Agent Orange Researchers Receive Legion's Top Honor

8/27/2003

From: Joe March, 888-884-4082; Lee Harris, 888-884-4127; Steve Thomas, 888-884-4907; After noon, Aug. 28: Joe March, 317-630-1253 or 317-382-7745 (pager); Steve Thomas, 202-263-2982 or 800-759-8888 PIN 115-8679 (pager); all of The American Legion

ST. LOUIS, Aug. 27 -- Epidemiologists Dr. Jeanne Mager Stellman and Dr. Steven Stellman today were awarded The American Legion Distinguished Service Medal during a General Session of the organization's 85th National Convention at America's Center here. The award is in recognition of the Stellmans' extraordinary body of research that may expedite delivery of disability compensation and free-of-charge medical care to countless Vietnam veterans suffering from exposure to herbicides such as Agent Orange.

"Many ailing Vietnam veterans have a hard time proving to the Department of Veterans Affairs that their illnesses are related to Agent Orange exposure, and the Stellmans' research helps to ease the burden of proof," American Legion National Commander Ronald F. Conley said.

The government did not carry out a large-scale study of Vietnam veterans' health and herbicide exposures when the Legion first called for it in 1979. So the nation's largest veterans organization collaborated with the Stellmans on the groundbreaking American Legion-Columbia University Study in the 1980s, which showed the impact of the Vietnam War on the health of the veterans who fought it. After the Centers for Disease Control in 1989 refused to carry out an epidemiological study, that it then deemed unfeasible, The American Legion sued Uncle Sam to force the government to conduct a study.

Finally, a breakthrough. A team of researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, led by Dr. Jeanne Stellman, assembled numerous records of the locations and quantities of Agent Orange and other herbicides that were sprayed in Vietnam. Troop movements, soil samples and releases of herbicide by means other than spraying, such as leaks, also are factors. The result is a computerized "geographic information system" that estimates veterans' opportunity for herbicide exposure, documents more than 2 million gallons of unaccounted-for spraying, and makes possible thorough studies of Vietnam veterans' health.

Previous recipients of the award include Bob Hope, Babe Ruth, Fisher House founder Zachary Fisher, Montgomery GI Bill author Rep. Sonny Montgomery of Alabama, and the crew of the B-29 Enola Gay, which dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima that led to a triumphant end to the Second World War.

Founded in 1919 in Paris by World War I veterans, the 2.8-million member American Legion is the nation's largest veterans organization.