Agent Orange Continues To Plague Children And Grandchildren Of Veterans
Matthew Russell
Many Vietnam Veterans were exposed to a deadly nerve agent called "Agent Orange," an herbicide used to clear foliage.
Studies have shown the severe and deadly effects to babies born after military personnel was exposed to the deadly nerve agent.
Photo: Adobe Stock / TomSome Vietnam veterans were exposed to a deadly nerve agent called "Agent Orange."
In the book Toxic War: The Story of Agent Orange, author Peter Sill points out how for decades the U.S. Government refused to take responsibility for the health issues these veterans suffer from.
Now their children are sick and dying as adults.
Many children of Vietnam veterans were born at a time when there was no medical understanding or disclosure of the danger of Agent Orange. Yet today, these people live with mounting medical bills and little hope for treatment. Because their parents were exposed to a deadly toxin, they will fight their entire lives just to survive.
Photo: Adobe Stock / Straight8StockMany children of Vietnam veterans were born at a time when there was no medical understanding or disclosure of the danger of Agent Orange.
An investigation by ProPublica and The Virginian-Pilot found that the Department of Veterans Affairs spent decades collecting — and ignoring — information that could have helped the children of service members exposed to Agent Orange.
The VA medical staff has physically examined more than 668,000 Vietnam veterans possibly exposed to Agent Orange, documenting health conditions and noting when and where they served.
For at least 34 years, the agency also has asked questions about their children’s birth defects, before and after the war.
Photo: Adobe Stock / flysnowThe Department of Veterans Affairs spent decades collecting — and ignoring — information that could have helped the children of service members exposed to Agent Orange.
This birth defect data had not received scrutiny until the investigation revealed the odds of having a child born with birth defects during or after the war were more than a third higher for veterans who say they handled, sprayed or were directly sprayed with Agent Orange than for veterans who say they weren’t exposed or weren’t sure.
According to AARP, Until the 1990s, the government recognized only one ailment – a skin condition called chloracne – as being linked to Agent Orange. But over the years, the VA list of medical conditions associated with Agent Orange has grown to more than a dozen, including some that are much more prevalent.
for the children of the men who served in Vietnam, only Spina Bifida is recognized as being directly connected to Agent Orange exposure. Spina bifida is a “birth defect” that occurs when the spine and the spinal cord do not form properly.
Photo: Adobe Stock / PaylessimagesAgent Orange was used as an herbicide to clear jungle foliage in the Vietnam War.
VA also recognizes a range of birth defects as associated with women Veterans' service in Vietnam, noting that they are not tied to herbicides, including Agent Orange, or dioxin exposure, but rather to the birth mother's service in Vietnam.
Several other diseases — bladder cancer, hypothyroidism, hypertension and Parkinson’s-like symptoms — have been under consideration to be added to the list.
“There are still thousands of vets who don’t realize their disease is on the list,” says Bart Stichman, executive director of the National Veterans Legal Services Program (NVLSP), a nonprofit that helps veterans, survivors and active duty personnel pursue service-related benefits, told AARP.
When veterans don’t realize that they are eligible for disability benefits based on ailments added to the VA’s Agent Orange list, their survivors also miss out on monthly payments under a program called Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC), which provides lifetime tax-free income to survivors of veterans who had service-related disabilities or diseases, AARP reports.
The Health and Medicine Division (HMD) (formally known as the Institute of Medicine) of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine concluded in its report, Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 11 (2018), that there is no evidence of birth defects in the descendants of Vietnam Veterans resulting from Agent Orange exposure.
Photo: Adobe Stock / Photocreo BednarekHelp us take a stand for the descendants of Agent Orange veterans!
The serious health issues facing the children and grandchildren of our veterans proves otherwise.
No military veteran enlisted their services to leave their families a legacy of poison and suffering, let alone health issues that would be ignored by the very government that caused them.
Do not let the children of Agent Orange veterans be ignored any longer. Sign this petition in honor of the men and women exposed to Agent Orange that continue to suffer through their children and grandchildren.
