The Division of Veterans Affairs has lengthy given Vietnam veterans incapacity compensation for sickness linked to Agent Orange, broadly used to defoliate Southeast Asian battlefields in the course of the U.S. warfare.
Much less well-known: The highly effective herbicide mixture was additionally routinely used to kill weeds at home navy bases. These uncovered to the chemical compounds on the bases are nonetheless ready for a similar advantages and, in some instances, are hitting a well-known impediment — authorities opacity.
In February, VA proposed a rule that for the primary time would enable compensation for Agent Orange publicity at 17 U.S. bases in a dozen states the place the herbicide was examined, used or saved.
However the checklist excludes about 4 dozen bases the place Pat Elder, an activist and director of the environmental advocacy group Navy Poisons, says he’s documented the use or storage of Agent Orange. Amongst them is Fort Ord, a former Military base in Monterey County, Calif. Paperwork gathered by Elder and others, together with a report by an Military agronomist, a journal article and data associated to hazardous materials cleanups, set up using Agent Orange on the facility.
“In coaching areas, resembling Fort Ord, the place poison oak has been extraordinarily troublesome to navy personnel, a well-organized chemical warfare has been waged towards this woody plant pest,” reads a 1956 article within the journal the Navy Engineer.
“Till Fort Ord is acknowledged by VA as a presumptive website, it’s in all probability going to be a protracted, troublesome wrestle to get some sort of compensation,” mentioned Mike Duris, a veteran who educated on the base and was later recognized with prostate most cancers.
VA considers prostate most cancers a “presumptive situation” for Agent Orange incapacity compensation, that means the company presumes the sickness is linked to publicity to the chemical. It acknowledges that those that served in particular places had been possible uncovered and their diseases are tied to navy service. The designation expedites affected veterans’ incapacity claims.
Agent Orange is a 50-50 combination of two chemical compounds referred to as 2,4-D and a pair of,4,5-T. Herbicides with the identical chemical construction, though barely modified, had been broadly out there within the Nineteen Fifties and ‘60s, bought commercially and used on virtually each base in america, mentioned Gerson Smoger, a lawyer who argued earlier than the Supreme Court docket for Vietnam veterans to have the appropriate to sue Agent Orange producers.
2,4,5-T incorporates the dioxin TCDD, a identified carcinogen linked to various cancers, persistent situations and start defects. The Environmental Safety Company banned using 2,4,5-T in america in 1979.
VA says it based mostly its proposed rule on info supplied by the Protection Division, and that the Pentagon’s overview “discovered no documentation of herbicide use, testing or storage at Fort Ord.”
Patricia Kime contributed reporting.
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