Veterans and Agent Orange Health Effects of Herbicides Used in Vietnam (1994) / Chapter Skim
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2 History of the Controversy Over the Use of Herbicides
2 History of the Controversy Over the Use of Herbicides
Pages 23-73
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From page 23... ...
This chapter reviews the use of herbicides, the early history of the controversy, the concerns that Vietnam veterans have voiced about health problems they believe are related to exposure to herbicides, the Agent Orange product liability litigation, and the response to concerns of Vietnam veterans and the public by the federal government, state governments, veterans organizations, and others. The events and issues surrounding the domestic use of 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid)
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From page 24... ...
Researchers studied populations (described in this chapter) that had potential health effects from exposure to herbicides and TCDD, including production workers in chemical plants, agricultural and forestry workers, pulp and paper mill workers, and residents environmentally exposed in specific areas, such as Times Beach, Missouri; Alsea, Oregon; and Seveso, Italy.
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From page 25... ...
During this time the Hourglass spray system the archetype for the spray equipment used initially aboard the Ranch Hand C-123s was developed. The Hourglass, or MC-1, spray system was capable of distributing herbicide at a rate of 1 to 1.5 gallons per acre; however, after evaluation and modification, the 1,000gallon C-123/MC-1 spray system was capable of depositing 3 gallons per acre on swaths 240 feet wide when flying at an airspeed of 130 knots and an altitude of 150 feet.
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From page 26... ...
A test program was conducted in Thailand during 1964-1965 to evaluate the effectiveness of aerial applications of various formulations of 2,4-D, 2,4,5-T, and other chemicals in the defoliation of jungle vegetation representative of Southeast Asia on several 10-acre plots. Aerial spray treatments were applied at rates of 0.5 to 3.0 gallons per acre, and at two- to three-month intervals, to determine minimal effective rates and proper season of application.
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From page 27... ...
The herbicides were applied aerially at a rate of approximately 3 gallons per acre. According to military records of Operation Ranch Hand, from August 1965 to February 1971, a total of 17.6 million gallons of herbicide was sprayed over approximately 3.6 million acres in Vietnam (NAS, 1974~.
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28 VETERANS AND AGENT ORANGE EARLY CONCERNS ABOUT THE USE OF HERBICIDES IN VIETNAM Early Accounts of Dioxin (TCDD) Dioxin (TCDD)
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. a precedent for the use of similar but even more dangerous chemical agents against our allies and ourselves" (Dux and Young, 19801.
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In 1965, the National Cancer Institute contracted with Bionetics Research Laboratory in Maryland to investigate the possible teratogenic effects of a number of pesticides and herbicides. The study, Evaluation of Carcinogenic, Teratogenic, and Mutagenic Activities of Selected Pesticides and Industrial Chemicals, noted that among the herbicides tested on mice and rats were 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T (Bionetics, 19681.
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From page 31... ...
The commission maintained that the military use of herbicides had been considerably more destructive than previously imagined half of the mangrove forests had been destroyed and there were indications of serious health effects (Wolfle, 1989~. The lIAC members documented reports of stillbirths and birth defects in Vietnamese, noting that these adverse reproductive effects were possibly associated with 2,4,5-T (Young and Reggiani, 1988)
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From page 32... ...
CONCERNS ABOUT EXPOSURE TO AGENT ORANGE Vietnam Veterans Return Home Historians have noted that during the 1970s, many Vietnam veterans returned to a society that did not welcome them (Schtick, 1987~. The country had been greatly divided over the war, and a strong antiwar sentiment pervaded most of the final years of the Vietnam conflict (Karnow, 1991; Spector, 1993~.
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From page 33... ...
, was contacted by the wife of Charles Owen, a Vietnam veteran who believed his terminal cancer was the result of exposure to Agent Orange. After learning that Charles Owen had died and that the VA had refused his widow's claim for benefits, deVictor began to research the health effects of exposure to Agent Orange (Wilcox, 1989~.
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From page 34... ...
. Prior to his death, Paul Reutershan had read a news account about Maude deVictor's data correlating health problems in Vietnam veterans and exposure to Agent Orange.
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From page 35... ...
The product liability class action suit showed that many veterans were convinced that Agent Orange had hurt them. However, no causal relationship was ever established between the alleged health effects in Vietnam veterans and their exposure to Agent Orange because the case was settled out of court.
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From page 36... ...
that had potential health effects from exposure to TCDD, including residents living near soil contaminated with TCDD in Missouri; community residents who lived near sites sprayed with herbicides such as Alsea, Oregon; workers at the Monsanto plant in Nitro, West Virginia; residents living in and around Seveso, Italy, exposed during industrial accidents; pulp and paper mill workers who were exposed during the production process; and chemical plant workers who were occupationally exposed to TCDD during the production of 2,4,5-T and other products. For the studies introduced in the following sections, the methodological framework is described in Chapter 7, and the results are discussed in the health outcome chapters (8-111.
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From page 37... ...
There has been use of a combination of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T but unlike Agent Orange the combination has been two parts of 2,4-D and one part of 2,4,5-T" (Hardell, 1990~. In 1976, Hardell began a series of studies of workers exposed occupationally to phenoxy herbicides who subsequently developed soft tissue sarcomas (Hardell, 1990~.
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From page 38... ...
Major Event Associated with Occupational Exposure to Dioxin (TCDD) The first major event associated with extraordinary occupational exposure to TODD was the result of an accident at Monsanto's chemical plant in Nitro, West Virginia.
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From page 39... ...
. including contaminants such as 2,3,7,8-TCDD." In the study of the health status of workers with past exposure to TCDD in the manufacture of 2,4,5T, Moses and colleagues (1984)
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From page 40... ...
Included among these events are spraying of waste oil contaminated with dioxin in Times Beach, Missouri; herbicide spraying near Alsea, Oregon; and an accidental explosion at a chemical plant in Seveso, Italy. Times Beach, Missouri During the early 1970s, several incidents of accidental spraying of dioxin-contaminated waste oil in Missouri left the state with the legacy of being the "Dioxin Capital of the United States" (Yanders, 1988~.
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From page 41... ...
Times Beach is a small town on the banks of the Meramac River that has miles of unpaved roads. Between 1972 and 1976, Bliss sprayed more than 23 miles of these dirt roads with waste oil.
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From page 42... ...
Consequently, EPA had the scientists from the University of Colorado design a second study, known as Alsea II. This epidemiologic study compared the pregnancy experience of the women in Alsea with women in another part of Oregon that had never been sprayed.
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From page 43... ...
In 1977, the National Academy of Sciences was invited by the Italian government to join in a collaborative effort to investigate the effects of the chemical contamination at Seveso (NRC, 1982b)
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From page 44... ...
In less contaminated areas, the soil was turned over frequently because sunlight degrades dioxin in the soil. The Seveso accident provided a great deal of information regarding high-level exposure of men, women, and children to dioxin, and ways to manage this type of accidental environmental exposure (Gough, 1986~.
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From page 45... ...
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSE TO PUBLIC CONCERNS The federal government has been involved with international and domestic policy issues over the military use of herbicides and subsequent human health concerns about exposure to herbicides, particularly Agent Orange, since the onset of the defoliation program. In the late 1960s, several members of the international community became concerned over the U.S.
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From page 46... ...
These studies included the U.S. Air Force Ranch Hand Study; the CDC's Birth Defects Study, Vietnam Experience Study, Agent Orange Study, and Selected Cancers Study; the Department of Veterans Affairs' Proportional Mortality Study; and other related studies.
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From page 47... ...
used in Vietnam during the Vietnam era. Lawmakers heard testimony from leading scientists, representatives of government agencies, members of veterans organizations, and individual veterans and their families.
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From page 50... ...
Public Law 97-72, enacted on November 3, 1981, expanded the scope of the epidemiologic study legislated in Public Law 96151 to include an evaluation of the impact on the health of Vietnam veterans of other environmental factors that occurred in Vietnam; this is referred to as the "Vietnam Experience Study." To understand possible health effects experienced by women in Vietnam, Congress enacted Public Law 99272 on April 7, 1986, directing the VA to conduct an epidemiologic study of the long-term health effects on women who served in Vietnam. Compensation Congress enacted Public Law 98-542 on October 24, 1984, the Veterans' Dioxin and Radiation Exposure Compensation Standards Act, to address the issue of compensation for disabilities that might have resulted from exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam.
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From page 51... ...
This law also transferred the responsibility of reviewing the scientific literature concerning the association between herbicide exposure during Vietnam service and each health outcome suspected to be associated with such exposure from the DVA's Advisory Committee on Environmental Hazards to the National Academy of Sciences. Appropriations In Public Law 98-181, enacted on November 30, 1983, Congress appropriated $57.4 million to CDC to conduct research on the health risks for Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange.
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From page 52... ...
OTA assembled an Advisory Panel on Agent Orange to assist in reviewing the Agent Orange study protocols, including the CDC's Vietnam Experience Study, Agent Orange Study, and Selected Cancers Study (Gough, 1988) , and the VA's Women Vietnam Veterans Health Study.
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GAO, 1982~. The most recent GAO report, dated September 1990, examined the contracting practices of the CDC studies on the effects of Agent Orange on the health of Vietnam veterans (U.S.
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The DVA has conducted studies on soft tissue sarcoma and military service in Vietnam (Kang et al., 1986; 19871. Several mortality studies have been conducted on Vietnam veterans using data from Army and Marine death records for the period 1965-1982 (Breslin et al., 1988)
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From page 55... ...
Compensation and Benefits The Department of Veterans Affairs compensates veterans for certain diseases related to service in Vietnam and exposure to herbicides containing dioxin. Whenever the Secretary determines, on the basis of sound medical and scientific evidence, that a positive association exists between the exposure of humans to an herbicide agent, and the occurrence of a disease in humans, the Secretary prescribes regulations providing that a presumption of service connection is warranted for that disease.
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From page 56... ...
The AOR was initiated by the DVA in mid-1978 to address the health concerns of Vietnam veterans and provide a data base for Vietnam veteran health surveillance. Any Vietnam veteran is eligible for inclusion in the AOR.
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From page 57... ...
Because of this growing concern, the CDC began a study in 1982 to determine whether Vietnam veterans were at risk of fathering babies with birth defects, utilizing a comprehensive registry of birth defects in Atlanta, Georgia (Erickson et al., 1984; U.S. Congress, Senate, 19891.
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From page 58... ...
The Agent Orange Study was designed to determine if there were differences in the health of veterans who were exposed to herbicides in Vietnam compared to Vietnam veterans who were not exposed to herbicides (U.S. Congress, Senate, 1989~.
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From page 59... ...
The study, Comparison of Serum Levels of 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-Dioxin with Indirect Estimates of Agent Orange Exposure Among Vietnam Veterans (CDC, 1989a) , also referred to as the "validation study," was designed to validate several indirect estimates of opportunity for exposure to Agent Orange among U.S.
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From page 60... ...
Other states have conducted studies and published reports on Vietnam veterans; these include Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Texas. Veterans' Advocates The American Legion, Vietnam Veterans of America, and the National Veterans Legal Services Project were dissatisfied with the efforts of the DVA and its Advisory Committee on Environmental Hazards in their rulemaking procedures to determine which adverse health effects, if any, are associated with exposure to dioxin.
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From page 61... ...
This committee reviewed the use of pesticides, particularly phenoxy herbicides and chemicals containing dioxin, with reference to their ecological effects, and their effects on human and animal health, dealing primarily with the possible effects on Vietnam veterans of exposure to herbicides; it included all issues adversely affecting those who served in Vietnam. The Senate Standing Committee conducted 10 public hearings in several different cities in Australia as part of its inquiry (Australian Senate, 1982~.
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From page 62... ...
In 1979, the Air Force requested that NAS review a protocol for an investigation of the health effects of Agent Orange exposure on Ranch Hand personnel. A panel, organized by the ALS, suggested that the number of Air Force personnel exposed to Agent Orange was too small to have sufficient statistical power to detect meaningful health effects in the proposed time
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From page 63... ...
In a series of letter reports from 1986 through 1990 (IOM, 1986a,b, 1987a-e, 1988a-e, 1989a,b, 1990a,b) , the IOM advised the CDC on its conduct of studies on the health effects of Vietnam service (Advisory Committee on the CDC Study of the Health of Vietnam Veterans)
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From page 64... ...
1982. Pesticides and the Health of Australian Vietnam Veterans.
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From page 65... ...
1989a. Comparison of Serum Levels of 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzop-Dioxin with Indirect Estimates of Agent Orange Exposure Among Vietnam Veterans: Final Report.
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From page 66... ...
1984. Vietnam Veterans' Risks for Fathering Babies with Birth Defects.
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1987c. Review of Comparison of Serum Levels of 2,3,7,8-TCDD with Indirect Estimates of Agent Orange Exposure in Vietnam Veterans.
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Fourth Letter Report, January 1990. Washington, DC: IOM Advisory Committee on the CDC Study of the Health of Vietnam Veterans: Selected Cancers Study.
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1982. A Study of Herbicides and Birth Defects in the Republic of Vietnam: An Analysis of Hospital Records.
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1990. Mortality and morbidity among Army Chemical Corps Vietnam veterans: a preliminary report.
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1987. OTA Comments on CDC Study: "Comparison of Serum Levels of 2,4,7,8-TCDD with Indirect Estimates of Agent Orange Exposure in Vietnam Veterans." Washington, DC: OTA.
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Presentation by William Farland to the Institute of Medicine Committee to Review the Health Effects in Vietnam Veterans of Exposure to Herbicides.
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From page 73... ...
1983. A mortality study of workers employed at the Monsanto company plant in Nitro, West Virginia.
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