Vietnam Veterans Cancer Risk Doubled By Agent Orange

Agent Orange linked to doubled cancer risk in Vietnam veterans 
San Antonio Express News
By Jessica Belasco
September 11, 2015

“The pilots were probably the least exposed because they’re like the truck drivers,” Michalek explained. “The guys who got it the worst were the enlisted ground crew who had to fill the tanks, sit in the back of the plane, operate the spray equipment.” Dr. Nikhil C. Munshi

U.S. Air Force personnel who conducted aerial spray missions of the Agent Orange herbicide during the Vietnam War were twice as likely to have a disorder that can lead to a type of blood cancer, says a new study published in JAMA Oncology online Sept. 3.

This is the first study to uncover an association between exposure to Agent Orange and multiple myeloma among Vietnam veterans.

Previous research showing an association between similar herbicides and multiple myeloma examined agricultural workers in the United States and Canada.

“We have, for the first time, biological evidence of a connection between this particular cancer and exposure to Agent Orange and its dioxin contaminant,” said Joel Michalek, a professor of biostatistics at San Antonio’s University of Texas Health Science Center and an author on the paper.

Multiple myeloma is a relatively rare blood cancer that can damage the kidneys and other organs, weaken bones and cause high calcium levels in the blood, the National Cancer Institute says. Agent Orange has been linked to other cancers and diseases, including Type 2 diabetes.
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Air Force Ranch Hands May Finally Get Justice For Agent Orange

Air Force Reservists May Get Help for Agent Orange Exposure
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
by Torsten Ove
Mar 03, 2015

About 2,100 crew members, flight nurses and maintenance workers who serviced those "spray birds" here and at bases in Massachusetts and Ohio have long maintained that the C-123s were contaminated, even though the Air Force insisted they had been cleaned.

A UC-123B Provider aircraft sprays the defoliant Agent Orange over South Vietnam in 1962. A new report says the planes remained contaminated for years after the war, while Air Force Reserve units used them for medical, transport and training missions.

Michael Silverman remembers the smell.

"The first time I got on one of those planes I said, 'What stinks?' " he said. "They said this plane was used to spray Agent Orange. Everybody smelled it. It was kind of a sweet smell. It was unmistakable."

That was in 1975 when Mr. Silverman, 69, of Fox Chapel, a former Vietnam B-52 navigator and retired lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserves, began flying C-123 Provider military cargo planes assigned to the 911th Airlift Wing at Pittsburgh International Airport.

The air base had 16 of the lumbering behemoths from 1972 to 1982, five of which had been used in Vietnam to spray Agent Orange defoliant as part of what the military called Operation Ranch Hand.
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