Agent Orange: Vietnam C-123 Airmen Fight for Claims Being Honored

Agent Orange report comes after years of VA denials
Military Times
By Patricia Kime
Staff Writer
January 17, 2015

A new Institute of Medicine report that found veterans were exposed to Agent Orange while flying in C-123 aircraft after the Vietnam War came three years after another federal agency reached a similar conclusion.

But despite a pronouncement in January 2012 by the Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry that these crews' levels of exposure to dioxin were 182 times higher than acceptable amounts, representing a 200-fold risk for cancer, the Veterans Affairs Department refused to acknowledge any link between the veterans' current illnesses and a history of serving on that aircraft.

Instead, VA public health officials insisted that trace amounts of dioxin on internal aircraft surfaces were not "biologically available for skin absorption or inhalation because dioxin is not water- or sweat-soluble and does not give off airborne particles."

Meanwhile, since veterans found out in 2011 they may have been exposed, at least 10 with diseases associated with Agent Orange have had VA disability claims denied and some have died — although just how many have passed away as a result of exposure-related illnesses is difficult to pin down, said retired Air Force Maj. Wes Carter, founder of the C-123 Veterans Association.
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