Nightline: Ted revisits Agent Orange, Vietnam's Lingering Mystery

[Bozita]

Didn't Koppel pretty much begin his career in Vietnam?

Here's the email:

Vietnam's Lingering Mystery

Nov. 17, 2005 --

There are over 58,000 names etched into the black granite panels of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, honoring the American servicemen and women who died in action or remain missing in Southeast Asia. The names come from official casualty lists compiled by the U.S. Defense Department in designated combat areas of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The principal requirement for a place on the wall: death resulting from an initial casualty in a combat area between 1957 and 1975.

Cancer victims and post-traumatic stress suicides do not meet memorial criteria. Instead of their names etched into the wall, these unofficial deaths were commemorated a year ago with a plaque. It occupies a corner of the memorial and reads: "In memory of the men and women who served in the Vietnam War and later died as a result of their sacrifice." The plaque is a small tribute to the legions of veterans who died of illnesses associated with exposure to Agent Orange and chemical defoliants used by the American military in Vietnam.

Agent Orange was the code name for a chemical herbicide developed for the United States military. Along with other herbicides, Agent Orange was used to clear broad leaf foliage thought to conceal Vietcong guerrillas. Millions of gallons were sprayed in combat zones. Millions more were also used in so-called food deprivation missions, desiccating crops and farmland believed to feed the enemy.

The Pentagon aborted the defoliation program in 1971, amid mounting evidence that the herbicides were contaminated with a compound called TCDD, otherwise known as dioxin. It's one of the most toxic substances devised by science. A known carcinogen, it's also associated with numerous health disorders and birth defects.

In the years following Vietnam, a number of veterans were stricken with various diseases, including cancers and diabetes. In the 1980s, the Centers for Disease Control reported that veterans appeared to be dying at a higher rate than the general population, while the Veterans Administration revealed that Marines serving in Vietnam were dying of lymphatic and lung cancers at higher rates than Marines serving outside Vietnam. Despite mounting research and pressure from veterans' groups, the government refused to acknowledge a link between exposure to defoliants in Vietnam and subsequent illness. Not until 1991, when Congress enacted Public Law 102-4 (otherwise known as the Agent Orange Act), was the Veterans Administration required to presume a connection between certain illnesses and service in Vietnam.

While the VA now acknowledges a "positive association" between service and 12 diseases and birth defects, and some compensation is granted to the victims, the health effects of exposure to dioxin-contaminated defoliants remains unknown. In 1982, the Air Force launched a $140 million, 20-year study on the health of 1,200 airmen tasked to Vietnam War defoliation duty. The results of that study were recently published -- and were immediately condemned by some veterans, scientists and several advisors to the Air Force health study.

Tonight, Ted Koppel and Nightline investigate the health effects of Agent Orange -- and the U.S. Air Force's management of one of the most extensive (and expensive) health studies in history.

Jonathan Silvers and the Nightline Staff
Nightline Freelance Producer
ABC News, New York

[Coexist]

1. .

[Southpaw Bookworm]

2. Isn't Vietnam suing

Or some such? I recall an article detailing the birth defects that are showing up in the third generation after Vietnam.

[Gabi Hayes]

3. what a douchebucket....why didn't they cover it THEN?

and why aren't they covering what's happening now....NOW?

how did Nightline start, anyway?

contemporaneous coverage of a fiasco that they gorged on for a YEAR, yet failed to cover the real story, which was the October surprise?

fuck nightline....most overrated show ever

[JohnyCanuck]

4. So I guess 25 years from now they will finally get around to

admitting depleted uranium also causes birth defects and cancer and is generally hazardous to human health.

By the early 1900s, uranium was well recognized to be a kidney toxin. By the mid-1940s, uranium was known to be a neurotoxin. By the early 1970s, uranium was recognized to be a carcinogen based on mortality studies of uranium workers and on experiments with dogs and monkeys. The first evidence that uranyl ions bind to DNA was reported in 1949 and by the early 1990s, uranium was shown to be a mutagen. Also, in the early 1990s, uranium was shown to be a teratogen, that is, an inducer of birth defects. The toxic effects of uranium on the kidney and on the nervous system typically occur within days of exposure and radiation probably plays little or no role in mediating these effects. In contrast, the carcinogenic effects of uranium have a delayed onset. The teratogenic effects of uranium might be due to exposure of one parent prior to conception as well as to exposure of the mother to uranium early in pregnancy.

<snip>

Following impact with hard targets, uranium metal undergoes combustion releasing large quantities of very small uranium oxide dust particles into the environment.

These dust particles derived from depleted uranium weapons are drastically different from the natural uranium that is normally present in rocks and soil.

Soil particles contain uranium at very low concentrations, typically less than 5 parts per million; the vast majority of these soil particles, however, are too large to be inhaled deep into the lungs. In contrast, the dust particles derived from depleted uranium weapons contain very high concentrations of uranium, typically more than 500.000 parts per million; moreover, most of the D.U. dust particles are sufficiently small to be inhaled deep into the lungs. Thus, compared to the uranium naturally present in the environment, D.U. dust contains uranium in a form that is vastly more bio-available and more readily internalized.

The Health Effects of DU Weapons in Iraq by Thomas M Fassy, MD, PhD
Mount Sinai School of Medicine, NYC

[Bozita]

5. 5 minute notice

[Bozita]

6. MST alert

This is a must see for 'Nam vets.

[kineneb]

7. A.O. was nasty stuff by itsself

the two major herbicides of the time, if my faulty memory serves, were 2-4-D and 2-4-5-T, the latter I believe was Agent Orange. I think both were used in Vietnam. I have met several vets who were exposed and they had some nasty health problems.