More Support for C-123 Veterans' Agent Orange Claims

We learned this week that another major university (not to be specified but it sits along the Charles River in Boston) has brought its expertise to bear on our claims for Agent Orange exposure. Experts from that university in Boston fully endorsed Dr. Jeannie Stellman's perspective - C-123 veterans WERE exposed to deadly TCDD (the toxic element of Agent Orange) in the years 1972-1982. Further, their professional opinion is that our veterans were exposed at a greater rate than ground troops of the Vietnam War.

And they have a great faculty club!

Like Dr. Stellman, this university's experts have previously been acknowledged by the National Academy of Sciences as the go-to source for Agent Orange research.

We still hope for a peer-reviewed article addressing the inadequacies of the VA and AF reports about the C-123, likely focusing on the unscientific assumptions made, the obvious predetermined conclusion, and the fact...the fact...that aircrews and maintenance personnel assigned to this aircraft are due fair consideration by the VA for our Agent Orange exposure claims. Several researchers have utilized our blog's extensive data collection, but we need to get more of the materials gathered by the Air Force during their investigation of the C-123 contamination. Personally, I'd like to know who exactly wrote the report because it was signed by Colonel Benjamin, commander of the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, and I can't see that a physician or major unit commander did this work himself. Typically, such reports are released oner the signatures of the researchers involved. And typically, Air Force reports such as this can be relied upon but in this case it has failed the sniff test.

Jeanne Mager Stellman  Professor and Director of Environmental Health Sciences, SUNY-Downstate "Agent Orange was an important tool that could be used to save the lives of thousands of soldiers who could fight in the jungle more clearly. But at the same time it introduced serious toxic chemicals into the environment and one could also say caused huge ecological disaster by this massive deforestation of a jungle area.

So, fellow veterans, keep calm and await developments. We expect the Air Force to brief Senator Burr on July 11, and our Association's leadership has been invited to attend or participate via teleconference.

Make sure your own VA claims for Agent Orange-type illness are submitted, and thus far the best advice from the American Legion's National Service Officers is to address individual medical issues with specific, expert medical opinions that the issue is "as likely to as not" have been caused by exposure to Agent Orange while an aircrew member (or maintainer, or aerial port) of the C-123.