VA & DOD Release 2019 List of Agent Orange Sites (outside of Vietnam)

VA has released an updated Department of Defense list of locations outside of Vietnam where tactical herbicides were used, tested or stored by the United States military. The last list was released in 2006, and its flaws plagued vets these last fourteen year.

We tried to get DOD or VA to update their list, but both agencies said it wasn't theirs. I found the key USAF official in charge of installations, but LtGen Fedder declined to do anything to add C-123 aircraft to Dr. Alvin Young's 2006 waste of taxpayer dollars.

VA continued describing their new llst: “This update was necessary to improve accuracy and communication of information,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. “VA depends on DOD to provide information regarding in-service environmental exposure for disability claims based on exposure to herbicides outside of Vietnam.”

Thorough review

DOD conducted a thorough review of research, reports and government publications in response to a November 2018 Government Accountability Office report.

“DOD will continue to be responsive to the needs of our interagency partners in all matters related to taking care of both current and former service members,” said Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper. “The updated list includes Agents Orange, Pink, Green, Purple, Blue and White, and other chemicals and will be updated as verifiable information becomes available.”

See the full list of locations at https://www.publichealth.va.gov/docs/agentorange/dod_herbicides_outside_vietnam.pdf.

Veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange or other herbicides during service may be eligible for a variety of VA benefits, including an Agent Orange Registry health exam, health care and disability compensation for diseases associated with exposure. Their dependents and survivors also may be eligible for benefits

Supreme Court: Retirees Can Be Court-Martialed for Crimes Committed After Service

22 Feb 2019
Military.com | By Patricia Kime (FORWARDED BY PAUL BERGERON)

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the Defense Department's authority to prosecute retired service members for crimes they commit, even after retirement.

The court on Tuesday chose not to hear the case of a retired Marine who was court-martialed for a sexual assault he committed three months after leaving the service in August 2015. By not accepting the case, Larrabee v. the United States, the court upheld the status quo: that military retirees are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The denial of Larrabee's petition marks the high court's second rebuff in a year of a case involving a military retiree accused of non-military crimes in retirement.

Retired Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Steven Larrabee was convicted of sexually assaulting a bartender, the wife of an active-duty Marine, at a bar in Iwakuni, Japan, where he worked as a civilian. He had been retired -- technically, placed on the Fleet Marine Corps Reserve status list -- for three months.

Following a general court-martial in which he wore civilian clothes, Larrabee was sentenced to eight years' confinement, a reprimand and a dishonorable discharge. In a pre-trial agreement, Larrabee's prison term was reduced to 10 months.

Larrabee served his sentence but tried to have his conviction overturned on appeal, arguing that he should have been tried in a civilian court, as the offenses occurred after he was retired.

The case closely resembles that of retired Gunnery Sgt. Derek Dinger who, also while living on Okinawa and on the Fleet Marine Corps Reserve list and, later, the Active Duty Retired List, was found to be in possession of and producing child pornography. He was arrested and initially indicted within the civilian courts, but his case ended up in the military court system, where he was convicted and sentenced to nine years' confinement and a dishonorable discharge.

Dinger appealed his discharge, arguing that the case should not have fallen under the military court system and that a dishonorable discharge should be reserved for "those who separated under conditions of dishonor."

His challenge also was petitioned to the U.S. Supreme Court. It was denied last June.

Attorneys for both Marines argued that the cases should have been considered by the U.S. Supreme Court because they have far-reaching consequences for military retirees. The law stipulates that "retired members of a regular component of the armed forces who are entitled to pay" and "members of the Fleet Marine Corps Reserve" are subject to court-martial jurisdiction.

The reasoning, the government argues, is that retirement is simply a change of military status and retired personnel are subject to recall should the need arise.

But Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor who represented Larrabee, said that this argument no longer holds true with the rise of the reserve component. He called the idea that retirees are reserved for future service "anachronistic," adding that military retirees are no longer among the "pool of persons at the ready" and thus should not be subject to the UCMJ.

"Increasingly, the function has been performed by reserves, not retirees," he said.

Furthermore, Vladeck said in an interview with Military.com, there are articles in the UCMJ that could place many military retirees at risk for arrest, and the U.S. Supreme Court has an interest in weighing in on how cases involving retirees are handled.

He cited one provision in the UCMJ that makes "contemptuous words" used by a commissioned officer "against the president, the vice president, Congress" and others as punishable by court-martial.

"From Adm. Bill McRaven to Gen. Michael Hayden and Gen. Martin Dempsey, some of President Donald Trump's more visible critics of late have been retired military officers. And a provision of federal law ... makes it a crime, triable by court-martial," he wrote in a blog post on Lawfare. "But does the Constitution really allow the government to subject to military trial those who have retired from active duty -- in some cases, long ago -- even for offenses committed while they are retired?"

Yes, it does, according to the Supreme Court, in its denial of Larrabee's and Dinger's writs of certiorari.

Retired Maj. Gen. Charles Dunlap, former deputy judge advocate general of the Air Force, concurs.

In a Feb. 16 post on Duke University School of Law's Lawfire blog, Dunlap said Congress explicitly states that the UCMJ applies to retirees and that Vladeck's arguments about the impropriety of senior officers speaking out against the president, as well as the "anachronistic" idea that retirees can be recalled to active duty, aren't valid.

He added that the very act of receiving retired pay means that retired personnel are choosing to keep a relationship with the military and accept all that goes with the choice not to terminate their commission or request a discharge.

"As a retired service member subject to military jurisdiction, count me among those of my comrades-in-arms who believe it a small price to pay to maintain the connection with the armed forces," Dunlap wrote.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court's refusal to hear the Larrabee case may not be the end of the legal road for the retired Marine. According to Vladeck, Larrabee may consider suing for back pay in the Court of Federal Claims. Vladeck believes his client is entitled to do so under the Military Pay Act.

-- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @patriciakime.

GAO Criticizes DOD's Agent Orange Site Report

The Government Accountability Office has released its critical report entitled AGENT ORANGE: Actions Needed to Improve Accuracy and Communication of Information on Testing and Storage Locations."

Key point: Both VA and DOD have for decades relied on a fatally-flawed list prepared for DOD by Dr. Al Young, AKA "Dr. Orange." VA has employed his reports principally to deny veterans claiming exposure to Agent Orange. That's right...our famed nemesis has once again been found inadequate in the work he's done, while making millions from VA and DOD writing about this stuff. For years, VA adjudicators, the Board of Veterans Appeals and the US Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims have wrongly denied claims from veterans who claim exposure in locations or situations not listed in Young's report. C-123 vets were also denied for years, but won our presumptive exposure ruling in June 2015...despite Young's ceaseless efforts against us.

The GAO reported it plainly: VA seized on Young's incomplete report to refuse medical care and other benefits to veterans claiming Agent Orange cancers, ALS, diabetes, heart disease and other ailments. And Young's report, along with lots of other material gathered by VA, was fatally flawed.

At the Veterans Benefits Administration "Agent Orange Desk" run by Mr. James Sampsel, (who himself officially stated that veterans' Agent Orange disabilities is only "hype and hysteria.") VA had its boiler-plate denial ready to shoot down each and every claim of Agent Orange exposure outside Vietnam, It is important to grasp the great reliance placed by VA on Young's work, and the equal fact that Young has consistently argued against the various foundations for veterans' Agent Orange claims. His 2006 report on Agent Orange sites is but one example of VA's obstruction that led to the GAO report.

Even if discouraged vets opted to appeal Sampsel's use of the Young report to oppose claims, the Board of Appeals for Veterans Claims (BVA) also relied on Young to prevent exposure claims. For example, read this November 2014 BVA denial:

"In fact, Dr. Young's report, which provides the most complete data available on this subject, expressly found that there was there were no documents or records to validate the use of Agent Orange in Okinawa. In this case, the Board finds the exhaustive searches and related findings conducted by the various agencies/entities outlined above, to be far more probative than the Veteran's baseless assertions that he was exposed to Agent Orange/herbicides in Okinawa. Notably, the Veteran has not submitted any medical reports/literature or other evidence to support his claim of exposure, or that otherwise contradict the above findings."

And this:

"Upon review of the Alvin L. Young Collection on Agent Orange, which is part of the National Agricultural Library, the Department of Agriculture was unable to find any reference to the military use of any herbicidal agents, including Agents Orange and Blue, at Fort Jackson during the moving party's period of service. The motion for reversal or revision of the May 3, 2011 Board decision finding that the moving party was not entitled to service connection for diabetes mellitus, type 2, claimed as due to exposure to herbicides, is denied." 

Young's "expertise" on the Agent Orange topic was frequently cited in BVA denials:

"The RO associated with the record a February 2014 report entitled "Investigation into the Environmental Fate of TCDD/Dioxin" that listed Dr. Alvin L. Young as the primary author (the "February 2014 Report"). According to the attached biography, Dr. Young completed his PhD in herbicide physiology and environmental toxicology in 1968, and since then, has amassed more than 300 publications in the scientific literature, including five books on issues related to Agent Orange and/or dioxin. "

But neither the regional office claims adjudicators, nor the BVA, or even the US Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims bother to report the full story about Young, his 2006 report, or relationship to Sampsel. The Young-VA-Agent Orange story includes many revealing points:

1. Young's work supports VA positions disputing Agent Orange exposure and harmful effects
2. Young famously wrote that Agent-Orange-exposed vets were"trash-haulers, freeloaders looking for a tax-free dollar from a sympathetic congressman. I have no respect."
3. Even Young agrees his 2006 report was inadequate, however he didn't do this until he sought yet another VA contract to update it. In other words, his report was okay unless he could make more money
4. As for money, Young agreed he's made "millions" writing reports for the VA and DOD. He also got a $600,000 no-bid-sole source contract mostly directed against C-123 veterans' claims
5. Even while under VA contract at $26,000/month, Young wrongly insisted he wasn't representing VA when he appeared before the National Academy of Medicine to oppose C-123 claims while also failing to reveal his contract and close coordination with VA for input to the Academy. Fortunately, the Academy found that his work, and other from VA and DOD, has been found to be incomplete and also it wrongly minimized veterans' harmful AO exposure risks

My advice to every vet whose claim was denied citing Young's report: appeal based on the now-established fact that the 2006 Young report has been found flawed.

official photo from AFPMB newsletter

Back to the GAO report itself. One key finding was that DOD, sponsor of Young's 2006 report, agreed that the report was flawed but couldn't identify any process to improve it. I'm reminded of my frequent requests to both DOD and VA to help add C-123 spray aircraft to the list, but each agency refused. DOD said it was VA's duty, VA said they simply used what DOD provided and couldn't change anything. My letters to the Armed Forces Pest Management Board, where Young has lectured, were met with refusals to get involved. Interestingly, even though Young has (or had) contracts with the AFPMB as recently as 2017, nothing about him is found in AFPMB files. Guess they don't read their own official newsletter–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––>

My 2013 letters to LtGen Judith Fedder, DCS/Logistics, Installations & Mission Support, were similarly rebuffed. She answered,

Very disappointing. Especially so, reading in the November 2018 GAO report that DOD finally has agreed.

Below: The GAO report's six key conclusions:

The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Under Secretary of 

Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment assigns responsibility for 

ensuring that DOD’s list of locations where Agent Orange or its 

components were tested and stored is as complete and accurate as 

available records allow. (Recommendation 1) 

The Secretary of Defense should ensure that the Under Secretary of
 Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment develops a process for
updating the revised list as new information becomes available.
(Recommendation 2)  

The Secretary of Defense, in collaboration with the Secretary of Veterans 

Affairs, should develop clear and transparent criteria for what constitutes 

a location that should be included on the list of testing and storage 

locations. (Recommendation 3) 

The Secretary of Veterans Affairs, in collaboration with the Secretary of 

Defense, should develop clear and transparent criteria for what 

constitutes a location that should be included on the list of testing and 

storage locations. (Recommendation 4)

The Secretary of Defense, in collaboration with the Secretary of Veterans 

Affairs, should develop a formal process for coordinating on how best to 

communicate information to veterans and the public regarding where 

Agent Orange was known to have been present outside of Vietnam. 

(Recommendation 5)

The Secretary of Veterans Affairs, in collaboration with the Secretary of 

Defense, should develop a formal process for coordinating on how best to 

communicate information to veterans and the public regarding where 

Agent Orange was known to have been present outside of Vietnam. 

(Recommendation 6)

Armed Forces Pest Management Board Asked to Add C-123s to DOD/VA Agent Orange Lists

Today, various FOIAs released by the Department of Defense revealed that the actual OPR for
maintenance of DOD's Agent Orange list, by which VA determines exposures outside Vietnam, is the DOD Armed Forces Pest Management Board in Silver Spring, MD.

Because the AFPMB library contained only two Agent Orange C-123 articles (dated 1963 and 1981) and none of the more current scientific literature, a collection of relevant materials was provided by the C-123 Veterans Association.

Here's how the VA uses a site's absence from the DOD list to deny veterans' exposure claims. It explains a lot about why VA opposes any additional sites added to the DOD list, regardless of historical or scientific justification:

Today, the Chair of AFPMB, CAPTAIN Eric Hoffman USN MC, was asked to reconsider his organization's earlier recommendation to the Secretary of Defense and to add C-123s.

"Merchants of Doubt" Confuse Public About Agent Orange & Other Poisons

Or at least, be confused!!

Tobacco, lead paint, Agent Orange, coal dust, DDT, patent medicines, acid rain. Other poisons. Or here, a poisonous airplane, the former Agent Orange spray plane, the C-123 Provider.

For years "Merchants of doubt" had many products to defend, and they've done well. Create some doubt, and extend a deadly product's life cycle, or delay product restrictions from legislators. Make that buck as long as possible, and minimize control over profit-making activities regardless of the harm to others

"Allegation.""Controversy.""Debate."

As the authors of "Merchants of Doubt" says, its the "troubling story of how a cadre of influential scientists have clouded public misunderstanding of scientific facts to advance a political and economic agenda."

Merchants of Doubt have as their clients, Merchants of Death, Disaster, Suffering. Agent orange redux.

The manufacturers and others who profit from unregulated deadly products fund hip-pocket scientists to confuse and delay the public's coming to understand the threat.

Anything to turn a buck. Or in the case of the VA, to keep from handing a buck to a veteran and having also to pay for his/her hospital care for Agent Orange illnesses. From 1921 to 1957, the tobacco industry gave others the perfect case history of how to drag out any issue and the VA's Veterans Health Administration has been an apt student of that history.

With tobacco, Readers Digest, which at the time didn't accept advertising, brought to America the first glimpses of truth about tobacco: Smokers didn't live as long, or as well, as non-smokers. No absolutes...only proof through statistics the odds were with non-smokers, rather than smokers. This simple fact, a conclusion already reached by researchers since 1920, was hidden from the public by the tobacco industry's powerful advertising lobby. Tobacco ads were the mainstay of many periodicals, as well as of the broadcast industry. Advertising contracts required magazines to submit articles involving tobacco to the advertisers, so nothing negative was allowed to reach print. Until 1952 when Readers Digest dropped a dime on the whole industry, with their article, "Cancer by the Carton."

Invisible Bullets: toxins, biohazards, dirty water and more!

With Agent Orange, it took Bill Kurtis of CBS News and VA employee Maude De Victor, with her 1977 simple observation that Vietnam veterans were more ill than non-Vietnam veterans, and were filing more disability claims, to bring to America what veterans had been claiming for many years...Agent Orange was making them sick.

 "Allegation." "Controversy." "Debate." That's what the tobacco industry called the deaths of their customers. Labeling statistical proofs of smoking deaths "a debate!" Now the VA and its apologists/partners in industry are doing the same with Agent Orange and other military exposure situations, following the playbook left by Big Tobacco.

"Allegation.""Controversy.""Debate." Repeated again, not by Big Tobacco but in the monographs Veterans Benefits Administration paid to have produced under a unique no-bid, sole-source two year, $600,000 consulting contract to help VA oppose post-Vietnam Agent Orange claims. VA actually opposed the very question they put to the IOM!

Since May 2014, the Institute of Medicine has been investigating C-123 veterans' Agent Orange exposure issues. But the efforts by Dow, Monsanto, the VA, USDA, Diamond Shamrock, Hercules and others have been overwhelming veterans' concerns for decades and the obstructions continue today. The current IOM received from the VA a report sponsored by Dow and Monsanto, arguing against C-123 veterans' exposure experience and illnesses.

Even though Congress, showing their loss of faith in the VA with passage of the 1991 Agent Orange Act, thought it settled the issue, VA continues to oppose veterans' Agent Orange exposure claims wherever it is not compelled by law to honor them....and sometimes, those, too! The Air Force was an early leader in defending Agent Orange against veterans' assertions of its dangers. The Air Force even loaned its Agent Orange experts to the Department of Veterans Affairs (back then it was the Veterans Affairs Administration) to help man its Agent Orange Desk and fight against claims. With the support of his staff, in 1982 the VA's director Bob Nimmo insisted Agent Orange illnesses were "no more than teenage acne." (note: list expanded to soft tissue sarcoma, ALA, prostate cancer, lung cancer and other life-threatening illnesses VA tried to hide for another decade.)

"Allegation.""Controversy.""Debate." Words dusted off, repeated frequently by VA. Up until the 1991 Agent Orange Act passed, VA fought hard against vets' exposure disability claims with only a handful permitted to sneak through for approval. After that, VA's efforts shifted to targeting non-Vietnam exposure situations to keep such claims denied.

Rather than argue the innocence of Agent Orange, the tactic shifted to "there's no Agent Orange there." In 2006, DOD commissioned a Battile subcontractor's study to list US Agent Orange testing and storage sites. The Air Force expert loaned to the VA back in the early 1980's himself selected which sites to list and which to ignore. VA then cited the DOD report as proof that no Agent Orange was ever at sites not listed, denying claims.*

In 2011, VA's continuing opposition of veterans' Agent Orange claims led to a new tactic. Not only could VA deny exposure claims by citing the absence of locations on the DOD list, it began saying even if Agent Orange was present, it somehow did not expose veterans. VA developed a new definition of exposure, "exposure = contamination field + bioavailability." Using that redefinition, despite the fact it is considered unscientific by other agencies, VA continues to deny C-123 exposures.

The IOM C-123 study had two public meetings, the first during which VA presented its carefully worded "charge," assigning the IOM to its task. The second was a series of presentations and panel discussions held June 16, 2014. The VA did not speak directly, although a consultant presented what he described as "the science behind the VA's conclusions" against the veterans' exposures...which were principally his own monographs prepared under that $600,000 contract.

"Allegation.""Controversy.""Debate." Those magic words appeared again at the IOM in word and in print. Not to defend tobacco or lead paint this time, but dismissing C-123 veterans' exposure concerns. These are words which have definitions as well as emotional content:
-Allegation: a claim or assertion that someone has done something illegal or wrong, typically one made without proof.
-Controversy: a prolonged public dispute, debate, or contention
-Debate: a formal discussion on a particular topic in a public meeting or legislative assembly, in which opposing arguments are put forward

-BUT: the C-123 veterans' claims were substantiated with evidence from other federal agencies, universities, medical schools, VA physicians, expert toxicologists, peer-reviewed journals...there were proofs, so "allegation" is an inappropriate dismissal of the claims

-But: there is no remaining controversy. Decades of research have shown the toxin in Agent Orange, TCDD, to be a known human carcinogen. VA, the Congress and the Public have long accepted the fact that Agent Orange exposure is harmful, and no "controversy" remains, just fact and settled law.

-But: although there was civil discourse and open debate during the Institute of Medicine C-123 meetings, it actually can't be called "debate." Because the VA threw $600,000 into creating the consultant's monographs which carefully ignored contrary evidence, and not a penny into considering the veterans' arguments, VA outspent any balanced scientific "debate" which might have happened. VA carefully chose the words of its "charge" to constrict the IOM's finding, rather than address the only actual question of whether or not there was an exposure situation on the C-123s. Further, there remains no legitimate debate about Agent Orange because it is a settled issue in science and law. VA suggests otherwise to prevent claims, but calling its opposition to veterans' claims a debate is a mere deception.

* Despite frequent requests and ignoring substantial proofs, DOD has refused requests to amend the 2006 DOD list of Agent Orange cites, referring inquiries back to the VA – which refers inquiries to the DOD.

1979: DOD Informed VA C-123 Aircraft Contaminated, Crews & Mechanics "At Risk"

The Department of Defense has always worked closely with the Department of Veterans Affairs, with both agencies concerned about the rising number of veterans' claims for illnesses associated with Vietnam service from the earliest days. Both agencies wanted to both understand the medical situation facing the vets, and avoid approving disability claims soon associated with Agent Orange.

Well into the 1980s, VA encouraged its physicians to classify veterans' complaints for these mysterious maladies as psychiatric illnesses. This both resolved the question as to how to classify the vet and also made many veterans, afraid of the stigma of a mental illness allegation, shy away from pursuing any claims.

Many veterans bought the story, and believed they needed to simply man up to their "imagined" illnesses. Pretending away real-world cancers, heart disease and other physical problems is certainly a path leading to mental illness, and it took decades for VA to do a mind-shift to better science.

A large part of VA's resolution to block pre-1991 claims, to pretend as an agency that no illnesses were associated with Agent Orange, were DOD reports that none of the Vietnam veterans were exposed, other than Ranch Hand and others who'd handled liquid Agent Orange. A principal such report from VA to DOD was dated 12 December 1979, and titled "Criteria for Estimating Exposure Levels of Military Personnel to Dioxin and Herbicide Orange During the Vietnam War."

Post-Vietnam C-123 veterans will be interested in the report's details of mechanics being among those acknowledged to be exposed to Agent Orange,  along with crews flying contaminated former Ranch Hand airplanes. This is a very telling statement with meaning for us today: The Air Force acknowledged both the contamination of the aircraft and the exposure to both mechanics and aircrews flying former spray planes. because once C-123 veterans began seeking VA disability coverage, the Air Force quickly changed its claim and denied both.

Please see the point: The 1979 investigation showed aircraft remained contaminated after spraying Agent Orange, and mechanics and aircrews were exposed. With the first C-123 vets' exposure claims in 2011, both VA and USAF immediately reversed themselves, preventing all C-123 veteans' claims. This was done by VBA on input from VHA Post Deployment Health which predetermined that none of the veterans were exposed, and that VA "could not permit C-123 veterans' claims." (VHA statement to Army Major Terry Rudd.) Apparently written promises by the Secretary and Under Secretary Hickey that "all claims will be considered on a case-by-case basis" were strictly for show – in fact, VBA simply ordered all C-123 claims denied.

In 2006, DOD cooperated with the Department of Veterans Affairs once again, this time by producing a selected list of Agent Orange sites outside Vietnam. Titled, "The History of the US Department of Defense Programs for the Testing, Evaluation, and Storage of Tactical Herbicides," Battelle and its subcontractor chose certain locations where "tactual herbicides" as defoliants such as Agent Orange became known, listing them for submission to the DOD and from DOD to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Although comprehensive, including even little-known sites such as Van Nuys, California, the DOD isn't perfect. The lack of perfection is a fatal blow...literally, not figuratively to many veterans who've found themselves in locations which Battelle opted to leave off their list, or which became known after 2006 only to find DOD reluctant to consider any additions.

Why such importance to veterans? Because unless an Herbicide Orange claim is from "boots on the ground" Vietnam vets, or from vets whose claims for exposure are substantiated by this DOD list, VA refuses to acknowledge the exposure and denies the claim. VA simply cites the DOD list as the sole authority. A related agency, the Joint Services Records Research Center, is often sought out by VA for validation of exposure claims, however JSRRC often refers to the same DOD list.

Why is all of this of such importance to C-123 veterans? Because DOD has refused list C-123s formerly used for spraying Agent Orange during the Vietnam War as part of Operation Ranch Hand. Air Force testing established the contamination of many aircraft at many times during the decades after Vietnam.

DOD, however, has twice refused formal requests to retrospectively add the already-destroyed C-123s to its list. Lieutenant General J. Fedder (Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, Installations and Mission Support) has refused veterans appeals to consider placing on the those C-123s with tail numbers identifying their Vietnam spray history.

DOD has also denied a formal Inspector General complaint regarding General Fedder's decision to block the C-123 addition. There the DOD list concern rests for the moment, but the discovery of the 1979 DOD exposure criteria report helps, if only to show that both DOD and VA change their stories as necessary to prevent C-123 exposure claims.

VA and DOD? So far, a win-win situation for them, with but a single C-123 veteran's claim accepted.
C-123 veterans: We place great hope in the IOM process, although we realize that VA has already stacked that deck, also. They generated reports to their liking, had an expert speaker present their interests to the committee have a full, talented staff dedicated to opposing vets' claims, and also were able to select the wording for the "charge" given the IOM committee.

Veterans service organizations were surprised to see VA submit a charge to the committee, and then vigorously oppose the veterans rather than assume the required non-adversarial role.

VA's Agent Orange Consultant: Also Had 2006 DOD Contract to Identify Exposure Sites

Here's one we didn't know about. We knew the consultant Dr. Al Young had a distinguished Air Force career, helping develop Agent Orange as a military herbicide weapon. We knew that he had a role opposing early veteran demands for recognition of their Agent Orange illnesses in different assignments with the AF, VA and White House, we didn't know the rest of the story until more recent years.

Once we started learning about Patches and the other C-123s' record of spraying Agent Orange during Vietnam, we filed Freedom of Information Act requests with the USAF, and uncovered a large part...but only part of Dr. Young's involvement guiding VA (where his office was "Agent Orange Projects Office" at 810 Vermont...VA HQ!) and USAF in addressing veterans' exposure claims. It goes back through the decades. The same song, playing over and over. Remember Groundhog Day?

In 2006, the Department of Defense also contracted with him to produce a list of Agent Orange exposure sites. Although testing had identified Agent Orange residue in the C-123s stored at Davis-Monthan, the aircraft weren't mentioned.

In 2009 the AF sought advice and was reminded of Dr. Young's services by the Office of Secretary of the Army. Young's advice is mentioned in various documents from those years, but the significant ones are three "Decision Memorandum" he wrote to officials, including Major Carol McCrady, Mr. Jim Malmgren and Mr. Buddy Boor. In each, he recommended the immediate destruction, without further testing, of the former Agent Orange spray C-123 aircraft. Dr. Young also reminded AF officials that exposed veterans could seek care for their Agent Orange disabilities, and discussed the need to keep the destruction process "below the radar."

Dr. Young next appears on our radar when one of his correspondents shared an exchange in which the exposed C-123 veterans were denigrated by this retired Air Force officer in 2011 emails.

Then, he again enters the scene in 2012 as the VA consultant awarded an unsolicited $300,000/year contract to prepare articles on post-Vietnam Agent Orange situation. You guessed it...his first articles were to target C-123 veterans claiming post-Vietnam AO exposures aboard these former Ranch Hand warplanes.

In 2013, the Office of Deputy Under Secretary of Defense again found him invaluable in the investigation to insure no Agent Orange was found on Okinawa, site of many barrels of Dow chemical burial. I don't know that situation well enough to comment.

But what really rubs salt into our Agent Orange wounds is the VA's acceptance of his reports for use against us at the June 16 Institute of Medicine committee hearing. Is it a coincidence that his contract runs through the end of the IOM C-123 process, September 27, 2014?

I was there. We shared a hour-long panel discussion, and I felt his genuine passion, defending a point of view he's kept unchanged for decades. But this was a scientific gathering of experts to provide input to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science. I was representing the veterans, and we were the only ones in the room entitled to express ourselves passionately!

I didn't make a big deal about his use of web site photos from recent restoration of a privately-owned C-123 to represent the same airplane being "restored and refurbished" in 1973. I didn't mention his foul slurs about us. I didn't even object to his failure to completely answer Professor Lu's question about why the C-123s were destroyed and his decision to avoid mention of own role recommending exactly that.

And if I made mistakes he graciously didn't make too big a deal of them, either. It seemed a civil discourse, but I remain critical most especially of his failure to mention to the committee his VA contract for $600,000. He was under contract to the VA running before, during and after his presentation to the IOM, yet neither he nor the VA properly informed the committee. By the way, the VA didn't pay me anything to carry my side of the argument, but the IOM paid my airfare to get to Washington, DC.

We've been asked if we see this as sinister? No, but certainly not pro-veteran, not pro-benefit of the doubt, hardly non-adversarial, and most definitely, unscientific. The consultant's papers, which were not peer-reviewed, were heavily slanted against Agent Orange being harmful, against any Agent Orange being present, and, if there was Agent Orange present, it somehow was the kind which couldn't expose anyone.

The VA did not simply place a stack of documents before the IOM representing all available information. Instead, they contracted out for $600,000 to prevent our claims. They accepted input from Dow and Monsanto who sponsored scientists to write to the Under Secretary to argue against us. They chose which documents to release to the VA...and withheld others.

The folks from VHA Office of Public Health were adversarial and, after submitting the charge to the IOM, then strongly argued against it instead of keeping their distance...letting the IOM search out the truth. Perhaps this added to the reasons behind the six major veterans' service organizations joint letter to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, objecting to the historical role of this consultant regarding veterans and Agent Orange.

U.S. Government's Unconscionable Treatment of Westover's Agent Orange Exposed Veterans – Springfield REPUBLICAN Editorial

By The Republican Editorials 
on May 16, 2014 at 3:00 PM, updated May 16, 2014 at 4:18 PM

0

Reddit

Email

When retired Major Wesley T. Carter began to experience major illnesses, he wondered why. He started to investigate.

Carter served as an air medical technician and flight instructor and examiner with Westover’s 74th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron during and after the Vietnam War.
Through his research, Carter learned that he was not the only one experiencing serious illness. There were 48 others.

Freedom of Information requests helped Carter discover the cause: Dioxin, the toxic ingredient in Agent Orange, was to blame. The C-123 Provider planes had been used in Vietnam where the lethal chemical weapon was sprayed.

Carter's request yielded 15 years of memos, safety reports and complaints from private companies and military workers. In 2000, the government canceled sales of the planes because they were contaminated, and in 2010, the remaining 18 were shredded and smelted to satisfy Environmental Protection Agency regulations.

"Some of the most compelling documents," writes Jeanette DeForge for The Republican and MassLive.com, "revealed 11 of the 16 planes from Westover tested positive for dioxin when they were examined from 1994 and 1996 – more than a decade after they were retired. One Westover C-123 was labeled 'highly-contaminated.'”

Now, Carter and other veterans experiencing similar illnesses, have filed an official complaint with the Department of Defense saying they have been improperly denied medical and disability benefits related to their exposure to the carcinogen.

While veterans who served in Vietnam are automatically granted full medical coverage, these veterans have been continually denied benefits.

“Our military and civilian scientific documentation establishes the dioxin contamination of at least 34 C-123s, all destroyed by the USAF (United States Air Force) as toxic waste, should retrospectively be designated Agent Orange Exposure sites,” Carter wrote in his complaint.

If not for Carter's request, the hidden pieces of this sickening puzzle might never have been put together.

Why the Department of Veterans Services continues to deny the truth of these veterans -- an unintended but life-threatening cost of the Vietnam War -- is unconscionable.

The veterans are now paying for their service with their health and their lives. The least the U.S. Department of Veterans Services can do is provide them with medical and disability benefits.

DOD Inspector General Complaint filed by C-123 Veterans Association

Today the C-123 Veterans Association filed an official complaint via the Department of Defense Inspector General Hotline, asserting failure of DOD officials to designate Agent Orange-contaminated C-123 aircraft as "Agent Orange Exposure Sites," on a list maintained by the Department of Defense.

Because the presence (or absence) of sites on the Agent Orange Exposure Site List guides VA in approving or denying veterans' exposure claims, failure by DOD to place these toxic Agent Orange spray aircraft has endangered the health of veterans. VA cites the absence of these Vietnam War Agent Orange-spray aircraft as proof against veterans' claims.

This is unscientific and illogical. The contamination of the aircraft was established

by the Air Force itself over decades of testing. More current analysis of those tests led the CDC/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the NIH/National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the US Public Health Service to inform the VA that the aircraft were contaminated with deadly dioxin, and the veterans exposed.

Most telling was the analysis by Dr. Tom Sinks, Deputy Director of the CDC/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry who concluded that the veterans were indeed exposed, and have a 200-fold greater cancer risk.

C-123 veterans have sought VA care for their Agent Orange illnesses for years, without success. VA even has denied C-123 veterans' exposure benefits, insisting that the toxin in Agent Orange is harmless. This is a wrong which veterans call on DOD to remedy.

VA & USAF Defy FOIA – VA & AF Hide Data & Threaten IOM Study

An Institute of Medicine investigation of C-123 Agent Orange issues will begin June 16 – but with essential, unclassified VA and USAF data withheld. Although directly relevant to the assignment given IOM by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the committee will not have vital information for their studies. Without all available C-123 information made available to the IOM, their committee report will be fatally flawed, and the affected veterans harmed.

Both VA and AF have relevant, unclassified information about this 60-year old airplane and its Agent Orange history. This information has been improperly refused release to the public in defiance of Freedom of Information Act. Complete and valid requests go back over a year in each case, but they have been ignored.

In stark defiance of the Freedom of Information Act, it is clear that both Departments prefer at least some documents demanded by the veterans not to be released and available to the IOM. Although relief has been sought through the US District Court of Washington D.C. to force release of the materials, there is no possibility of court action before the June 16 workshop. 

This leaves the IOM C-123 committee tackling their VA assignment but with VA withholding information, years of its own investigations, all specifically relevant to the issue at hand. 

The June 18 IOM C-123 project is only the third such study on a unique population since the Vietnam War. Veterans who flew these airplanes which the AF tested as "heavily contaminated" claim their exposure to Agent Orange residues. Since becoming aware of the C-123 toxicity, and also responding to the C-123 veterans' inquiries, both AF and VA have completed studies, exchanged correspondence and conducted meetings and conferences. 

This extensive background of materials has been demanded under their rights expressed in the Freedom of Information Act. The materials are particularly relevant to the IOM investigation because VA has used it for years as justification for denying all C-123 veterans' exposure claims.

Both VA and AF have refused compliance with their own regulations requiring prompt release of non-sensitive materials such as the veterans' seek. The President of the United States has described FOIA as a fundamental American right, as have the courts. But neither VA nor the USAF seem to have been impressed.

According to the USAF FOIA web page:

"The principles of government openness and accountability underlying the FOIA are inherent in the democratic ideal: "The basic purpose of the FOIA is to ensure an informed citizenry, vital to the functioning of a democratic society, needed to check against corruption and to hold the governors accountable to the governed."

The Air Force, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, have determined that the democratic ideal can be best realized by their disregard of the FOIA and the rights of veteran citizens.

Can't IOM or other interested parties contact AF and VA for prompt release of the FOIA materials without any unnecessary court action? 

IOM, Irvine, CA   (16 Jan 2013)

If such vital information is withheld from the veterans and the IOM with the resultant incomplete report so vital to the veterans' health, it must be known to senior leadership of both Departments as well as the public.  

It should be made known that from a legal basis, budgeting for the IOM C-123 Agent Orange review is potentially wasted money. Not only is there no component of the IOM charge involving the complete legal qualification of the C-123 veterans seeking Agent Orange exposure benefits (detailed in the Yale Law report,) but VA and AF are withholding large amounts of data relevant to the committee's investigation. 

IOM's final report will be flawed by being incomplete, by design...by the calculated defiance of the FOIA, as VA prevents essential documentation from being evaluated by the Institute of Medicine.