evidence of a positive association between prostate cancer and exposure to herbicides used in Vietnam, including Agent Orange." As a result of IOM's findings, Jesse Brown, then-Secretary of the Veterans Administration (VA), issued the final rule, recognizing prostate cancer as a service-connected, presumptive disease associated with exposure to Agent Orange and other phenoxy herbicides during military service, allowing such exposed veterans to become eligible for VA disability compensation and health care.
In 2008, University of California-Davis Cancer Center physicians released results of research showing Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange have greatly increased risks of prostate cancer and even greater risks of getting the most aggressive form of the disease as compared to those who were not exposed. The research was also the first to use a large population of men in their 60s and the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test. More than 13,000 Vietnam veterans enrolled in the VA Northern California Health Care System were stratified into two groups, exposed or not exposed to Agent Orange between 1962 and 1971. Based on medical evaluations conducted between 1998 and 2006, the study revealed that:

■twice as many Agent Orange-exposed men were identified with prostate cancer than non-exposed;
■Agent Orange-exposed men were diagnosed two-and-a-half years younger than non-exposed; and
■Agent Orange-exposed men were nearly four times more likely to present with metastatic disease than non-exposed.

Further buttressing this link, in 2009, a study of 1,495 veterans in five cities who underwent radical prostatectomy to remove their cancerous prostates showed 206 exposed to Agent Orange had a near 50 percent increased risk of their cancer recurring, despite the cancer seeming nonaggressive at the time of surgery. And the cancer came back with a vengeance. The time it took the prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, level to double – an indicator of aggressiveness – was eight months versus more than 18 months in non-exposed veterans.

Merry Christmas,Jim