C-123 Agent Orange Exposure: Confusion? Cover-Up?

Coverup? Simple failure to act? Dereliction of duty? You decide. In any case, decisions about our C-123 veterans' exposure to Agent Orange were made that worked against our health and welfare, and no competent medical officer, legal officer or aircrew member would have made such decisions without full understanding of the impact on veterans already exposed for a decade to the scientifically-confirmed contamination by dioxin on our aircraft.

So...why did official action after official action over the decades combine only to coverup the Agent Orange impact, and nothing worked to get medical information out to the veterans to guard our health? Is this an event handled differently than would be legally possible in a civil setting - without criminal repercussions for the bad actors involved? Do government and military wonks get to cause such harm without legal response? Where are the heroes of American law to set right this evil ?

Here is the history of the vicious affair as we know it. We don't dare start calling it a coverup or we end up on the heap of dismissed and ignored nutters and conspiracy-therory advocates. So, instead let's call it, without question, a tragic affair, with only the C-123 veterans paying the bill. Another thing we know - after two years of struggle, not a single piece of advice, guidance, or information about the C-123 contamination and veterans' exposure has been offered or released by the Veterans Administration.

Are C-123 veterans (individually, not as a population, evidencing Agent Orange presumptive illness) qualified under the law for Agent Orange exposure benefits? Yes. Other than the amount of push-back exerted against C-123 veterans' claims, total effort wasted helping C-123 veterans: Zero. VA Job One: PREVENT ACCESS TO VA MEDICAL CARE.

C-123 Agent Orange History - USAF takes actions to cover-up?	Yes or No:
•Once 1994 tests showed C-123 “heavily contaminated, USAF also decides not to inform exposed aircrews, meanwhile USAF Museum was forced to decontaminate their C-123 as “a danger to public health”	Yes
•In 1996 USAF Office of Environmental Law directed “all information be kept in official channels only” about Agent Orange contamination	Yes
•DOD Agent Orange consultant, USAF AFMC officials, general officers & Air Staff recommended in 2009 all C-123s be destroyed before exposed veterans learned of contamination & applied for veterans benefits	Yes
•In January 2000 all Air Force surplus C-123s ordered sealed, gathered into HAZMAT “quarantine” storage in specially-selected secure remote area of Davis-Monthan AFB to prevent notice by Arizona EPA & $3.4 billion fine	Yes
•USAF Surgeon General concludes in 2012, following C-123 Agent Orange study, better not to notify exposed veterans to “avoid undue distress”	Yes
•Following January 2000 sworn testimony in federal court by USAF toxicologist Dr. Ron Porter that C-123s were “a danger to public health,” USAF avoided advising exposed veterans	Yes
•USAF informed Walt Disney Films of Agent Orange contaminated C-123s bought for movies in 1999 but avoided also informing exposed veterans	Yes
•Entire C-123 Agent Orange airplane fleet ordered destroyed in 2010 as toxic waste, with Hill AFB Public Affairs taking special steps per DOD Agent Orange consultant to avoid notice by public, press, exposed veterans	Yes

•Special Note: In 2012, DOD’s Agent Orange Consultant publically libels dioxin-exposed C-123 veterans “trash-haulers, freeloaders, looking for atax-free dollar from a sympathetic congressman."   YES

Friends, imagine if this had been the 20-year track record of a chemical spill at a major US employer. Would CNN's Wolf Blitzer, shown company documents like those above focusing on deliberate steps to prevent notifying exposed employees "to avoid undue distress" consider it a cover-up? Would 60 Minutes have fun with the story? 

New Agent Orange Exposure Studies Requested

In addition to the request filed with the US Army's Directorate for Risk Assessment , similar applications have been filed for investigations by the National Industrial Occupational Health Administration (part of the CDC) and an independent scientific agency, the Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA). TERA has been asked to evaluate the USAF report on C-123 contamination and its relevance to aircrew exposure to Agent Orange. Our veterans can only hope that TERA accepts this challenging responsibility!

The Army Directorate for Risk Assessment earlier published the famous TG312, the technical guide to assessment of worker contaminants exposure. TG312 has been cited by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in their letter confirming the likely exposure of aircrews and maintenance personnel assigned to the C-123 to dioxin remaining from the aircraft's Vietnam War missions. Further, TG312 was cited by each of the university-based experts who weighed in to support the veterans' claims of having been exposed to the deadly herbicide. Such experts have further claimed that C-123 aircrews (1970 to 1980) were even more severely exposed than nearly all Vietnam War veterans!

Davis-Monthan DAF Employees in Required C-123 HAZMAT Protection

The VA and USAF have disagreed. Faced with the alternative of admitting that they'd sold these dioxin-contaminated aircraft to Walt Disney for movies, and to Thailand and South Vietnam for their militaries, the USAF took a middle-of-the-road approach in their evaluation of the C-123 risks, opining that they could not confirm or deny exposure, but then somehow concluded that aircrew exposure was "unlikely." Of course, having destroyed all the contaminated aircraft in 2010, they've made their limpid position difficult to challenge. All the aircraft were very quietly destroyed on order of the Air Force Material Command and approved by the Air Staff...that is, all were destroyed except for the souvenirs kept by the inspectors themselves (who certified the complete destruction of the airplanes...so destruction complete except for their private, personal and improperly kept souvenirs?)

The VA, faced with the costs of providing medical care for the exposed veterans, quickly prepared their opinion denying veterans' exposure, and did so in the face of toxicology tests completed by the Air Force's Armstrong Labs in which the airplanes were tested as "heavily contaminated" and about which the USAF scientists testified were "a danger to public health." The VA even challenged the industry-standard method by which the Air Force tests were conducted, and concluded the aircraft were not contaminated "enough" to affect veterans' health. This position staggered professional toxicologists - was the VA suggesting a threshold of dioxin exposure, or describing a situation where workers could perform their duties in a dioxin-contaminated aircraft and somehow not be exposed?? Is VA unaware of decisions that NO LEVEL OF DIOXIN is considered "safe" - decisions reached by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) as well as the US Environmental Protection Agency?

Any such "ignorance" seems highly unlikely since these agencies' documents were cited by both the AF and the VA! Any attempt to now claim that the C-123 didn't have enough dioxin to potentially cause harm to aircrews is clearly an equivocation - an attempt to worm their way out of having to care for our veterans' Agent Orange-caused illnesses!

Why can't we get Senator Gillibrand to stand up for us as has Senator Burr?