Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 11:00:01 -0700

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Maybe in another 50 years they will all "come clean" about Breast Implants! Please Post - Thanks, Martha M. Military report ties Agent Orange to veterans' diabetes

03/29/2000

New York Times News Service

WASHINGTON - In its most clear-cut acknowledgment that there is evidence linking Agent Orange to illness among Vietnam veterans, the Air Force says in a new report that there was "particularly strong evidence" tying the defoliant to the onset of diabetes in veterans who were involved in spraying it over the Vietnamese countryside. The study of 1,000 Air Force veterans who participated in the aerial spraying operation, known during the war as Operation Ranch Hand, found that there were 47 percent more diabetes cases among those who had the highest level of exposure to the herbicide. The rates of illness among the 1,000 veterans were compared with those of 1,300 other Air Force veterans who also served in the war but had no involvement in the spraying of Agent Orange, a herbicide that was used to defoliate trees and remove cover for North Vietnamese soldiers and communist guerrillas in the south.

In a letter attached to the report, which was sent to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, the Air Force's surgeon general, Lt. Gen. Paul K. Carlton Jr., said the results offered "the strongest evidence to date that Agent Orange is associated with adult-onset diabetes and some of its known complications." The report is expected to be made public by the Pentagon on Wednesday, and it will probably lead to a new effort by veterans groups and some lawmakers to secure additional disability payments to veterans who have long complained of health problems they attribute to Agent Orange exposure.

It will also fuel the longstanding scientific debate over whether Agent Orange is linked to a variety of other diseases, including cancer. The Air Force study found that there was "no consistent evidence" that the herbicide causes cancer, a finding backed by other studies. A copy of the executive summary of the report was made available to The New York Times by a government official only on condition of anonymity. The executive summary does not provide the exact numbers of veterans in the study who were diagnosed with diabetes, and it cautioned against trying to extrapolate the findings to all 3 million veterans of the Vietnam War.

According to the American Diabetes Association, 15.7 million Americans, or about 6 percent of the population, have diabetes. "The results cannot be generalized to other groups, such as all Vietnam veterans or Vietnamese civilians, who have been exposed in different ways or to different levels of herbicide," Lt. Gen. Carlton said in his letter. "The Air Force cannot determine what effect herbicides or dioxin have at levels other than those found in the Ranch Hand group, or from other sources such as contaminated food." The study was welcomed by lawmakers who in the past have accused the Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs of trying to ignore health problems linked to Agent Orange. "The feeling is that Agent Orange has caused many more health problems than the DOD and the VA have acknowledged in the past," said Rep. Bernard Sanders, a Vermont independent who has criticized the Pentagon for its handling of the Agent Orange issue.

Diabetes is not among the nine diseases, including Hodgkin's disease and respiratory cancers, that the Department of Veterans Affairs has listed as being possibly linked to Agent Orange exposure, based on research studies.

About 19 million gallons of Agent Orange and other herbicides were sprayed over South Vietnam during the Vietnam War to destroy the camouflage that the jungle provided to communist supply routes and base camps.