People might ask themselves what this virtual “who’s who” of diseases, such as 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, Parkinson’s Disease, Peripheral Neuropathy, Early-Onset, Porphyria Cutanea Tarda, Prostate Cancer, Respiratory Cancers (includes lung cancer), and Soft Tissue Sarcomas (other than osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma, Kaposi’s sarcoma, or mesothelioma), have in common.
The answer is simple; they are the many illnesses the U.S. government has finally admitted are associated with the exposure to Agent Orange. Hopefully with time, our government will admit there are other diseases caused by their spraying of herbicides and defoliants than they originally admitted to.

Many ask what Agent Orange is and believe it or not, many younger people have never heard of that term even though it has caused illnesses or deaths of thousands of people.

Agent Orange is derived from the combination of code names for Herbicide Orange (HO) and Agent LNX. Agent Orange was a noxious cocktail of herbicides and defoliants used by the U.S. military as part of its chemical warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam Conflict from 1961 through 1971. And besides that, the 55-gallon drums the deadly toxins were shipped in had a big orange strip around it, thus where the name Agent Orange came from.

During the Vietnam War, the United States military sprayed millions of gallons of the deadly material containing chemical herbicides and defoliants in Korea, Vietnam, eastern Laos and parts of Cambodia. According to the worldwide web, the program’s goal was, “…to defoliate forested and rural land, depriving guerrillas of cover and to induce forced draft urbanization, destroying the ability of peasants to support themselves in the countryside, and forcing them to flee to the U.S. dominated cities, thus depriving the guerrillas of their rural support and food supply…”

Many of the people exposed to Agent Orange didn’t find out the true justification for their debilitating illnesses until later in life and some never found out what caused their illnesses before they died. Another interesting fact is some Vietnam veterans who have had or now have diseases brought on by exposure to Agent Orange Dioxin is not alone and many of their children are also infected by Agent Orange. These children, through birth, are the second generation of people suffering from Agent Orange exposure and many wonder if there will there be a third or fourth generation?

The U.S. Government has traditionally continued to downplay the effects of exposure to Agent Orange. The Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that up to one million Vietnamese people are disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange, but the U.S. government has dismissed these figures as unreliable and unrealistically high.

Many Americans are currently suffering or have died from the consequences of Agent Orange exposure without ever receiving medical care of monetary compensation. Conservative estimates are that more than 2.4 million Americans (in addition to allied forces and the Vietnamese people) were exposed to the deadly brew of pesticides and defoliants.

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, an Agent Orange Settlement Fund was created by the resolution of the Agent Orange Product Liability Litigation – a class action lawsuit brought by Vietnam veterans and their families regarding injuries allegedly incurred as a result of the exposure by Vietnam veterans to chemical herbicides used during the Vietnam Conflict (remember they never designated it as a war).

The suit was brought against the major manufacturers of these herbicides. The class action case was settled out-of-court in 1984 for $180 million dollars, reportedly the largest settlement of its kind at that time.

The Settlement Fund was distributed to class members in accordance with a distribution plan established by United States District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein, who presided over the litigation and the settlement. Because the plaintiff class was so large (an estimated 10 million people), the Fund was distributed to class members in the United States through two separate programs designed to provide maximum benefits to Vietnam veterans and their families most in need of assistance.

Applications for the payment program had to be submitted prior to December 31, 1994 and program operated over a period of 6 ½ years distributing a total of $197 million in cash payments to members of the class action in the United States. Of the 105,000 claims received by the payment program, approximately 52,000 Vietnam veterans or their survivors received cash payments which averaged about $3,800 each (not much for their suffering and/or death). On Sept. 27, 1997, the District Court ordered the fund closed, its assets having been fully distributed.

Another sad thing to come about was the Supreme Court put the preverbal skids on thousands of Americans who faithfully served their county during the Vietnam and Korea Conflicts, and who were exposed to the Agent Orange by making a ruling in 2009. The Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling that the companies were not responsible for the implications of military use of Agent Orange because the war materials were supplied at the direction of the U.S. government. That decision basically made it impossible for individuals exposed to Agent Orange to be able to sue Dow Chemical and Monsanto.

It isn’t too late for those U.S. military veterans and their families to receive medical care and financial aid.

The Veterans Administration continues to attempt to help those military veterans and their families suffering from various illnesses brought on by their exposure to the deadly toxin, but they can only do so much.

Spouses and dependent children of living veterans also may be eligible for health care and other VA benefits and surviving spouses, dependent children and dependent parents of veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange or other herbicides during military service and died as the result of diseases related to the exposure may be eligible for survivors’ benefits.

If a military veteran, dependent of a veteran or a parent of a veteran believes their illnesses was caused by exposure to Agent Orange, they should contact their nearest veteran’s service officer, fraternal veteran’s service organization or Department of Veterans Affairs in order to learn more about applying for disability through the VA.

Courtesy of Butch Meriwether