VA C-123 Analysis & Staff Memo Errors Revealed

VA was wrong. Easy for the C-123 veterans to say this in 2015, but it takes a careful review of VA's documents over these past four years to see the determination, and the deception, with which our claims were greeted...and doomed to VBA's blanket denials.

In this August 2013 document, the conversation is about Paul Bailey's DRO decision awarding him service connection for C-123 Agent Orange exposure. The award came just before Paul's death, and VA actually considered overturning it from Washington!

To illustrate how deceptive or mistaken VA was over the years, I've placed red X's over statements now shown by events to be wrong. VA was wrong scientifically, wrong morally, wrong per VA's own VAM21-1MR, wrong per the Veterans Claims Assistance Act.

VA was wrong. Veterans were right and the IOM C-123 report finally established the fact, but we were left to pay the price for VA's knee-jerk "not on my watch" response to our Agent Orange exposure claims. It is wrong that VA made us prove that our aircraft were contaminated and we were exposed to Agent Orange aboard them.

VA fought everything about this for four years when it should have been fighting for us, seeking a way for our veterans to qualify for service connection for the typical Agent Orange-related illnesses.

Given the seriousness of VA forbidding access to its medical care and other veterans benefits, there is no excuse for any errors made by VA in coming to their position against us and their decision to deny all our claims. But look below and read how VA tried to justify itself for opposing C-123 veterans' claims, and from today's perspective see how wrong VA was in its facts..

If VA moves to refuse veterans vital medical care for cancers and other ailments, such a fateful decision must be based on a perfect grasp of all facts, and a preference to qualify vets for coverage if possible rather than construct false barriers to their claims.

Below, there are far too factual errors, too many red X's when there's no excuse for even one, yet VA pumped out inaccurate correspondence like this for four years. We have yet to uncover any effort during these 48 months for such mistakes to be corrected, but rather, mistakes were heaped together to form VA's opposition to C-123 veterans, one mistake upon another.

Negative Attitude at VA's Agent Orange Desk

Today we received a "final" set of documents from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Released under the federal court action we filed to force compliance with the Freedom of Information Act, several highly-redacted documents show the anti-veteran attitude of some VA executives.

Determined to prevent C-123 Agent Orange claims, VA's memorandum below rips into our efforts to detail eligibility for VA care, and ignores challenges to the errors which he included in the draft provided to Secretary Shinseki's response to Senator Burr. Much of his memo and the Secretary's response to Senator Burr have been shown in time to be in error...errors paid for by veterans denied VA medical care.

Why is this memo important? Because VA's manual VAM21-1MR requires regional VA offices to forward for his attention any non-Vietnam Agent Orange exposure claims. The Agent Orange desk has insisted since the first of our claims came across that desk that they were to be fought.

VA's memo is also revealing in that it recommends ignoring my privacy complaint which dealt with a VA contractor being provided my medical information. And ignore it VA has done for two years, despite requests to the VA National Center for Ethics in Health Care.

Although VA touts its "case by case" evaluation of our claims, in fact they are prevented by informing the regional offices that VA "cannot concede" the exposure as claimed. So, on a case by case basis each case is ordered denied, although VA objected to this being termed a "blanket policy of denials." No C-123 claims have ever been permitted under his watch, although two veterans' claims were successful under appeal.

Actions by the Agent Orange desk are in contrast to VA's required pro-veteran, non-adversarial, benefit of the doubt approach. His actions show VA's determined efforts to, as one executive put it, "draw the line somewhere."

Here is how veterans' efforts are blocked at VA Compensation Service's Agent Orange desk. That part of the VBA is still a key player advising the Secretary on obstruction of the Institute of Medicine C-123 report's conclusions.

From: VBAVACO 

To: Flohr, Brad (SES EQV), VBAVACO Cc: Murphy, Thomas (SES), VBAVACO; Flynn, Mary A. (SES), VBAVACO; Black, Paul, VBAVACO; Imboden, Jacqueline, VBAVACO; Strickland, Allison, VBAVACO 

Subject: FW: 12 Nov 2012 C-123 Report to Compensation Services Date: Friday, August 23, 2013 10:31:00 AM Attachments: Young Article Response Aug 22.pdf image001.jpg 

This is one more attempt (among numerous others) by Wes Carter to attack the VA and claim he and the other 1500 post-Vietnam C-123 crew members were “exposed” to AO. This latest is a grandstand attempt to imply that there is a conspiracy between VA and Dr. Alvin Young to deny Wes Carter his “deserved” benefits. His attached statement is long on rhetoric and short on substance. He is again stating that he was “exposed” to AO by virtue of the dried/solidified TCDD found in one C-123 (“Patches” in the USAF Museum), and that VA “law” requires service connection as a result. He is likely pressing the issue anew because of the recent DRO C-123 grant publicized in the media.The question I have is: where did he get Dr. Young’s C-123 Report to Comp Svc? (note: one of this contractor's $600,000 no-bid sole-source contract for post-Vietnam monographs opposing veterans' claims.)

He definitely did not get it from me or Dr. Young. My only release of this report was to the Boston/Manchester RO when they requested Comp Svc input from the AO Mailbox on the claim of the C-123 Veteran who was ultimately service connected by the DRO. The RO may have shared it with congressional sources, since there was much congressional pressure on this case. And, Wes Carter has direct and extensive contact with all members of Congress interested in this issue. As usual, he distorts the issues for dramatic effect with his question: “How was the Advisory Opinion on my own disability claim provided to the consultant (Dr. Young)?” 

Comp Svc did not provide any advisory opinion to Dr. Young. Wes Carter’s own website contains multiple references to the Comp Svc advisory opinion, (note: correct, but such references were not published before Dr. Young was provided a copy by VBA, only after.) which he criticizes at great length, stating that the RO wanted to grant but Comp Svc overruled them. Anyone in the Internet universe could read about Wes Carter’s case. He has a long standing dislike of Dr. Young and many other scientists who do not agree that he was “exposed” to AO. He refers to them with abusive language on his website. This includes VHA toxicologist Terra Irons, who he singles out for website name-calling based on her statements at a SVAC and Senator Burr staff meeting we attended on the Hill, where Wes Carter showed up in person. I suggest that Wes Carter should receive no reply based on this e-mail. As I have learned, any reply to him will generate additional attacks.

Secretary of VA Deceives Congressman Todd Young on C-123 Veteran's Claim

The Secretary's letter to Congressman Todd Young of Indiana began honestly enough:

"Dear Congressman Young:

I am responding to the letter you submitted on behalf of your constituent who expressed concern that Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) regulations do not provide a presumption of herbicide exposure for Veterans who served aboard C-123 aircraft... "

But the errors which followed the polite introduction by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs were a deliberate deception of this member of Congress and a disservice to his constituent and all veterans.

Worried about a veteran from his district, Congressman Young had inquired about VA policies toward C-123 veterans. Rather than any correction of the VA's errors, Congressman Young was fed two pages of VA misstatements and deceptions, twisted around a handful of facts.

This undated copy of the letter from Secretary Shinseki to Congressman Young was released by the VA Office of General Counsel on Friday, September 19, forced by lawsuits in the US District Court of Washington compelling VA to respond to inquiries under the Freedom of Information Act.

Obviously, in a huge organization like VA, it is unlikely that Secretary Shinseki authored this letter himself and more probable that the Congressman's inquiry was assigned to the responsible staffer. Others correspondence tainted with similar deceptions, such as the VA response to Senator Bur, were drafted by Veterans Benefits Administration for the Secretary's signature. Trusting in subordinates to share his sense of honor and integrity, as the Secretary said just before his resignation, was something he never should have done at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

This letter, and others such as his response to Senator Burr, are telling examples of staff failure and sabotage of their leader. These staffers pursued their own agenda, thus interfering with the Secretary's Constitutional duties and relationship with the Congress.

"A number of scientific reports were reviewed, including: Environmental Fate of Agent Orange and Its Associated Dioxin in the Vietnam War (Alvin L. Young, et al., 2004) and Environmental Fate of TCDD and Agent Orange and Bioavailabilty to Troops in Vietnam (Nathan J. Karsh, et al. 2004)."

Great! Secretary Shinseki relied on eleven year old articles by its paid consultant ($300,000 per year from VA) who wrote the 2004 articles on behalf of Dow and Monsanto. VA relied on its consultant, whose views on the "innocence" of Agent Orange have remained unchanged for over 30 years. The Secretary even cited the consultant's eleven year old publications, pointedly ignoring all more recent proofs offered by the ATSDR, NIH and dozens of scientists and physicians whose views support the veterans. Little wonder, then, that all six major veterans organizations demanded the VA reconsider any relationship with this consultant!

This is the consultant who in 2009 personally recommended all toxic C-123s be destroyed because veterans might learn of their exposures and seek VA care for Agent Orange illnesses. This is the consultant who denigrated C-123 veterans, calling them "trash-haulers, freeloaders looking for a tax-free dollar from a sympathetic congressman. I have no respect." "If not that, what is their motive?"

VA Secretary...his staff's loyal support!

Simple answer, Sir. We need VA medical treatment for our cancers and other Agent Orange-related illnesses. But we can't get that life-saving care because VA relies on your input and shares your attitude. We can't get that care with the Secretary relying on his staff whose disloyalty fed him false and incomplete information, like the letter to Congressman Young and the  2013 letter to Senator Burr, in this careful deception of both the Senate and the House.

We can't get that care with the VA ignoring the issue of exposure as the sole qualification for Agent Orange illnesses treatment, and instead inventing bioavailability as an extra-legal barrier. Why has VA abandoned its obligations the Department itself stated repeatedly in the Federal Register?  Why does the Secretary not act when he is told Veterans Benefits Administration is denying Agent Orange claims on the ridiculous basis of Agent Orange being harmless?

Recent C-123 IOM Study Project: Views of Others

From others in Federal Government, commenting on the C-123 study project VA issued to the IOM
last month:

"It is important to note that the Federal Government possesses organic scientific resources and expertise that has already concluded these aircraft likely posed a health hazard and the aircrew were likely exposed to dioxin. The introduction and arguable necessity of a non-governmental body to opine to the Federal Government on this topic should raise some questions, if not only because it involves additional time and cost to the taxpayer to execute a contract for a purpose which may be unnecessary and unjustified given the scientific facts already known and the Federal statute already in force."

Already having issued findings supporting C-123 exposure claims are the CDC/ATSDR, NIH/NIESH, US Public Health Service, and numerous physicians and scientists outside the government.

VA Secretary Insists "No Blanket Policy Against C-123 Exposure Claims" in Letter to US Senate – the facts prove Secretary wrong!

Repeating statements made earlier by Under Secretary Allison Hickey, Secretary Eric Shinseki on 7 June 2013 responded to Senator Richard Burr's letter of April 2013. You have to wonder...what happened to the staffer who wrote this flawed letter and asked the Secretary to sign it? Is he still employed?

Senator Burr had questioned the VA's universal denial of C-123 claims. He repeated several of the phrases used by VA in their C-123 disability claim denials, including the frequent "VA is unable to acknowledge Agent Orange-related illnesses as a result of this service." Senator Burr specifically suggested that:

All of this suggests that VA may essentially have a blanket policy of denying any claims based on alleged exposure to dioxin while serving aboard the C-123 planes, regardless of the weight of information submitted in a particular case."

On 7 June Secretary Shinseki reassured Senator Burr and the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee:

"...while there are no provisions for acknowledging presumptive, indirect, secondary, or remote exposure based on claimed contact outside of Vietnam or Korea with aircraft. equipment, or personnel from these locations, VA evaluates such claims on a case-by-case basis to determine if the available evidence supports service connection on a facts-found basis. In making such determinations VA applies the benefit-of-the-doubt principles contained in 38 United States Code § 5107(b) and 38 Code of Federal Regulations § 3.101 Accordingly, VA does not have a "blanket policy" for denying such claims."

Perhaps Secretary Shinseki and Under Secretary Hickey have been left unaware that VHA's Post Deployment Health Section has instructed Compensation and Pension that ALL C-123 CLAIMS MUST BE DISAPPROVED because none of the veterans has ever been exposed. Golly, this sounds to us like a "blanket policy" to deny claims. And why?

This VA perspective that C-123 vets lack exposure is via Post Deployment Health's special, uniquely VA definition of "exposure" by which VHA added the word "bioavailability" to it...no proof of bioavailability, says the VA, equals no exposure. Elsewhere in science and medicine, exposure occurs upon contact, ingestion or inhalation...and we've double-checked with the CDC/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, EPA, National Institutes of Health, medical schools and schools of toxicology. Even the Society of Toxicology's list of terms clearly explains exposure without the after-effect of bioavailability. Nowhere can we find (outside the VA Post Deployment Health...not even in other VA departments!!) any expert or medical dictionary to say otherwise. 

Let's be very clear: a cornerstone of the VA campaign against C-123 exposure claims is their denial that exposure ever took place. By slight-of hand, they deny exposure, not by saying we weren't in contaminated airplanes, but by pretending that the airplane's contamination couldn't expose us because there was no bioavailability proven. Again to be clear: exposure is one term, and bioavailability another. One is not part of the other, but they are related. (1) Exposure comes first, and (2) bioavailability may follow. But exposure, exposure, exposure! Only exposure is specified in the law. Scientists and physicians across the country have insisted to the VA that C-123 veterans were exposed via dermal and inhalation routes.

Or, as University of South Florida's Dean, Dr. Richard Pollenz explained it to the C-123 veterans on 10 January 2014:

"Bioavailability MUST follow exposure and it is a complex concept based on the chemical nature of the agent.  There is also the major concept of biotransformation since nearly all compounds are metabolized once they enter the body."   

Another expert disagreeing with the VA is Dr. Linda Birnbaum, Director of the NIH/National Toxicology Program and also Director, National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences. She told us "In all my years as a toxicologist, I have never heard of bioavailability as part of the exposure field. Exposure is contact with a contaminant."

At the University of Texas Medical School, Dr. Arnold Schecter MD, a  highly esteemed Agent Orange researcher, commented, "Any dictionary or toxicology textbook will have a definition of exposure and also bioavailability. The issue of bioavailability is a different matter." Dr. Schecter has concluded that C-123 veterans were exposed and also that, unless specific testing to prove otherwise, C-123 veterans were actually exposed to Agent Orange with resultant bioavailability.

Now back to the Secretary's earnest assurance to Senator Burr that VA has no blanket policy against C-123 veterans' exposure claims and that each claim will be evaluated individually.

Perhaps the Secretary, and Under Secretary Hickey, are also unaware of just three of the more frequently-used blanket denial policies VA employs against C-123 veterans, provided the regional offices by Compensation and Pension Service:

1."In summary, there has been no long-term adverse health effects of TCDD exposure."
Gosh, ain't it great to know that VA's director Compensation and Pension (his quote above) has decided to deny claims on the basis that Agent Orange is harmless. Ignoring the very laws they are responsible for enforcing, VA opts to disregard proven veteran exposure and instead deny claims by pretending that dioxin is harmless. Don't you feel reassured?

2.  . "VA regulations do not allow us to concede exposure to herbicides for Veteran's (sic) who claim they were exposed to herbicides after the Vietnam War while flying in aircraft used to spray those chemicals."

 Neither the Senate nor the Library of Congress can find any VA regulation as specified above. The most applicable document is the 8 May 2001 Federal Register, page 23166, where VA agrees that all exposed veterans will be treated the same as Vietnam veterans. There simply is no regulation to which the VA refers! Washington even orders the regional offices to deny the C-123 claims. Come on...that kinda suggests a blanket policy, right?

3 [From C-123 veterans' claims decisions] . "VSR. Please tell veteran, "We are unable to verify or document that aircrew members were exposed to Agent Orange resulting from Agent Orange residue or dioxin contaminated aircraft or aircraft parts. Although residual TCDD, the toxic substance in Agent Orange, may be detected in C-123 aircraft by sophisticated laboratory techniques many years after its use, the Office of Public Health concluded that the existing scientific studies and reports support a low probability that TCDD was biologically available in these aircraft. Therefore, the potential for exposure to TCDD from flying or working in contaminated C-123 aircraft years after the Vietnam War is unlikely to have occurred at levels that could affect health." 

Okay...let's look at these several issues, and see that they don't hold water.

First, with instructions to "tell the veteran" all the above to each Agent Orange-presumptive illness claimed would to anyone with a middle school grasp of English suggest a blanket policy. To repeat – it clearly is a blanket policy, despite the Secretary's earnest yet mistaken assurances to Senator Burr.

As to the issues, VA absolutely CAN (but refuses) to document and has repeatedly been provided original military documents establishing the contamination of the former UC-123K transports and the exposure aboard of the aircrews. Multiple federal agencies have tried to certify this to the VA but so far they have ignored the EPA, CDC, USPHS, CDC/ATSDR, National Toxicology Program, University of Texas Medical School, VA Regional Medical Center Portland, Oregon Health Sciences University, Boston University School of Public Health, Columbia University of School of Public Health, Dr. Wayne Dwernychuk (Hatfield Consultants), NIH/National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences University – conclusion: VA "unable to verify or document" because they simply refuse to accept all such documentation, just as the C-123 veterans were told would be the case by C&P's director.

Next, Agent Orange not only "may be" but certainly was detected...in every stored C-123 at the desert Boneyard before they were all destroyed as toxic waste.

Next, VA said it takes "sophisticated" laboratory techniques. Nope, only standard testing. The Army has the military's standard manual calle TG312, and the testing procedures done on the C-123s was standard among toxicologists and in accordance with TG312. The CDC, NIH, USPHS and EPA stand behind the AF tests proving the contamination, and from those test results, all the agencies (except VA) conclude the C-123 veterans were exposed. Because it is their responsibility for enforcing the various veterans' laws, VA feels comfortable, and indeed, somehow entitled to disregard them when dealing with C-123 vets.

The Secretary writes "detected many years after its use" to imply that somehow, age made it worse. In fact, it was worst in Vietnam when the Agent Orange was sprayed, then next-worst immediately after we started flying which was the year after the war ended, and the Agent Orange aged and became less potent over the years. His letter should say "detected for all years after its use." That's why AF toxicologist Dr. Ron Porter testified in a federal hearing that the C-123 fleet was "a danger to public health."

Our exposure, for a decade beginning in 1972, one year after the last spray missions, was quite intense, over a long period, and not to be dismissed as something noticed years afterwards. Tests from 1979 on proved the contamination! Only one C-123 was ever decontaminated, and that was at the USAF Museum on Tail #362 "Patches" and was completed fourteen years after we retired the airplane!

Next, the Secretary reports that his Office of Public Health concluded existing scientific studies don't suggest a probability of TCDD (dioxin) being biologically available. Of course, both the Secretary and the Office of Public Health fully understand that the law says nothing about Agent Orange being "biologically available," only that veterans establish their exposure. Bioavailability has nothing at all to do with Agent Orange exposure disability claims. And that's the law. 

Finally, exposure to TCDD unlikely to occur at levels to affect health. See the above...affecting the veterans' health, better known as "medical nexus," has nothing to do with claims for diseases recognized by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs as Agent Orange presumptive illnesses. Again, that's the law. If a veteran claims an illness not recognized by the VA as associated with Agent Orange, that's when medical nexus must be proven.

What a snow job. What a blanket abuse of veterans' rights!

What a blanket policy keeping C-123 veterans out of VA hospitals!

C-123 "Grassroots Victory" – Reserve Officer Association Magazine

"A FIRST STEP TOWARDS A GRASSROOTS VICTORY"...Reserve Officer Association (from the November/December issue)

Major Wesley T. Carter, USAF (Ret.), is an ROA Life Member and chair of the C-123 Veterans Association. While he didn’t start crewing on the C-123 until 1974, Maj Carter, a medical service officer, suffers ail­ments faced by many Vietnam veterans. 

Maj Carter, 66, wasn’t motivated by his own medical situation. While the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) denied his claim for Agent Orange exposure, he is 100 percent disabled due to other military-related injuries.

The VA grants compensation for presumptive exposure to herbicides to those who served in Vietnam. Between 1972 and 1982, about 1,500 Air Force Reserve men and women served aboard 34 C-123s that had been used for the defoliation mission spraying Agent Orange in Vietnam and other coun­tries in Southeast Asia.

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Paul Bailey was one of the 1,500. For nearly a decade in the 1970s, he flew the airframe #362  nicknamed “Patches”—the aircraft had more than 600 bullet holes from enemy fire as it sprayed over Vietnam. He suffers from prostate cancer and terminal metastatic cancer of the pelvis and ribs.

Every claim filed by C-123 veterans without Vietnam wartime expe­rience, including Lt Col Bailey’s, has been denied, Maj Carter told The Huffington Post. Several C-123 veterans were granted disability benefits after appealing denials to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (BVA).

Maj Carter brought this to the attention of ROA in 2011. In a testimony on Capitol Hill, ROA included the plight of Air Force Reserve C-123 crew members, including a statement before the VA Advisory Committee on Disability Compensation.

In his labors, Maj Carter is as much of a workhorse as was the C-123. He has contacted other nonprofits for support, vis­ited Capitol Hill, and reached out to scientists and medical professionals to gain support for submitted disability claims. Through his efforts, 14 high-ranking doctors, toxicologists, and environmental scientists questioned the VA’s C-123 pol­icy in a letter to Allison Hickey, VA undersecretary for bene­fits, in November 2012. 

Politicians have also begun pressing the issue. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., ranking member on the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., have asked the VA Office of Inspector General to review whether the department is inappropriately denying disability compensa­tion to veterans who say they were sickened by postwar con­tamination, the Washington Post reported in an article about Lt Col Bailey.

In August, the VA reversed its denial of Lt Col Bailey’s claim and granted him the presumption of exposure. It was a significant decision.

“No such claim has ever been approved [short of BVA]— Bailey’s is the first,” Maj Carter shared with ROA. His efforts can be credited with changing VA policy.

It’s unknown whether Lt Col Bailey’s success will lead to a reversal of VA C-123 policy or if the VA will continue to main­tain that carcinogenic dioxin and other components of Agent Orange could not have posed health risks after Vietnam. However, in October, the C-123 Veterans Association reported that a second veteran, MSgt Dave Noonan, won his VA Agent Orange exposure claim. He joins Lt Col Bailey as the only veterans to succeed in convincing the government of the validity of their situation.

“Perhaps, dare we hope, some change is coming?” Maj Carter suggested. One thing is certain. He—and ROA—won’t stop fighting on behalf of C-123 veterans.

If you have had legislative success as an individual or as part of an ROA department, contact CAPT Marshall Hanson, USNR (Ret.), at mhanson@roa.org.

(note: LtCol Bailey passed away from his Agent Orange exposures on October 27, 2013)

USAF General Deceives US Senate & AF Veterans about Agent Orange Exposure!

In August 2012 the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee sought information from the Secretary of the Air Force about C-123 transport Agent Orange contamination and how the AF had responded to challenges about important details of an official, formal investigation of the issue which resulted in the May 2012 C-123 Post Vietnam Consultative Letter. The USAF responded to the Senate (Senator Burr, Ranking Member) in November 2012 with misleading and deceptive answers in their defense of the Consultative Letter. They implied aircraft were safe in "their present configuration" while in fact, the airplanes were safe only because they'd already been destroyed as toxic waste in 2010 by the AF and their "present configuration" was as aluminum ingots!

USAF was also asked about how its conclusion about C-123 veterans being unexposed differed from other federal agencies which concluded the opposite...that the veterans had been heavily exposed. In their response to Burr, the USAF called the AF views 'consistent" with CDC, an obvious falsehood. "Were exposed" (ATSDR) is not consistent with "exposure unlikely" (USAF). It doesn't take an English major to see the differences!

Finally, AF tests in 1994 labeled the C-123 fleet "heavily contaminated" and "a danger to public health" but the AF C-123 Consultative Letter, released in May 2012, erroneously dismissed that toxic description and in response to the Senate's inquiry, the AF wrote that the cautions and the requirement for HAZMAT protection was meant only for USAF Museum restoration workers - in fact, the toxicologist who completed the C-123 survey in 1994 himself confirmed in 2011 that the HAZMAT protection was for everyone as the interior of the C-123 was, as he first wrote, heavily contaminated. The veterans' point - they flew for a decade without HAZMAT protection and became exposed! If HAZMAT protection was essential for personnel inside them for brief periods in 1994 it was even more essential for crews flying these airplanes for a full decade!

For the third major issue raised by the Committee, the USAF again mislead the Senate with false or misleading answers. Clever wordsmithing is no substitute for honest, clear correspondence between general officers acting on behalf of the Secretary of the Air Force and legislative authorities. 

Other misleading answers to the United States Senate from the Air Force were equally obvious, and unworthy of the two-star officer who signed this report on behalf of the Secretary of the Air Force.

Also harmful was the fact that Veterans Affairs now cites the Air Force Consultative Letter, which the USAF response to Senator Burr defended, in denying veterans benefits for Agent Orange exposure.

An update on our Freedom of Information Act Requests: our FOIA to the VA for information on their position against C-123 veterans' exposure has

been denied effective 11 March 2013. After two years, VA now pretends no information exists in their files regarding C-123 Agent Orange exposure issues. 

Our request to the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine for information on the 2012 C-123 Agent Orange Consultative Letter hasn't done any better. While approved, and approved without fees, the Air Force has sat on this request at Wright-Patterson AFB for over eight months. Last word was the response was routed to their JAG officers to see how much the AF could keep secret.

The public sends its treasure and its children to the Armed Forces in defense of the Nation. The public demands honest accounting for how that treasure is spent, and how the blood of their children is shed - and cannot abide the military deception in these areas.

AF Delays Brief to Senator Burr re: C-123 Dioxin Exposure

For uncertain reasons, the Air Force briefer scheduled to meet with Senator Burr's staff and teleconference participants has delayed his presentation until 11 July. We hope it is for a serious reconsideration of the mounting evidence from outside AF/VA sources which challenge such an unscientific report.

Thus far, other federal agencies as well as university experts have weighed in...none in support of the VA/AF, all in opposition. They cite the failure to respect the Army's TG312, failure to allow reasonable benefit of the doubt, failure to avoid unscientific assumptions, failure to weigh opinions expressed by the CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, failure to weigh earlier IOM exposure data regarding dermal and inhalation routes of dioxin, and failure to address the greater degree of contamination prior to the first tests conducted on the aircraft.

It is unfortunate that the issue shifts from an examination of aircrew exposure to dioxin contamination on our aircraft, to a detailed expose of why the heck the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine pumped out such an unscientific document.

Let's hope the Air Force Surgeon gets it right this time! All we ask is the benefit of the doubt, to allow the evidence to reach the VA's "as likely to as not" threshold.

We're grateful for the powerful support of the professional societies. We're profoundly grateful to the American Legion and Vietnam Veterans of America as we continue our struggle. And we look forward to the day we can shut this web site down, go home, and with corrected AF and VA reports, turn to the VA for treatment of our service-connected illnesses.