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Defoliant Agent Orange: Chemical Time Bomb In Vietnam Veterans

By VVAW

Even those of us who didn't like the idea of being sent to Vietnam were still aware that we could get killed or wounded—we all knew that was part of going to war. Not that it was a very happy part, of course, but it was one which we could accept as part of the duty of fighting in the military.

We also knew about the compensations—the excellent medical care and quick pickup of the wounded on the Indochina battlefields, with the V.A. standing ready to treat us if in fact we emerged disabled from the war. Even those of us who saw that we were fighting a war to extend and protect the profits of the rich somehow felt that, if we were hurt, we would be taken care of. If nothing else, people would appreciate the sacrifice we were making.

But in the process of fighting that war, and then getting out and becoming vets, we learned a couple of things. First, the "patriotic duty" we were performing was a bunch of crop-straight out, we were fighting against the interests of the people of Indochina and against the interests of the people of the U.S. In fact, the only thing we were fighting for war the profits of the U.S. rulers who, along with milking Indochina for its resources, its labor, and its markets, were trying to keep a political foothold in Southeast Asia.

Second, we found out that the promises we were given about V.A. care were another bunch of crap. We had to fight tooth and nail to get the least little thing out of the V.A. And once we got it, then we had to fight like hell to keep it—as shown by the many vets whose disability has been slashed by the V.A. in order to squeeze each and every last penny.

That's all bad enough; vets have kind of got accustomed to being used once and then thrown aside like a squeezed out toothpaste tube, even though each new abuse, each new mountain of red tape that we have to climb, makes us a little madder, a little more ready to take on the V.A. and the whole damn system behind it. And now, after ten years since the height of U.S. involvement in Indochina, we've found out something else—that we were sprayed with AGENT ORANGE in Vietnam, and that the effects of that defoliant are both long-lasting (maybe permanent and irreversible) and deadly. As one Vietnam vet from New York put it, "THEY KILLED ME IN VIETNAM AND I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT!"

Five millions acres of Vietnam were defoliated between 1961 and 1970. Only massive pressure flooding in from all over the world forced the U.S. government to finally cease this form of chemical warfare. Pregnant women in sprayed areas had spontaneous abortions; children that were born were deformed—no tear ducts, unable to stand, extra toes. The list of atrocities went on and on. But the jungles were defoliated (10% of the jungle area of Vietnam was stripped bare) and crops—which might have been used to feed the liberation fighters—were killed, and the land made barren for a least the next fourteen years.

It wasn't only the Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodian people who walked through the jungles, drank the water or breathed the air—2.3 million American GIs were also in Indochina, most of them before 1970. GIs who worked directly with Agent Orange, mixing the chemicals or loading it on planes or choppers to be sprayed remember breaking out in fierce rashes when the chemicals go on their skin. Small blisters popped up on the skin, accompanied by a painful red rash. GIs who complained enough were given a salve and told it was all part of the war—forget it, and it will go away. For many of the GIs, the rash did go away, though it now reappears in hot weather with all the pain and irritation that was part of the original symptom of direct exposure to Agent Orange.

These direct effects of Agent Orange (called "chloracne"), however, were barely the tip of the problem; the much more devastating effects of the chemical were hidden from GIs. Only in March of 1978, when Maude DeVictor, a V.A. worker in Chicago, began to put a group of cases together and found a pattern among vets who had been exposed to the defoliant, did most veterans find out about this latest way in which the U.S. government had victimized its GIs. Symptoms of Agent Orange poisoning range from numbness of toes and fingers through excessive fatigues and nervousness, a lessened sex drive, through liver cancer and skin cancer, to deformed children. Because the poison in Agent Orange is stored in the fatty tissues of the body, it is difficult to detect, and its effects may appear years after actual exposure.

Typical reactions among vets were, "Oh, you mean that's why my arms break out in a rash every summer?" Or, "I've been feeling rundown and sick for some time, but the doctors can't find anything wrong with me—is this Agent Orange?" The mother of one veteran called to try to get help with her son who, six years after Vietnam, suddenly quit his well-paid job and now does nothing but sit in a chair, occasionally getting so nervous and shaky that he can't even hold a spoon. Another vet who had been in Bien Hoa while the area was being sprayed to destroy the undergrowth on the perimeter told VVAW about his attempts to have children—the first two had been born dead, the third had died at the age of three months, and the latest was now 5 months old, way underweight and constantly sick. Still another veteran talked about the spontaneous abortions his wife had suffered—and now she was pregnant again and he just didn't know whether to tell her to go ahead and try to have the child or to go ahead and have an abortion.

This is just a small sampling of the veterans that VVAW meets at the V.A. office in Chicago. Multiply that by thousands and the picture of the effects of Agent in human terms begins to come through. But when assessing the role of the U.S. government in Indochina, the indictment is even more blatant. It's no joke the government didn't have the necessary scientific data concerning 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D, the major ingredients of Agent Orange. These chemicals were clearly identified as killers with long-lasting genetic effects as early as 1963. The U.S. government knew exactly what it was doing by spraying Agent Orange across the length and breadth of Indochina.

It goes further than that, too. Once vets began to learn about this newest illness, they went to the V.A. to demand treatment. After all, vets had been told that the V.A. existed to take care of medical problems caused by military service. But it turned out not to be quite so simple, as anyone who has filed for disability as a result of Agent Orange can testify. When VVAW members in Milwaukee went to the V.A. to demand disability for Agent Orange poisoning, they were given a blood test—which is of no use whatever. When pushed against a wall, the V.A. director there was at least honest: "The V.A. isn't going to do anything about Agent Orange until it's forced to," he said.

In Chicago there wasn't even that honest a reaction. When talking to the press, the V.A. was friendly and cooperative that most vets couldn't believe it was the same outfit they have to deal with. Even when talking officially to VVAW, the V.A. director wanted to "do whatever he could to help." But for individual vets the story was far different. While V.A. workers were helpful in filling out the disability forms, the V.A. itself was a pain in the ass, up to its usual slimy tactics of trying to shuffle off the responsibility on to vets.

Vets who applied for the disability were sent letters (and forms, of course) instructing them to explain where and when they were in contact with Agent Orange, and requiring a medical history to establish any connections between the defoliant and the symptoms. This might make sense if vets had access to a huge medical network like that of the V.A. (which not only runs the larges hospital system in the country, but also puts out uncounted millions of dollars for research in private hospitals and laboratories), and access to the Pentagon computer tapes which can point out what unit was in what area on what day, and where and when chemical spraying took place. By matching these tapes it should be possible to tell who was directly affected, though that will still not account for the GIs whose exposure was more indirect (drinking water which had chemical residues in it, for instance).

But the V.A. is running scared. First, it's probably true that they know very little about the effects of the defoliant. Beyond that, they can see what will happen when the connection between Agent Orange and the multitude of illnesses that it causes is finally established—there is, at this point, no know treatment, which means the V.A. will end up paying disability claims to a large number of vets. And in a situation where the rich who run this country are trying like hell to cut back on every service which does not put more bucks in their pockets—everything from unemployment compensation to food stamps to vets benefits—the V.A. can see itself having to shell out big bucks to disabled veterans.

Because the V.A. will do whatever possible to avoid having to spend money, they're using every possible tactic to make sure that vets do not apply for Agent Orange disability. Their first technique is the simplest—try to make sure that as few vets as possible know about it. That's why VVAW's first demand around Agent Orange is that the V.A. use its resources to make sure the problems are publicized widely and thoroughly.

At this point the V.A. has no test for Agent Orange, as far as we can find out. One does exist—it involves a biopsy of fatty tissue and can detect the presence of dioxin, one of the contaminants in Agent Orange, down to one part per trillion. Of course, the V.A. still denies that Agent Orange could have been the cause of any problems, so their interest in getting together testing is small. VVAW's second demand is to develop and give a test—an effective test—to vets and their families.

There have already been years upon years of research to establish the connection between Agent Orange and the various symptoms that veterans are now reporting. But what there has not been is any attempt to find out how to treat individuals who were poisoned by defoliant sprays. That is the third demand of VVAW: that the V.A., through its medical and financial resources, accomplish the task of finding treatment for the victims of Agent Orange. As part of this, the V.A. should be in contact with the Vietnamese who have been doing research on the effects of Agent Orange since the mid-'60's. In the mountains of research that has already been done, the names of Vietnamese scientists stand high on the list—they have had to deal with the problem directly.

Finally, VVAW demands that the V.A. stop its waffling around on the issue of Agent Orange. When the furor about the defoliant first erupted, the V.A. responded that "there is no cause and effect relationship between Agent Orange and supposed symptoms." Their pious statements did nothing to stop the noise, however, so they went one step further. V.A. instructions around Agent Orange now admit there may be some problems— "Except for a skin condition known as chloracne, there are presently no firm data to incriminate the herbicides as causative agents of any other known category of disease or chronic symptom. However, a contaminant dioxin, found in small quantities in defoliants is toxic..."

As usual with the V.A there's a trick hiding behind this declaration of responsibility. As they are defining chloracne, it was temporary and was the direct result of handling the defoliant. No one has done that for some years, so of course there are no vets affected by the poison.

VVAW is demanding that the V.A. recognize Agent Orange poisoning as a service-connected disability, and that means paying disability payments to vets and their families (or survivors) as well as treating the effects. Compensation must be paid to the families of vets who died as a result of their exposure to Agent Orange.

The V.A. is an agency of the same government and the same system which sent us off to fight and die in Indochina, and which covered us with the rotten chemicals. They cannot continue to try to shift the responsibility and the blame for this crime on to the individual vets. If it takes forcing them to move before anything happens, then that's exactly what us vets need to do. In Chicago there have been already been several picket lines outside the V.A. Regional Office to demand treatment for Agent Orange. Just to get the defoliant's effects out the millions of potential victims is a big job—the film, "Agent Orange, Vietnam's Deadly Fog" which kicked off the struggle against Agent Orange in Chicago, is a good introduction, and VVAW chapters in places around the country have gone to their local CBS stations to demand that the film be shown. In New York City, there was even a picket line inside the lobby of WCBS, the home station of CBS in New York.

But while there have been some good initial steps in forcing the V.A. to take action, the battle is really just getting started. For the V.A. and the system behind it there are millions—maybe billions—of bucks at stake (taxpayers' money, of course) which they do not want to spend. And so they are resisting as best they can. We cannot count on them doing one damn thing on their own—we have to force them to move.

As part of the long-range campaign to win the VVAW demands around Agent Orange, VVAW is calling a national AGENT ORANGE DAY on the 21st of October, when VVAW chapters around the country will be holding actions to put forward our demands. We are also talking to a number of environmental groups which are also concerned about the use of defoliants, asking them to join with us in these actions.

Although at this time there is no single national organization taking up the overall question of chemical sprays in the U.S., there are a number of local groups and organizations which are taking action around the problem. In fact, though the concentrations are lower, the same ingredients as are in Agent Orange are being used the U.S. today; an area larger than the total of 5,000,000 acres sprayed in Vietnam are being sprayed yearly in the U.S. today.

In many cases the effects are the same. Pregnant women have a high proportion of spontaneous abortions, children are sick, farm animals die or produce mutated offspring. In several places around the country, the environmental groups have grown from people who live in the areas near where the spraying is going on.

Across the country there are millions of people, vets and non-vets, who are united in seeing the need for people to be safe from chemical warfare, whether the U.S. government variety in Southeast Asia, or the corporate variety as in the forests of Oregon, Upper Michigan, or northern Wisconsin. As the government and big companies (particularly Dow Chemical which is the principle manufacturer of the defoliant at this time) refuse to deal with the results of their crimes against the people, more and more individuals and groups are joining to fight against them.

In many places vets are in the middle of these struggles, not always working so much as Vietnam veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange (though this is the case in some places) but as individuals who have had enough and are fed up—and are ready to join with others to fight against the source of the problem. VVAW will continue to do all that we can to join with these efforts. At the same time, as put forward at our National Meeting in the beginning of August, a veterans' organization such as VVAW has particular responsibilities to build the struggles of vets and our campaign around Agent Orange is one way we must do this. It's a campaign which we will win, and we're not going to have to wait 20 years like the brother who just now received compensation for being a military guinea pig during nuclear tests in the 1950's. We've had enough of being used by the rich for their purposes, only to be discarded once they're done with us. They haven't seen the last of us yet, no matter how much they would like to cover us over or have us die off from their defoliants, or give up in frustration from their red tape and bullshit.

The V.A. director in Milwaukee had it right—the V.A. will move when it is forced to move. VVAW calls on vets to join in the struggle to get the V.A. off its ass and to deal with our problems—to provide testing and treatment for Agent Orange and compensations for affected vets. They've done enough to us already—it's time they did something for us. We've had enough and aren't taking any more!

TREATMENT FOR AGENT ORANGE
HEALTHCARE FOR ALL VETS