Vietnam May Be Over, But Battles Still Waged By Agent Orange Survivors

Nearly three million U.S. service members served in Vietnam and most returned home. But since their return home, many of these veterans have fought illnesses related to their service in the jungles of Southeast Asia and the chemicals they were exposed to.

The conflict in Vietnam took place from 1954 to 1975 with active combat units introduced in 1965. Four years later, more than half a million U.S. military personnel were stationed in Vietnam. Between 1964 and 1973, the U.S. military drafted 2.2 million American men into the Armed Forces to support U.S. efforts in Vietnam. After eight years of fighting, U.S. combat units were removed from South Vietnam on March 29, 1973.

One particular concern for the soldiers is exposure to a toxic defoliant called Agent Orange that was used to counter the dense foliage in the lush jungles of Vietnam.

Agent Orange was first sprayed on August 10, 1961, four years before the arrival of the first U.S. combat troops in March 1965. To combat the natural hiding places in the dense jungles for the enemy, the American military launched Operation Ranch Hand in 1962. This included the deployment of 20 million gallons of rainbow herbicides chemicals (known as rainbow for their colorful labeling system) and defoliants throughout Vietnam, eastern Laos, and parts of Cambodia.

The most famous is Agent Orange, which was the majority of all the chemical defoliants used, for it’s long-lasting side effects to those in the U.S. soldiers and the Vietnamese. Agent Orange was used in more than half of the flying missions and disbursed on the ground from trucks, boats, and people carrying the compound in backpacks.

Dioxin is one of the chief ingredients in the herbicide. According to the EPA, dioxins are persistent organic pollutants (POPs), which take a long time to break down once they are in the environment.

Operation Ranch Hand disbursed about 375 pounds of dioxin that contaminated the entire Vietnamese ecosystem and exposing millions of people on all sides of the conflict to the chemical, which has led to long-term health issues since 1961. These chemicals are highly toxic and can cause cancer, reproductive and developmental problems, damage to the immune system, and can interfere with hormones.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) lists Agent Orange exposure or potential exposure as a presumptive condition, meaning that those who report exposure and have certain medical conditions are presumed to have those medical issues A) as a result of military service and B) most likely have those conditions due to the exposure.

The Agent Orange Act was established in 1991. This allows the VA to declare a range of diseases as probable effects of Agent Orange exposure, enabling veterans to pursue services in relation to those diseases.

Veterans and their survivors may be eligible for benefits for these conditions related to Agent Orange exposure:

• AL Amyloidosis
• Chronic B-cell Leukemias
• Chloracne(or similar acneform disease).
• Diabetes Mellitus Type 2
• Hodgkin’s Disease
• Ischemic Heart Disease
• Multiple Myeloma
• Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma
• Parkinsonism
• Parkinson’s Disease
• Peripheral Neuropathy, Early-Onset
• Porphyria Cutanea Tarda.
• Prostate Cancer
• Respiratory Cancers(includes lung cancer)
• Soft Tissue Sarcomas(other than osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma, Kaposi’s sarcoma, or mesothelioma)

In 2021 the VA added 3 more presumptive conditions related to Agent Orange exposure that expands benefits for Veterans and survivors with these presumptive conditions:

• Bladder cancer
• Hypothyroidism
• Parkinsonism

Each year August 10 is recognized as Agent Orange Awareness Day to highlight the battle these brave servicemen and their families are still fighting due to their time in Vietnam.