List of Agent Orange illnesses grows

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs has expanded the list of illnesses linked to Agent Orange. According to the veterans affairs? Web site, Agent Orange was a defoliant used to destroy forests in South Vietnam from 1962 through 1971.

The Veterans Administration has a list of diseases that are linked to Agent Orange. In August 2010 it added three illnesses to the list. Veterans who served in-country during the Vietnam War, which means they set foot in Vietnam between 1961 and 1975, and who have one of the linked diseases are eligible for disability compensation and health care benefits. This also applies to the surviving spouses, dependent children or dependent parents of veterans who died as a result of one of the illnesses.

The three diseases that were added to the list in 2010 are Chronic B-cell leukemia, Ischemic heart disease and Parkinson?s disease. Leukemia is a type of cancer that affects white blood cells. Ischemic heart disease is a disease characterized by a reduced supply of blood to the heart that leads to chest pain. Parkinson?s disease is a nervous system disorder that affects muscle movement.

Washington County Veterans Affairs Service Officer Sue Rich has contacted 191 Vietnam veterans in the county about possible exposure to Agent Orange.

Rich explained that the list of presumptive illnesses means that if a veteran served in-country Vietnam and has one of the illnesses, he is assumed to have been exposed to Agent Orange.

Veterans who served on ships in Vietnamese waters could also receive compensation for Agent Orange exposure, as long as those veterans set foot on land. If the veteran did not set foot on land, he must present evidence that he was exposed to Agent Orange.

?Blue water? veterans are those who served on ships along Vietnam?s coast. ?Brown water? veterans are those who served on ships on inland waters. Rich said the county Veterans Affairs office has a list of ships whose occupants may have been exposed to Agent Orange.

Rich said the amount of compensation depends on factors such as whether the veteran is able to work. An unmarried veteran with no children could receive anywhere from $127 to $3,037 a month in Agent Orange compensation. The range increases if the veteran has a spouse or dependent children.

Rich said that when a veteran applies for Agent Orange compensation, he must have medical documentation showing that he has one of the illnesses linked to Agent Orange.

The other illnesses include Acute and Subacute peripheral neuropathy, AL Amyloidosis, and Chloracne, which is a skin condition that looks like common forms of acne seen in teenagers. The VA requires that in order to be awarded benefits the Chloracne must be at least 10 percent disabling within the first year of exposure to the herbicides.

Other illnesses covered are type 2 diabetes, Hodgkin?s disease, multiple myeloma, Non-Hodgkin?s Lymphoma, Porphyria Cutanea Tarda, prostate cancer, respiratory cancers such as of the lung, larynx, trachea and bronchus, and cancers of body tissues such as muscle, fat, blood and lymph vessels.

Compensation is given not only to veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange but also the widows of veterans who were exposed and who died as a result of one of the linked illnesses. Surviving spouses must apply for death indemnity compensation. Rich said widows would be compensated if their husband died of, say, a stroke that was brought on by Type 2 diabetes, because Type 2 diabetes is one of the covered illnesses.

Rich said there are two main ways she is able to identify veterans in the county. The first is that the veterans contact her and the second is by looking at tax records to see if the person marked the military homestead exemption on their property tax return.

The VA requires that veterans prove they served in-country by showing their military service record. Rich said many veterans do not have their service record so she requests a copy of it from the Military Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. She said veterans can also prove they were in-country by ?buddy statements? from people they served with, pictures from Vietnam and letters they sent to the U.S. with Vietnamese postmarks on them.

Rich said she is fearful that current servicemen and women will experience the same problems years later as veterans exposed to Agent Orange are experiencing now.

?I think you?re going to see it with the current conflicts, too,? she said. ?Forty years down the road they?re going to say the veterans with a particular disease got it from something in Iraq or Afghanistan. There are undiagnosed Gulf War illnesses that veterans are trying to get benefits for, but the VA hasn?t come to terms with what the correlation is between the problems and the exposure.?

Agent Orange got its name by the orange stripe used on the 55-gallon drums in which it was stored, according to the department of veterans affairs.