VA Aid OKd for 2 Diseases Tied to Agent Orange

WASHINGTON —  Veterans Affairs Secretary Jesse Brown announced Tuesday that Vietnam veterans suffering from Hodgkin’s disease and an uncommon liver disorder will be eligible for special disability payments based on their presumed exposure to Agent Orange and other herbicides.

The action, which adds another chapter to the two-decade-old controversy over the health consequences of Agent Orange, came in response to a new report released Tuesday by an Institute of Medicine panel of experts which concluded that there is sufficient evidence to link Agent Orange to the two diseases. The study is believed to be one of the most comprehensive and objective ever conducted on the subject.

Hodgkin’s disease is a life-threatening cancer of the lymph system. The liver disorder, known as porphyria cutanea tarda (PCT) results in thinning and blistering of the skin.

The report, which was requested and sponsored by the department, also reaffirmed that exposure to herbicides used during the Vietnam War can contribute to the development of soft-tissue tumors, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and chloracne, an acne-like condition.

The department already classifies these three conditions as service-related disabilities eligible for compensation.

“This study . . . gives us new information that I believe will help to further resolve the lingering concerns of Vietnam veterans and their families,” Brown said, adding that he has ordered the reopening of claims of Vietnam veterans who may have these two conditions.

Brown’s decision was made after he learned last week of the contents of the report and after consultation with the White House, the department said.

“I have ordered that we move as quickly as possible . . . so that we can begin paying benefits to veterans or their survivors,” Brown said.

The department said that it will write new regulations that will apply to these two conditions, which likely will become effective in February.

Between 1962 and 1971, U.S. military forces sprayed millions of gallons of herbicides, mostly Agent Orange, onto the jungles of Vietnam in an attempt to destroy the enemy’s hiding places and eliminate its crops. Use of the herbicide was stopped in 1971, nearly two years after the first reports circulated that dioxin, a byproduct present in 2,4,5-T, one of the components of Agent Orange, was capable of causing birth defects.

Since the 1970s, thousands of Vietnam veterans have blamed exposure to the defoliant for a staggering array of medical problems, and they have waged an unrelenting battle to have these problems recognized as related to their Vietnam duty.

An estimated 3.1 million veterans served in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam era.

The Institute of Medicine panel, which reviewed more than 6,000 studies and medical articles and analyzed 230 studies in detail, concluded that there was insufficient or little evidence to support claims that Agent Orange was responsible, among other things, for birth defects or stillbirths, infertility, childhood cancers in offspring of veterans, leukemia and cancers of the brain, bladder, skin or gastrointestinal tract.

But the study found “suggestive evidence” of an association between herbicides and three other cancers: respiratory cancers, prostate cancer and multiple myeloma, a cancer of specific bone marrow cells. Brown said that his department would look further to determine whether these cancers can be linked to military service.

Brown’s announcement generally was applauded by veterans’ groups.