Swords to Plowshares

“Agent Orange Victims Share Tales of Chemical’s Poisonous Legacy”

At age 19, Dan Wilson packed his bags and left St. Louis for the U.S. Army, and life as a soldier in Vietnam. It was a decision that would change his life.

Washington, D.C. - Scripps Howard Foundation Wire - infoZine - Vietnam is a land known for jungles, but during his last eight months there, Wilson lived where there was nothing green at all.

“There was no grass,” he said. “There were several thousand acres of dust when it didn’t rain and mud when it did.”

Neither he nor his fellow soldiers knew they were living, eating and drinking in a toxic wasteland.

The area had been sprayed with Agent Orange, a weed killer used by U.S. forces in Vietnam to destroy the jungle that provided cover for enemies. It contained dioxin, a toxic agent that can cause reproduction problems, birth defects, cancer and other diseases.

Now 60, Wilson suffers from illnesses linked to his exposure to Agent Orange more than 40 years ago.

Like Wilson, more than 400,000 U.S. veterans say they suffer from Agent Orange-related illnesses, and what’s worse to many is they don’t think they are getting the help they deserve.

According to the Department of Veteran Affairs, approximately 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and other equally or more harmful substances dubbed with the rainbow of names Agent White, Agent Purple, Agent Blue and Agent Pink were used in Vietnam over nine years. Out of the 3 million soldiers who served in Vietnam, nearly half were there during the heaviest spraying. Between 2 million and 4 million American soldiers and Vietnamese residents were sprayed with Agent Orange and other defoliants.

The diseases linked to herbicide exposure include prostate cancer, respiratory cancer, Type 2 diabetes, soft tissue sarcomas, peripheral neuropathy and more.

Richard Weidman, executive director for policy and government affairs for Vietnam Veterans of America, testified that the U.S. government is not doing enough to help American victims of Agent Orange.

“There’s not a single Agent Orange study being conducted by the VA, the Department of Defense, the EPA or the National Institutes of Health,” he said, in a phone interview Monday. “That can’t be an accident since the rest of the world is concerned with dioxin.”There’s more…