Agent Orange victims in Air Force Reserves now eligible for compensation

C-123 Veterans Association/Maj. Wes Carter (ret.)

C-123 Veterans Association/Maj. Wes Carter (ret.)

Carter, who has prostate and bladder cancer, led the fight for benefits through the C-123 Veterans Association, though he already receives VA benefits from an unrelated disability stemming from the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio ‒ one of three Democrats, along with Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden of Oregon, who placed a hold on President Barack Obama’s nominee for the top health post at the embattled VA ‒ praised the department’s decision.

“These veterans and their families have waited too long to receive benefits that they earned,” Brown said in a joint statement.

For Carter, however, the struggle for his fellow service members isn’t over.

“Every medical and scientific fact that convinced the Institute of Medicine of our Agent Orange exposures in 2014 had been presented to the VA years earlier but was ignored. This is wrong,” Carter wrote in an email to the Military Times. “We ask Secretary McDonald and [Under Secretary Allison] Hickey for their careful review of VA actions to insure that toxic exposure veterans never again face such an unhappy struggle.”

In 2014, the VA requested that the IOM conduct a consensus study on residual exposure to Agent Orange from service on aircraft formerly used during Operation Ranch Hand in Vietnam. Specifically, the VA requested that the IOM “determine whether there had been exposures that could lead to excess risk of adverse health outcomes among [Air Force] Reserve personnel who flew in and/or maintained C-123 aircraft (outside of Vietnam) that had previously been used to spray Agent Orange.”

The IOM’s report, published in 2015, found that, from 1972 to 1982, approximately 1,500 to 2,100 Air Force Reserve personnel trained and worked on the approximately 30 C-123 aircraft that had been used to spray herbicides in Vietnam, and those crew members had regular and repeated contact with those 30 aircraft.

The report identified the specific aircraft and the Reserve units to which the C-123s were assigned, and concluded, “It is probable that the [herbicide] exposures of at least some [Air Force] Reservists exceeded levels equivalent to some guidelines established for office workers in enclosed settings.” The IOM determined that it is “plausible that the C-123s did contribute to some adverse health consequences among [Air Force] Reservists who worked in [Operation Ranch Hand] C-123s after the planes returned from Vietnam.”

Fairchild C-123K Provider at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. (US Air Force photo)

Fairchild C-123K Provider at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. (US Air Force photo)

Those 1,500 to 2,100 Air Force Reserve personnel are the ones who are eligible for benefits under the new rule. It’s the first time the VA has established a special category of Agent Orange exposure for service members who did not serve in Vietnam, AP reported. Nearly 200,000 veterans who served off the coast of Vietnam ‒ so-called “Blue Water” service members ‒ remain ineligible for exposure benefits.

While the new rule is beneficial for the affected veterans, it could create more problems for the VA and other veterans whose cases remain backlogged. The number of VA claims skyrocketed under President Barack Obama after the administration previously enacted new rules that permitted more Agent Orange claims, as well as loosened restrictions for veterans who returned from Iraq or Afghanistan.

The rule also does nothing for Vietnamese citizens who were affected by the poison, or the following generations that are still dealing with the consequences. While the US government has acknowledged a connection between Agent Orange and the 15 illnesses and 18 birth defects that continue to plague the lives of American Vietnam vets and their families, the US has refused to make the same link for the millions of Vietnamese War victims whose lives have been devastated as a result of Agent Orange.

Previous recipients of payments due to Agent Orange exposure include two former US service members who were stationed at Futenma Air Base on Okinawa Island during Vietnam, which was a forward staging post for the US military during the war. The VA awarded the two men compensation in February 2012.

Meanwhile, Monsanto ‒ the company that produced dioxin, the noxious, cancer-causing byproduct of the herbicide ‒ agreed in 2012 to compensate residents of the West Virginia town where its Agent Orange plant was located. Under the settlement, Monsanto consented to pay $84 million for a 30-year monitoring program in Nitro, West Virginia and $9 million towards property clean-up efforts in still-contaminated cities.

The VA will immediately begin processing claims and issuing benefits to eligible Air Force crew members.

This article originally appeared on RT.

Source Article from https://www.intellihub.com/agent-orange-victims-in-air-force-reserves-now-eligible-for-compensation/

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