C-123 Post-Vietnam Aircrew and Maintainers: Agent Orange Exposure CONFIRMED by IOM!

Exposure CONFIRMED! Last hurdle overcome!

In a clear message to the VA and USAF, yesterday the Institute of Medicine dismissed any questions of C-123 post-Vietnam Agent Orange exposure with their press release announcing conclusion of a year-long investigation. IOM confirmed the post-Vietnam exposures of C-123 aircrews and maintenance personnel in their VA-sponsored research.

This is a game-changer as VA has stated, through Under Secretary Allison Hickey, that whichever way the IOM report recommended the VA would likely follow. VA executives were briefed on Thursday and the IOM released their C-123 investigation to the public, legislators and the press on Friday. Following the report's presentation, VA leaders said staff was already working on the implications of the IOM's finding and details were being resolved.

The VA has been hit hard this last year, which with justification will be remembered as the year of the scandals. This is a scandal resolved, through the efforts of the scientific community )to include IOM as well as the independent scientists and physicians who continued to reveal the basis for C-123 veterans' exposure claims,) and VA staff which opened the door and their hearts with determination to resolve this mess.

So the resolution is on its way. We should see changes in VA web pages, communication from VA to their staff, press releases from VA on its views regarding the IOM report, and we hope...claims being released from the current suspended status ordered for all such claims.

Let's hope this is as much as win-win as it seems. In my mind, it leaves all involved a solid justification for feeling their duty to America's veterans has been satisfied. Congratulations!

REVIEWS: The History, Use, Disposition and Environmental Fate of Agent Orange

Following is a 2010 review of a text addressing Agent Orange and its use during the Vietnam War, and the public policies which followed the veterans complaints. Dr. Young is a frequent contributor to numerous journals, has published several books, is a court-recognized expert witness on Agent Orange, and is a consultant to the Department of Veterans Affairs on the subject of post-Vietnam Agent Orange issues. Both he and Dr. Jeanne Stellman, co-author of this review, also contributed to the current C-123 study being conducted by the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Young's perspective is that C-123 veterans were neither exposed nor harmed, while Dr. Stellman's perspective is that exposure and harm were both likely. This review was published in Environmental Health Perspectives. Dr. Young's book is available at Amazon and other sources.

The History, Use, Disposition and Environmental Fate of Agent Orange

By Alvin L. Young, PhD (Colonel, USAF Retired)
New York: Springer, 2009. 339 pp. 
ISBN: 978-0-387-87485-2, $99

It has been nearly 50 years since the United States initiated a military operation that sprayed approximately 20 million gallons of phenoxy herbicides and arsenicals on South Vietnam including Agent Orange, a formulation that was contaminated with dioxin.

Alvin Young has been a major player in measuring and monitoring these herbicides since the 1960s. Retired from the Air Force (AF) and now receiving support from the herbicide manufacturers Dow and Monsanto, Young remains a governmental spokesman in post-conflict remediation dealings with Vietnam. His “new” book on the issue—actually, a largely unacknowledged compilation of his and others’ writing and research—contains some valuable information. This value though, must be weighed against a number of serious deficiencies in scholarship.

Young’s book contains a gold mine of data on the herbicides, some of which have been out of public view until now. But caveat emptor: Page after page of text and many illustrations and photographs are taken directly from Young’s prior publications without proper citation. There are also many lengthy direct quotations from other authors that appear without quotation marks or indents. Setting aside issues of copyright, the difficulty for users who wish to cite this book’s contents will be the absolute requirement of locating all references to distinguish original from reproduced text.

A second caveat: Many quotations are taken out of context, emphasis has been added without acknowledgement, and other authors’ work has in some cases been misinterpreted. For example, Major General John Murray—who evaluated military records aspects of the now abandoned Agent Orange Study—is quoted as seeming to urge abandonment of all military records–based studies with Young’s emphasis-added, capitalized, and boldfaced “NOT.”

A check in the source material, though, will show that Murray’s very next sentence reads “It is, of course, understood that eight (8) other studies which require determinations of the likelihood of Agent Orange exposure conducted by the Veterans Administration and for which the Joint Services Environmental Support Group will provide exposure determinations and military record abstractions will rigorously continue” (Murray JE. 1986. Report to the White House Agent Orange Working Group Science Subpanel on Exposure Assessment. Washington DC: Office of Science and Technology Policy).

Palmer’s work is cited as supporting the notion that science cannot contribute to understanding health effects of Agent Orange, because there are too many “quality of life issues.” A check of source material (Palmer MG. 2005. The Legacy of Agent Orange: Empirical Evidence from Central Vietnam. Soc Sci Med 60:1061–1070) reveals that Palmer did not say this; further, the year of his paper is incorrectly cited. More recently, Young has proposed a new theory to support his contention that no U.S. troops were directly sprayed upon.

He asserts that because there were no reports of U.S. casualties resulting from attacks by the fighter planes that escorted the spray planes, no troops could have been in harm’s way, and he cites Flanagan, a retired AF pilot who wrote of his varied experiences in Vietnam. In fact, Flanagan’s description of a spray mission disparages the Army recordkeeping on which Young relies: “Failure was never recognized … friendly casualties could be failures, but they, too, were never identified” (Flanagan JF.1992. Vietnam Above The Treetops: A Forward Air Controller Reports. New York: Praeger)

In the interest of full disclosure, Young describes our methodology for updating and correcting herbicide spray records as demonstrating a “woeful lack of understanding” of AF reporting procedures. We must point out in response that our work (Stellman JM, Stellman SD. 2003. Characterizing Exposure of Veterans to Agent Orange and Other Herbicides Used in Vietnam: Final Report. Washington, DC: National Academies Press) was performed in collaboration with the persons at the Department of Defense (DoD) who were the most knowledgeable about these procedures—the Center for Research on Unit Records—and co-authored by Col. Christian (retired), former director of the DoD Joint  Services Environmental Support Group. Young discounts the ability of spray plane navigators to know where they were or pilots to accurately spray their targets—thereby dismissing the utility of the voluminous spray records available, despite much evidence to the contrary.

Some assertions in the book either are disingenuous or contradict Young’s earlier work. Young rationalizes in this book that the omission of maximum dioxin contaminant levels from the military specifications for herbicide quality occurred because not enough was known and measurement was difficult; but two decades ago his edited volume stated that “the manufacturers of trichlorophenol and of 2,4,5-T had been aware for many years that this class of compounds and particularly their impurities produced a toxic reaction in humans … the same manufacturers had developed, as early as 1941, a … bioassay … to monitor the production of the herbicide” (Young AL, Reggiani GM. 1988. Agent Orange and Its Associated Dioxin: Assessment of a Controversy. New York:Elsevier).

Indeed, in 1965 Dow Chemical Company’s V.K. Rowe convened a highly unusual meeting of his toxicology counterparts from competitor companies to warn that the herbicide was dangerous and that processes  needed cleaning up. Dow closed down and rebuilt its own feedstock operations to manage the problem. The military specifications never once mentioned dioxin for the duration of the war.

Science also seems to have ended in the 1970s and early 1980s for Young. Johnston Island, the final resting place for Agent Orange before its incineration at sea, had no important problems in 1978
according to Young. However, a 1986 AF reassessment found marine biota with up to 472 ppb dioxin, subsoil with 510 ppb dioxin, and 682,247 ppb of 2,4,5-T (Huse G, et al. 1991. Preliminary Public Health, Environmental Risk, and Data Requirements Assessment for the Herbicide Orange Storage Site at Johnston Island. Brooks Air Force Base, TX: Occupational and Environmental Health Directorate).

Finally, how very much beside the point is the book’s quibbling about whether spray estimates differ by a few percent? Here we are in 2010, some 38 years since the last spray mission overflew hamlets and fields of our ally, the South Vietnamese, and we still cannot answer these questions: Were there health consequences? Just how many “hot spots” are there? Were veterans who served in heavily sprayed areas more likely to contract illnesses than those who did not? Are there adverse effects among the people of Gulfport, Mississippi, through which millions of gallons passed, too much of it in leaky barrels? The Institute of Medicine, the editors of Nature, Congress, and many others have repeatedly requested that studies be done—to no avail.

These are profoundly important questions still awaiting an answer. Young contends that science is being “filtered” through the public’s confused perceptions. But while some confusion may exist, the predominant sentiment is dismay. If there is one thing that this compendium of reprinted materials shows us, it is that there is a wealth of data that can be used to answer the many open environmental questions.

Jeanne M Stellman is Professor Emerita, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. She was principal investigator of a major National Academy of Sciences project to develop exposure methodologies for military herbicides used in Vietnam. She is a Guggenheim fellow and Editor-in-Chief, ILO Encyclopaedia of  Occupational Health and Safety (4th ed). She is currently a professor at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York.
Steven D. Stellman is Professor of Clinical Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. He holds a doctorate in physical chemistry.

This is a summary from Springer:

For almost four decades, controversy has surrounded the tactical use of herbicides in Southeast Asia by the United States military.  Few environmental or occupational health issues have received the sustained international attention that has been focused on Agent Orange, the major tactical herbicide deployed in Southern Vietnam.  With the opening and establishment of normal relations between the United States and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1995, the time has come for a thorough re-examination of the military use of Agent Orange and other "tactical herbicides" in Southern Vietnam, and the subsequent actions that have been taking place since their use in Vietnam.

The United States Department of Defense has had the major role in all military operations involving the use of tactical herbicides, including that of Agent Orange.  This included the Department's purchase, shipment and tactical use of herbicides in Vietnam, its role in the disposition of Agent Orange after Vietnam, its role in conducting long-term epidemiological investigations of the men of Operation RANCH HAND, and its sponsorship of ecological and environmental fate studies.  This book was commissioned by The Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Installations and Environment) with the intent of providing documentation of the knowledge on the history, use, disposition and environmental fate of Agent Orange and its associated dioxin.

And a review:

“This book is a distillation of thousands of pages of written government and scientific documents, oral histories, spraying records, medical records, and pictures and is organized into eight chapters … . Young presents a dispassionate review, a feat difficult for anyone who touches this sensitive topic and especially laudable for an author who has devoted a major portion of his professional career to the subject over 40 years. … Thank you, Dr. Young, for this much-needed book.”­­­ (Mitchell D. Erickson, Environmental Sciences and Pollution Research, Vol. 17, March, 2010)

Current Status - Institute of Medicine C-123 Agent Orange Exposure Committee

Actually, the full name just doesn't quite flow off the tongue, nor is it easily typed...I always have to look it up: Committee to Evaluate the Potential Exposure to Agent Orange/TCDD Residue and Level of Risk Adverse Health Effects for Aircrew of Post-Vietnam C-123 Aircraft."

They've been meeting and working very hard since the spring and apparently are about finished with their draft copy, according to the cryptic summation of the recent committee teleconferences. Once the draft is complete, it begins another process before reaching the Secretary of Veterans Affairs:

• Prior to release, report is reviewed by individuals who are not involved in authoring the report and whose names are not revealed to the committee or the study director during review.
• Reviewers are selected by the major unit responsible for the project, in consultation with the National Academy of Sciences’ Report Review Committee.
• The review is overseen by a review monitor and/or coordinator.
• Each committee must respond to, but need not agree with, reviewer comments in a detailed “response to review” that is examined by the monitor and/or coordinator, who ensure that the report review criteria have been satisfied.
• The report may not be released to sponsor or the public until the chair of the Report Review Committee (or designee) signifies that the review process has been satisfactorily completed.
• The Department of Veterans Affairs will not be given an opportunity to suggest changes in the report.
• The names and affiliations of the report reviewers will be made public when the report is released.

The second bullet could be fatal: VA, as the "major unit responsible" will select reviewers already determined to prevent C-123 exposure claims, so whatever pro-C-123 exposure conclusions will be severely challenged, and whatever anti-C-123 exposure conclusions will be amplified. So whatever the committee itself recommends will be amended in some way at this point to a position more acceptable to the VA's Post Deployment Health Section. And you can bet they've already got their reviewers picked out! Only when its released and too late to be challenged, are the reviewers identified and in any case, nobody sees the committee's draft, or original version.

Remember: VA did not refer this to the IOM because there is any scientific question that we've been exposed. They referred it, and worded the charge to the committee, to create a basis for continuing to deny all C-123 exposure claims even though each C-123 veteran with an Agent Orange-recognized illness is presently legally entitled to presumptive service connection.

A strong point still in our favor is a fundamental IOM rule: In reaching consensus about an association between exposure and health effects, the Committee considers only peer-reviewed, published scientific literature. The committee also realizes that this group of veterans was never tested at any time for dioxin, and that VA rules for the Agent Orange registry actually prohibit such tests.

The committee realizes that our C-123s are unique in that they were tested to be contaminated – "highly contaminated," in the words of the toxicologists, long after we'd retired them to storage. No other such situation...boats, ships, tanks, trucks, helicopters...was ever determined to be contaminated as were our C-123s. "A danger to public health" as AF toxicologists offered in sworn testimony in 2000. And then, all aircraft destroyed as toxic waste, with special note made for this to be done because exposed vets would seek their exposure benefits.

The material gathered by the VA for IOM, including from its $300,000/year Agent Orange consultant and the Dow/Monsanto sponsored letters, was never peer reviewed. Of course, many other documents submitted to the IOM by the VA and the veterans weren't peer-reviewed, either.

And the only peer-reviewed scientific literature available which directly addressed the situation was Lurker, et. al. "Post-Vietnam Military Herbicide Exposures in UC-123K Agent Orange Spray Aircraft."

The committee is doing what it has to. We asked them also to exercise their independence and address the yes/no question of exposure.

We'll wait and hope for the best.We'll look forward with great hope to the end of September or, if delayed, maybe sometime in October bringing us the IOM report.

Institute of Medicine C-123 Agent Orange Committee Audio

The first panel consisted of Wes Carter, representing the C-123 veterans, and Dr. Al Young, discussing the Department of Veterans Affairs. We each had a five minute intro followed by questions from the committee for about an hour. Two other panels followed, with representatives from Sandia Labs, UC Berkeley, Columbia University, Rutgers University and others.

After lunch the committee arranged five-minute open mike sessions. The most interesting and passionate was from Dr. Peter Kahn of Rutgers University, who not only has spent his life as a scientist but was also leader of New Jersey's Agent Orange Commission for years.

To put it mildly, Dr. Kahn took on the VA (not the IOM) for its intransigence. In the recording, his presentation begins at 3:17:00 and runs about four minutes. Also heard is the C-123 representative, Dr. Loren Erickson who is the new director of Pre 9/11 Post-Deployment Health in the VA's Public Health Section, and finally Mr. Rick Weidman, Legislative Director of the Vietnam Veterans of America.

A couple points. As expert listeners will note, VA makes Agent Orange sound innocent...as innocent as kool-aid in the jungles of Guyana as Rev. Jim Jones hands you a cup and says, "Drink this..good for you!" VA has been a defender for VA/Dow/Monsanto for decades and nothing changes. VA has paid $600,000 for a series of reports, some of which were shared with the IOM.

VA materials also wrongly emphasized the refurbishment of the C-123s before use by the Reserve. VA was wrong in submitting photos of C-123 #664 (Ponderous Polly) of the flight deck and the cargo deck, saying and writing that they were taken as the aircraft came out of Dothan AL on return from Vietnam in 1972. Actually, the photos seemed clipped from the Air Heritage Museum's web page and were taken in recent years, not back in 1972.

At least one committee member challenged VA emphasis on the refurbishment of the C-123s, asking if they'd been so thoroughly redone, why did Patches still test so toxic in 1994. I hope the committee understands that the dioxin was more intense in 1972 when we got the first C-123s than when tested decades later. In one of the VA reports the Department stressed the deterioration of dioxin on the Boneyard aircraft by 2010 but in the committee switched and said there would be very little, if any, deterioration and that the 2009 test results should be interpreted to equal what would have been the case in 1972.

Clearly, all the VA cares about is blocking claims. Any way they can!

All the VA's documents are available to review here.
Our responses to VA documents thru June 16 to the IOM are available to review here.
All the materials submitted at the last minute or after the 16th are available here.
We did a super-rush job clipping a video together, seen here.

The first voice at 00:00;00 is the committee chair, Professor Henrick of Harvard. The second is Wes Carter, then Dr. Al Young, followed by questions from the committee, then another panel, etc.

We tried hard, just as we've done for three hard years (so far.) Now the committee meets over the next couple months to complete their report and submit it for review of the National Academies of Science. Expect it to be several hundred pages. It then should be on the Secretary's desk by the end of September and we'll keep pushing for a prompt decision. Any of our pilots or flight engineers would have done better, but I feel I did okay (for an AME.)

Other efforts continue. We're now going to have time to help individual members get their claims and appeals in with supporting information. We have friends in Congress who are pushing VA and its staffers HARD on their illogical position. We have friends in science, and in government, doing the same on our behalf.

What should you be doing?
1. Get your request in to VA for an Agent Orange Registry exam
2. Watch your PSAs
3. Get your claims in for Agent Orange-associated illnesses...benefits date from the application, not when VA approves!
3. Find other C-123 veterans. We have done a miserable job connecting with folks from Pittsburgh and Richenbacker...they are in the same situation as us but need to get in touch with us – I can't believe they simply aren't interested. Their illnesses must be similar to ours, and they even had one or two maintenance folks win their Agent Orange claims on appeal.
4. Have a great summer and take care of yourselves!

Veterans Demanding VA Treatment For C-123 Agent Orange Veterans

We're not alone. 

 

AMERICAN LEGION CALLS ON VA TO RECOGNIZE C-123 VETERANS' AGENT ORANGE EXPOSURE

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The American Legion has announced its support for extending Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits eligibility to veterans who were exposed to aircraft that had previously sprayed Agent Orange over Vietnam.

“should provide the evidence needed for post-Vietnam veterans to receive the same health treatment as in-country veterans. They need and deserve it.”

The Legion’s support is based on a study published Feb. 21 in the scientific journal Environmental Research: “Post-Vietnam Military Herbicide Exposures in UC-123 Agent Orange Spray Aircraft.” The study reports that environmental testing of such aircraft revealed traces of dioxin levels above Department of Defense (DoD) standards for maximum permissible exposure to poisonous chemicals.

U.S. Air Force and VA policies do not currently recognize “dried residues” of herbicide and dioxin as harmful.

Based on recent surface wipes and airborne concentration tests, occupational health researchers have concluded that inhalation, ingestion, and skin absorption of dioxin and Agent Orange occurred in crews who came in contact with the spray aircraft after the Vietnam War.

“The Legion is committed to ensuring that veterans receive the benefits they deserve,” American Legion National Commander Daniel M. Dellinger said. “We will work with Congress and the VA to promptly designate C-123K aircraft as Agent Orange exposure sites, thereby qualifying veterans who worked with these planes to be eligible for Agent Orange-related benefits.”

According to Dr. Jeanne Mager Stellman, Professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, the study “should provide the evidence needed for post-Vietnam veterans to receive the same health treatment as in-country veterans. They need and deserve it.” Stellman is senior author of the study.

The American Legion and Stellman worked together in the early 1980s to prove that adverse health conditions among Vietnam War veterans was linked to Agent Orange exposure, establishing a link that authorizes VA compensation and health care for those veterans.

In 1983, the Legion sponsored an independent study by Columbia University that established the effects of exposure to Agent Orange on Vietnam War veterans. Congress received the results of the “American Legion-Columbia University Study of Vietnam-era Veterans” in 1989.

The Legion and Stellman have continued to fight for changes that include, in a 2010 decision, ischemic heart disease, Parkinson’s disease and B-cell leukemia among conditions presumed to be connected to Agent Orange. The Legion has also fought to expand eligibility beyond those who served only with “boots on the ground” during the Vietnam War, including “blue-water” veterans exposed to the defoliant on U.S. Navy vessels and U.S. Air Force crews who handled it.

In August 2012, the Legion passed Resolution 128 to mitigate legal problems for the more than 1,500 veterans who must prove they suffer health problems associated with herbicide exposure.

Click here for a slide show and synopsis of the report.

A high resolution photo of Nat. Cmdr. Dellinger is available at www.legion.org.

Paul Sutton Forwards the Chicago Tribune Series on Vietnam; Charts Show When/Where/How Much Agent Orange Sprayed During War

Veterans of all services are fortunate to have a resource in that great Marine, Paul Sutton.

When C-123 guys encountered VA's "Get the Hell Out" knee-jerk response when we  asked (why'd we bother?) the government for help,
worrying about this health mess, his USB memory stick arrived with the start of our technical literature collection, saving months of research and lending enough encouragement that we didn't quit when we first heard

Here Paul forwards the Chicago Tribune's Agent Orange resources. Much of the Agent Orange story springs from Chicago...not the Agent Orange stuff itself, but the news about the toxin. The VA in Chicago had dedicated staffers who noted and understood the developing statistics of illness among Vietnam War veterans.

Taking it to the news professionals, Bill Kurtis of CBS picked up the ball and so did the Chicago Tribune. Without their coverage, the scandal might have faded from America's attention.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-091204-agentorange-map%2c0%2c2014263.htmlpage

Agent Orange Harmless, Claims VA Leader

Agent Orange is harmless, or so claims VA's Director of Compensation and Pension Services (C&P.)

His exact words were, "There is no conclusive evidence that TCDD exposure causes any adverse health effects." At least, Agent Orange is harmless only so far as veterans' Agent Orange exposure claims are concerned if they reach the director's desk for prompt denial.

TCDD is the toxic contaminant in Agent Orange, or, more specifically, 2,3,4,8-Tetrachlorodibenzenzodioxin. It is a recognized human carcinogen, recognized as such by EPA, WHO and other authorities, and also by the VA! Again, quite harmful except where Agent Orange-exposed veterans' claims are concerned...pretending otherwise is merely part of VA's campaign to deny medical care to qualified veterans.

C&P's statement was part of his September 2012 order that an Agent Orange-exposed war veteran's claim be denied. The VA's Portland Regional Office had recommended approval, but C&P then directed the refusal over his signature once he was made aware of the veteran's claim.  The director of C&P was asked about his position, obviously contrary to both law and science, during a face-to-face February 2013 meeting with C-123 Association members Wes Carter and Marlene Wentworth at VA's 1800 G Street headquarters.

He and his staff seemed unaware of his action in this particular case, but did nothing then or subsequently to revise the order denying the veteran's claim. Thus, it remains the position at the Department of Veterans Affairs that Agent Orange has not been shown to cause adverse health effects...their pretense is that it is harmless.

Apparently objecting to the veteran's submitting an Agent Orange exposure claim, the diretor went so much further in his order forbidding this veteran's application. Because numerous government and university scientists provided substantial proofs of the vet's exposure situation, He directed that all input from toxicologists, chemists, epidemiologists and environmental scientists input be flatly rejected and only physician input be acceptable. This flies in the face of decisions by the 8th and 9th Circuit Courts which ruled such arbitrary dismissal of expert toxicological input illegal and unfair.

Actually, numerous physician statements of support were also included in the veteran's claim and these should have meet C&Ps requirement. These were submitted by the vet's own VA physician (Dr. Mark Garzotto, an acknowledged Agent Orange researcher and also professor of medicine at Oregon Health Sciences University), from Rear Admiral R. Ikeda (MD, USPHS) Director CDC/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, CAPT Aubrey Miller (MD) US Public Health Service, and Professor Arnold Schecter (MD) at the University of Texas Medical School.

However, these physicians were all dismissed by simply ignoring them without comment of any sort, either in C&P's order or in the actual claim denial. By pretending their nonexistence, VA skirted the need to permit this convincing evidence to support the veteran's claim.

The determination of Compensation and Pension Service to prevent this veteran's claim was made even clearer in their mischaracterization of the C-123 Agent Orange study completed by the Air Force and release in May 2012. The VA twisted the fact, saying the Air Force concluded exposures by crewmembers were unlikely to have exceeded regulatory standards. In fact, the AF made that conclusion only for passengers, not for crew members who were in the C-123 much more over a full decade of flying. And besides, there are no published regulatory standards for dioxin exposure, because any exposure is considered harmful by regulators.

Conclusion: strictly for policy reasons alone and disregarding the 1991 Agent Orange Act, Title 38 and the Federal Register of 8 May 2001, and disproving promises by Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki that all C-123 claims will be carefully considered, the VA is determined that C-123 veterans' claims will be denied regardless of proof, legal sufficiency, medical or scientific justification. At least, if C&P has any say.

C-123 Veterans Claims SITREP: 4 Aug 2013

It is highly likely that you and other crew members were exposed to the herbicides and to their highly toxic contaminant, dioxin.

        - Dr. Jeanne Stellman, Profesor Emerata, Columbia University

Aircrew operating in this, and similar environments, were exposed to dioxin.

       - Dr. Christopher Portier, (then) Director, CDC/Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry

I am in agreement. (with Dr. Portier's finding, above)

       - Rear Admiral R. Ikeda MD, Director, CDC/Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry

• VA will NOT permit C-123 veterans' claims.

       - Deputy Director, VA Post-Deployment Health

• We all die.

       - Dr. Michael Peterson, Chief Consultant, VA Post-Deployment Health

(responding to veteran asking VBA to reach accurate rating decisions before the veteran's death and not force two year appeals delay, March 2012)

VA Perverts USAF Study of C-123 Agent Orange Exposure - Prevents Exposed Veterans' Claims

In 2012 the Air Force released its review of veterans' claims of exposure to Agent Orange contaminating C-123 transports used in Vietnam for Operation Ranch Hand. C-123s sprayed about 95% of the Agent Orange used, and subsequent tests firmly established the lingering contamination of the transports, forever toxic due to dioxin. The policy-driven report was prepared by military and Civil Service physicians and scientists at Wright-Patterson AFB's USAF School of Aerospace Medicine, but for some curious and worrisome reason, not actually signed by them and instead issued over the signature of supervisors not associated with the research.

Severely faulted by the Senate as well as the medical and scientific community which challenged the report in great detail, Air Force leaders eventually drew back somewhat from their final stance on the subject, informing the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that the report should not be used by the Department of Veterans Affairs to obstruct any veteran's Agent Orange exposure claim.

But that's not how the VA wants the situation. Always eager to grasp or create any excuse to deny claims, VA even used the Air Force report as weak justification for canceling their promised Institute of Medicine special project which was to independently evaluate C-123 veterans' evidence of exposure.

Seizing any excuse to deny claims, VA cites the Air Force report as a foundation of their barrier to all C-123 veterans' exposure claims. Indeed, it is a core element of the decision by VA's Post-Deployment Public Health Service that VA "cannot permit" any C-123 claims, regardless of merit, evidence, law or common sense.

VA's web site addressing C-123 Agent Orange contamination doesn't explain that VA denies all claims from exposed veterans. VA's web site doesn't explain that its Compensation Services has told veterans that no amount of proof from whatever source will move them to permit a single claim to be approved. This statement was made to veterans who presented expert findings from the CDC, National Institutes of Health, US Public Health Service, EPA, Columbia University, University of Texas Medical School, Oregon Health Sciences University, VA and private physicians, and other authorities...all of whom VA has grouped as "unacceptable lay evidence." VA's Veterans Health Administration, it was explained, had decided to prohibit all C-123 veterans from being acknowledged as exposed. 

Veterans were told by Compensation Service's director that if they had a problem with that, they could go appeal. 

Obviously, elderly men and women already ill, and already having wasted two to three years in the normal course of a VA disability claim, do not find comfort in C&P's solution of an additional one or two years for appeal...all the while being denied essential VA medical care for cancers, heart disease, and other ailments associated with their decade of Agent Orange exposure. 

Back to the problem of the Air Force 2012 Consultative Letter. VA summarized three conclusions they found significant in the Air Force work, and published this summary on their web site:

"Testing for Agent Orange residue on planes used in Vietnam

The U.S. Air Force (USAF) collected and analyzed numerous samples from C-123 aircraft to test for Agent Orange. USAF's recent risk assessment report (April 27, 2012) (2.3 MB, PDF) found that potential exposures to Agent Orange in C-123 planes used after the Vietnam War were unlikely to have put aircrew or passengers at risk for future health problems. The report’s three conclusions:

1. There was not enough information and data to conclude how much individual persons would have been exposed to Agent Orange.
2. It is expected that exposure to Agent Orange in these aircraft after the Vietnam War was lower than exposure during the spraying missions in Vietnam.
3. Potential Agent Orange exposures were unlikely to have exceeded standards set by regulators or to have put people at risk for future health problems."

If the three reasons were not considered carefully, they might persuade. Indeed, VA provides them as part of the boilerplate language they require regional offices to use in denying veterans' claims...a blanket policy of denial which the Secretary of Veterans Affairs assures the Senate does not exist. Perhaps, VA feels they don't have a "blanket policy" of denial, but a requirement that all such claims be denied seems like one, and so does the fact that no C-123 claim has ever been approved, other than through appeal to the Board of Veterans Appeals.

Those three Air Force reasons are flawed as regards veterans's claims. As has been detailed to the VA by many veterans and their advocates, these

1. As with Vietnam ground soldiers, and indeed, many of the Operation Ranch Hand Agent Orange spray veterans, as with C-123 veterans, it has never been possible to calculate an individual's exposure - that is why EPA, NIH and other authorities base exposure assessments on the study of the contamination situation. The point is, the crews were exposed and the Air Force's first conclusion in no way suggests otherwise.

2. It is commonsense that post-Vietnam C-123 crews, exposed to aircraft contamination but not drenched in Agent Orange as were Operation Ranch Hand aircrews, were exposed less than those veterans. Dr. Jeanne Stellman, Professor Emerita of the Mailman School of Public Health and perhaps the nation's leading Agent Orange expert, concluded, however, that post-Vietnam veterans were exposed more than ground soldiers, and less than Ranch Hand crews. Dr. Arnold Schecter of the University of Texas Medical School concluded the C-123 veterans were exposed about as much as Vietnam ground troops. The point is that, indeed, post-Vietnam C-123 crews were exposed. The Air Force's second conclusion in no way suggested otherwise.

3. The Air Force erred greatly in their third conclusion. There is no safe threshold for dioxin exposure. Although common in the environment at extremely low concentrations, regulators have indeed established safety thresholds which were exceeded with the contaminated C-123 fleet. Indeed, the military and civilian toxicology "gold standard" is the Army's TG312, which clearly shows crews were exposed. The only C-123 to ever undergo decontamination is at the USAF Museum in Dayton. Its contamination was determined to be 54 times the maximum safe entry goal set by the toxicologists and environmental scientists who cleaned it up. The point is, the C-123 crews were exposed and the Air Force's third conclusion in no way suggested otherwise.

VA completely ignores mention of the law. Indeed, the Air Force report, while flawed, suffices to establish the eligibility of post-Vietnam C-123 veterans for Agent Orange exposure under the 1991 Agent Orange Act, 38 C.F.R., and the 8 May 2001 Federal Register, page 23166. The law simply states that any veteran exposed to "military herbicides" outside the Vietnam War "boots on the ground" population, will be treated the same as Vietnam veterans. Very simple...the word is exposed. C-123 veterans, by a preponderance of evidence, certainly were exposed.

VA doesn't bother explaining their policy-driven route around the veterans' protection under the law...they just do it. And the veterans, if they live long enough, can appeal, just as the director of Compensation and Pension Services hsaid. Or, at least, perhaps their survivors can.

Vietnam Veterans of America proposes updated resolution of support for C-123 veterans!

(following is the proposed resolution presented for consideration by the 2013 convention of the Vietnam Veerans of America, updating their 2011 resolution which as been so influential...our thanks, VVA!)

US AIR FORCE RESERVE C123K AIRCREWS EXPOSURE POST-VIETNAM

Issue: The United States Air Force (USAF) used its fleets of C-123K transport aircraft in more than 9,100 missions, for aerial application of more than twenty million gallons of toxic herbicides between 1961 and 1971 in Vietnam. The aircraft were returned to the United States for continued use in airlift missions by USAF squadrons at Westover Air Force Base, Massachusetts; Pittsburgh Air Reserve Station, Pennsylvania; and, Rickenbacker Air Reserve Base, Ohio between 1972-1982 and were then retired from service and placed in storage. Veterans whose duties brought them into intense contact with these aircraft were exposed to military herbicides.

Background: The United States Air Force (USAF) in 1979, in response to the presence of noxious fumes, conducted scientific tests on unit aircraft and identified and determined that significant levels of military herbicides and insecticides used in Vietnam still contaminated the aircraft; and,

additional tests carried out in 1994 by USAF Armstrong Laboratories still showed the presence of herbicides, and in particular, the presence of highly toxic Agent Orange contaminant dioxin. Finding that the contamination was considered sufficient by the USAF, it then required the use of HAZMAT protective equipment when carrying out tests or otherwise entering the aircraft. As late as 2009, further USAF tests conducted at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona demonstrated continued contamination of these aircraft. USAF toxicology staff has testified in federal proceedings that toxic levels of contamination due to the herbicides were a danger to public health; and that the levels observed in the aircraft greatly exceed the Department of Defense’s (DoD) own standards for maximum permissible exposure to any dioxin contaminating interior surfaces.

 Other federal agencies have reviewed the data and concurred that exposures to personnel at levels exceeding DoD recommendations are likely to have occurred. In response to the State of Arizona and US Environmental Protection Agency environmental concerns, the USAF withdrew the aircraft from commercial resale, quarantined them and, in April 2010, ultimately took extraordinary disposal measures and smelted the remaining fleet. It is estimated that approximately 1,500 service members, including aircrews and maintenance personnel were exposed to military herbicide-contaminated conditions on the C-123 aircraft; with many of these personnel, who now having health problems commonly associated with herbicide exposure and have endured lengthy legal struggles to prove these problems are service-related. The Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, under Public Law 102-4, has statutory responsibility to accurately designate situations and locations that caused veterans to have been exposed to military herbicides used in Vietnam, as well as their contaminants.

Resolved, That: Vietnam Veterans of America, in light of the review of the data and scientific information available currently, has confirmed that post-Vietnam service aboard the C-123 led to dioxin exposure at about the same intensity as with ground troops from the Vietnam War. And, having secured expert scientific opinions as to the length and breadth of that exposure; urges the Department of Veterans Affairs to promptly designate the C-123K aircraft, used after the Vietnam War in the United States during 1972 to 1982, as having been Agent Orange exposure sites to permit the approximately 1,500 veterans who were aircrew or maintenance personnel to be eligible for Agent Orange-related benefits.

Further, in light of the inaction by both the United States Air Force and the Department of Veterans Affairs in ameliorating the present situation encountered by these approximately 1,500 veterans; VVA will also advocate with the United States Congress for the introduction of enabling legislation that would grant presumptive herbicide exposure status to US servicemembers who served in the units cited above. 

VA Violates Veterans Dioxin and Radiation Exposure Compensation Standards Act

"Scientific Review of C-123 Agent Orange" - quite unscientific!

VA has violated the Veterans Dioxin and Radiation Exposure Compensation Standards Act, in a deliberate manner to prevent veterans from receiving vital medical care! In particular, it has violated the section requiring the Secretary to produce and/or rely upon those guidelines which withstand peer review ("Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people of similar competence to the producers of the work"). And the VA's publications have manifestly FAILED peer review!

The guidelines required to be established in regulations
prescribed under this section shall include guidelines governing the
evaluation of the findings of scientific studies relating to the possible
increased risk of adverse health effects of exposure to herbicides
containing dioxin or of exposure to ionizing radiation. Those guidelines
shall require that, in the evaluation of those studies, the
Administrator shall take into account whether the results are statistically
significant, are capable of replication, and withstand peer review.

In 2012 the Department of Veterans Affairs prepared a document, claiming to be a "Scientific Review of C-123 Agent Orange," crafted to prevent successful claims by C-123 veterans who had been exposed to dioxin while serving aboard their aircraft between 1972-1982. Those warplanes had been used until 1971 for spraying Agent Orange in Vietnam. The VA review skillfully avoided references which would agree with the veterans' exposure, and selected only those which could argue against their exposure. Interesting, however, is the fact that one cited author (Dr. Linda Birnbaum, Director, National Toxicology Program) actually concluded veterans were exposed!

Response by the medical and scientific community was immediate, and negative. Acting on behalf of fifteen other scientists and physicians, Dr. Jeanne Stellman (Professor Emerita of the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University) submitted to the VA's Undersecretary for Veterans Benefits a scathing assessment of the VA's "Scientific Review". She and her colleagues termed their concerns with the VA "scientific apprehensions" and concluded the VA paper was "scientifically flawed" in many areas. 

Because the VA's "Scientific Review" was crafted to prevent C-123 veterans claims from being approved, it bears careful examination as to the failure to withstand peer review and thus violated the Veterans Dioxin and Radiation Exposure Act:

1. VA was challenged on errors regarding dermal exposure to dioxin
2.3. VA was challenged on errors regarding dermal absorption of dioxin
-VA was challenged on errors regarding failure to consider initial tests cited were completed on the aircraft seven years after the veterans started service aboard, and other tests up to forty years after the last Agent Orange spray missions, thus exposures were greater given the "fresher" dioxin
4. VA was challenged on errors regarding its dismissal of standard hexane and water wipe tests used to determine C-123 dioxin levels as "heavily contaminated"
5. VA was challenged on errors regarding failure to include reference to TG312, the acknowledged "gold standard" for evaluating surface contaminants
6. VA was challenged for deriding the concept of dioxin occupational exposure and for having incorrectly implied that only "sophisticated laboratory methods" could uncover the C-123 dioxin contamination of the warplanes, when in fact such sophisticated laboratory methods are the norm for all such examinations, and are standard in toxicology, and would be the same tests used in any civil, military or other setting where contaminants were suspected
7. VA was challenged on its incorrect statement that dried dioxin is biologically unavailable; further, it was noted that biological availability is not a requirement for veterans' claims for Agent Orange exposure per the Federal Register 8 May 2001 (page 21663)
8. VA was challenged for its failure to integrate the findings by the Director and Deputy Director of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which were that C-123 veterans were exposed and further, had a higher cancer risk by far
9. VA was challenged for its failure to assess other contaminants present in Agent Orange, and for failure to address the broader issue of "military herbicides" as described in the 1991 Agent Orange Act and its various promulgations
10. VA was most directly, and most importantly, challenged for its baseless conclusion that exposure levels were unlikely to have subjected C-123 veterans to "levels that could affect health" since no regulatory standards exist, and generally accepted guidelines were greatly exceeded in this instance

The VA's so-called "Scientific Review," having failed peer review but nonetheless employed by the Under Secretary of Veterans Benefits to deny C-123 veterans' benefits claims, leaves the Secretary having violated the Veterans Dioxin and Radiation Exposure Compensation Standards Act, and to the terrible detriment of the veterans involved. Veterans thus are turned away from care for military cancers, heart disease and other Agent Orange illnesses, and forced to seek care elsewhere. Which was was the objective of the VA's Veterans Health Administration.

One must question what the internal process is for VA release of their "scientific" papers, which seem, judging by this low standard, mere mis-steps of policy statements wrapped in erroneous pseudo-science. And given the slanted perspective taken by the VA paper, those writing it should be called to account for their unprofessional involvement.

VA Rejects Challenge From Physicians & Scientists re: C-123 Agent Orange Exposure

Late last year fifteen highly reputable physicians and scientists wrote the VA challenging the "unscientific" denial of C-123 veterans' Agent Orange exposure claims. Today, these experts released the VA's rejection, a letter by the VA's Compensation and Pension (C&P) in which VA flatly denied the experts' conclusions.

In ignoring their input, VA blatantly ignored members of the National Academy of Sciences, experts from other federal agencies, and faculty members from prestigious universities. These independent experts, according to the VA, are completely inadequate to sway the VA's Compensation Services to even grant veterans the "benefit of the doubt" required by law.

At least, the experts were assured that their independent opinions will be considered a source of evidence in C-123 veterans' claims. The veterans do not find this assuring, however, because while the VA says C-123 vets can qualify for benefits on one page of their web site, on others they explain why claims will be denied.

None of the concerned independent scientists and physicians were paid to research and present their expert opinions. 

The evidence associated with service on post-Vietnam C-I23 aircraft shows that

some of these aircraft contained dried residual traces of the Agent Orange herbicide

contaminant dioxin, which could only be obtained and measured by rubbing the interior

metal surface with the solvent hexane, You have stated that the dioxin obtained by this

process is sufficient to establish that the crewmembers were "exposed." However, the

scientists and medical doctors of the VA Office of Public Health have documented with

scientific literature that residual trace amounts of dioxin on metal surfaces is not

biologically available for skin absorption or inhalation because it is not water or sweat

soluble and does not give off airborne particles. As a result, they have concluded that the

likelihood of dioxin exposure was minimal, Your view of potential exposure must be

weighed against their view when VA evaluates a disability claim.

In addition to the issue of potential exposure, there is the issue of establishing a

medical nexus or link between the in-service event of flying on a post-Vietnam C-123

aircraft and development of a current Agent Orange exposure-related disease. VA laws

and policies related to Agent Orange exposure, whether presumptive or based on facts-

found evidence, address exposure contact that occurs during the actual spraying or

handling of the dioxin-containing liquid herbicide. There are no provisions for secondary

or remote exposure, as is the case with dried dioxin residuals on metal surfaces found

many years after the liquid state. The scientific evidence available to establish a medical

nexus in these cases is limited and the VA Office of Public Health has provided a medical

opinion that it is insufficient to establish the required nexus. While your letter focuses on

the issue of potential dioxin exposure, it does not offer an opinion on the medical nexus

issue nor does it address the potential for long-term health effects or disabilities resulting

from service on the post-Vietnam C-123 aircraft

Another issue you raised is the wording of the Agent Orange Act of 1991, which

establishes a presumption of exposure to "herbicide agents" used in Vietnam that

includes chemicals other than dioxin. You state that consideration should be given to

these other chemicals when considering disability compensation based on exposure

because they may have been present in the post-Vietnam C-I23 aircraft, However, since

there is no presumption of exposure to any herbicide agents without Vietnam service, this

legislation is not applicable. Additionally, the National Academy of Sciences' Institute

of Medicine, which is named in this legislation as a major source of scientific information

related to herbicide agent exposure and its adverse health effects, has determined that

dioxin is the primary "chemical of interest" associated with adverse health effects. If a

disability claim were based on exposure to other herbicide agents, the same evidence of

direct facts-found exposure and a medical nexus would be required for service

connection.

We appreciate your input and the evidence you have provided on the issue of

disability compensation for Veterans who served aboard post-Vietnam C-123 aircraft.

When VA receives claims from Veterans based on this service, they will be evaluated

based on the totality of the evidence, as described above, and determinations will be

made on a case-by-case basis.

/signed/

Director of Compensation Services

History of Agent Orange Warfare

from: Agent Orange Record

(Agent Orange Chemical Structure)

A war against an implacable enemy. One who lives among the population. And who hides in the terrain.

Four decades before our involvement in Afghanistan, America had encountered a similar foe in the jungles of Vietnam. It desperately needed some way of countering the enemy’s ability to hide from its guns and bombs while living off the land.

Why Agent Orange?

From 1961 to 1971 (as shown in the Chicago Tribune chart, left), the US government sprayed some 20 million gallons of herbicides and defoliants over vast areas of South Vietnam (and to a lesser extent in Laos, Cambodia, and even, marginally, North Vietnam), in “Operation Trail Dust.” Some 95% of the herbicides were sprayed by the US Air Force flying UC-123Ks as part of “Operation Ranch Hand.” Fitted with specially developed spray tanks with a capacity of 1500 gallons of herbicide, the planes typically sprayed a 14 kilometer (8.5 mile) swath of land in about 4 ½ minutes. The remaining 5% were sprayed by backpacks, hand, helicopters and trucks around US military installations by the US Army Chemical Corps and allied forces. The herbicides sprayed were up to 50 times the concentration that would have been used for normal agricultural use.

The most common herbicide used was Herbicide Orange, more commonly referred to as Agent Orange, a fifty-fifty mixture of the two herbicides 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. The other most common color-coded chemicals used were Agent Blue, primarily used against food crops, and Agent White. Petroleum distillates such as diesel fuel would be added to achieve the proper viscosity for aerial spraying.

What was the rationale for the program? When President Kennedy came into office in January 1961 the question of what to do in Vietnam was already brewing. By May of 1961 the US objectives in Vietnam were to "prevent communist domination of South Vietnam; to create a viable and increasingly democratic society, and to initiate, on an accelerated basis, a series of mutually supporting actions of a military, political, economic, psychological, and covert character to achieve this objective."

The US helped South Vietnam to develop the Combat Development and Test Center in order to identify which military tactics and weapons could be used against the guerilla struggle they were facing.  Among the prime competitive advantages of the enemy was their ability to hide in the forest cover while living off the land, so a herbicide powerful enough to deny the North Vietnam Army (NVA) and the anti-government forces in the South (the National Liberation Front or Viet Cong) these assets became very appealing. By July 1961 the idea of using herbicides to better control the border areas had developed to the point of coordinating a defoliation test and the necessary herbicides (Dinoxol) were shipped to South Vietnam. The first testing of the herbicides occurred on August 10, 1961 in Kontom province. Two weeks later a second test run took place along highway 13 north of Saigon.

The defoliation program started out small and nearly ended before it began as the Department of Defense, the State Department and the government of South Vietnam debated its efficacy. However, by November 1961 President Kennedy agreed with his advisors that the US should 'participate in a selective and carefully controlled joint program of defoliant operations in Vietnam starting with the clearance of key routes and proceed thereafter to food denial only if the most careful basis of resettlement and alternative foodsupply has been created." The first official Operation Ranch Hand mission took place on January 13, 1962 along highway 15 using UC-123 aircraft

As the American involvement in Vietnam escalated so did the use of herbicides, Operation Ranch Hand was expanded to include parts of southern and eastern Laos in December 1965.  The herbicide program reached its peak in 1967 when over a million and a half acres were sprayed.

While much of the earlier hesitancy to conduct the herbicide program revolved around concerns of its efficacy, there were also concerns in Washington about how the use of chemical herbicides would be perceived in the world community and how the North Vietnamese government would use the herbicide program as a propaganda tool.  None the less, Secretary of State Dean Rusk assured President Kennedy that the use of herbicides was an acceptable war tactic and did not violate international law. The herbicides were seen by the US government as merely a defoliant akin to those in US domestic use, even if many times the original strength.  Unlike mustard gas, Agent Orange and the other herbicides were targeted against trees and crops, not humans.  The environmental movement had not yet begun; Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring had only been published in 1962 (helping to get the insecticide DDT banned in 1972); and the first Earth Day was years away. It was natural, in the context of the early 1960s, that the use of almost any herbicide would be viewed as fair game in war. Especially as early on in the program it is not likley that the US government knew that dioxin was contaminanting the herbicides that contained 2,4,5-T.

However, as Operation Ranch Hand expanded it was not only the enemy that was inconvenienced. The Vietnamese peasants whose hearts and minds the US was trying to win tended to take offense at the destruction of their crops and the laying waste of the countryside, as a RAND study would find in 1967.

“If we think they’re winning, you can imagine what they think.”
– President Lyndon Johnson, in a telephone conversation
with Senator Mike Mansfield, 1965.

 

The Apparent End

While there was opposition to the herbicide program from the very beginning it did not grow in strength until 1967 when the Federation of American Scientists submitted a petition to the White House with more than 5000 signatures of renowned scientists, including 17 Nobel laureates and 129 members of the National Academy of Sciences to end the herbicide program. Concerns about the ecological impacts of the herbicides in Vietnam were also raised by the American scientific community,  the Association of American Association for the Advancement of Science called for field investigations in Vietnam.

In 1969, it became widely known that the 2,4,5-T component of Agent Orange was contaminated with dioxin, a toxic chemical (chemical structure illustrated above) found to cause adverse health effects and birth outcomes in laboratory studies.  In April 1970, the US government restricted use of 2,4,5-T, and therefore Agent Orange, in both Vietnam and the US.

The last official spray run by the US Air Force took place on January 7, 1971. South Vietnamese forces continued to spray the remaining stocks of Agent Blue and White throughout 1971 and 1972. Patches, Tail #362, had switched to malathion spray missions in 1965. Later tests showing Patches "heavily contaminated" were interpreted to show the other spray aircraft were even more contaminated, having sprayed until 1971.

In September 1971, the order came to gather all the remaining stocks of Agent Orange, including those under the control of the Armed Forces of South Vietnam. In an operation code-named "Pacer IVY," the remaining barrels of Agent Orange were re-barreled at Da Nang, Bien Hoa and Tuy Hoa airbases and shipped to Johnston’s Island in the South Pacific. Stocks of Agent Orange in the US were shipped and stored at the Seabees base in Gulfport, Mississippi. Some 8.6 million liters of Agent Orange were destroyed by an incinerator ship in September 1977, in “Operation Pacer Ho.”

While "Operation Ranch Hand" became a footnote in most history books about the war in Vietnam, the on-going impacts of the dioxin that contaminatined Agent Orange and some of the other herbicides used during the war continue to this day.

In 2007, the VA Board of Veterans Appeals denied the Agent Orange exposure claim of Lieutenant Colonel Aaron Olmsted of Hartford, CT, on the basis that he couldn't prove his airplanes had been in Vietnam nor that they were the ones used for spraying Agent Orange. That information had been ordered "kept in official channels only" by the USAF Office of Environmental Law in 1996 and wasn't available until released under the Freedom of Information Act in 2011. Today, the Department of Veterans Affairs continues to deny C-123 veterans' exposure claims, but instead maintains the veterans were not exposed to "enough" dioxin to qualify, a position challenged by the veterans and other federal agencies.