Legion Praises Agent Orange Research

8/12/2003

From: Steve Thomas, 202-263-2982, Pager 800-759-8888, PIN 115-8679, or Joe March, 317-630-1253, Pager 317-382-7745, both of the American Legion

WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 -- Thanks to the advocacy of The American Legion and the diligence of its partners in academia, the scientific community has a tool with which it can conduct what the government once claimed was impossible: large-scale studies of Vietnam veterans' health using military records to track herbicide exposure.

Under contract to the National Academy of Sciences, the work of epidemiologists Dr. Jeanne Mager Stellman and Dr. Steven Stellman has led to the creation of a system for estimating levels of troop herbicide exposures. A 1991 federal law, for which The American Legion successfully fought, led to the creation of this new methodology, which could 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. "Once the government contracts the scientists and funds studies based on the Stellmans' system, it undoubtedly will find Vietnam veterans who should have been already receiving disability benefits. That's the point: to treat and to compensate those who have borne the scars of battle. Such studies broaden the locations and means of herbicide exposure so that more veterans will be compensated for their service-connected disabilities. The methodology will account for more ways, not fewer ways, in which our troops were exposed to harmful substances."

The scientific breakthrough was no cakewalk. The government did not fund 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.

In recognition of their scientific contribution to veterans, the 2.8 million-member American Legion will present the Stellmans the Distinguished Service Medal, its highest honor, Aug. 27 at its 85th National Convention at America's Center in St. Louis.