over one million United States veterans were hurt by the herbicide/chemical weapon Agent Orange that has also caused a ton of birth disorders in Vietnamese children. Scores of soldiers who enlisted or were chosen to serve their country came home with such conditions as acute peripheral neuropathy, soft tissue sarcoma and Hodgkin’s lymphoma, to name a couple of. In two months, approximately 270,000 Vietnam War veterans – more than a quarter of the a million-plus receiving disability checks, reports the Washington Post – are to be compensated for diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s and certain types of leukemia under a new rule. This new rule will cost American working class forty two billion dollars over the next a decade.
Loads of diseases from diabetes to erectile dysfunction come with Agent Orange
The Department of veterans’ Affairs reports on which medical condition is most common from Agent Orange. It really ended up being diabetes. Agent Orange also has erectile dysfunction tied to it now. Normally this would be attributed to age but veterans are getting extra compensation for it. Alan Simpson thinks that this compensation is way far off from what federal spending is trying to do. Alan Simpson is the chairman of President Obama’s deficit commission.
“The irony (is) that the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess,” he said.
Taxpayers are simply paying for “presumptive conditions” if you ask Sen. Daniel K. Alkaka (D-Hawaii). He is on the veteran’s Affairs Committee. On Sept. 23 or soon thereafter, Akaka will participate in a listening to that will address “what changes Congress and also the VA may need to make to existing law and policy,” he said via an e-mail obtained by the Post.
VA spending does not compute
The Associated Press reports on the how much the Department of Veterans’ Affairs is going to end up spending on Vietnam veterans with diabetes. It seems like it will be way too much. The VA’s numbers for how much would be paid for diabetes per year are shown to be much higher than independent calculations depending on VA records that show $850 million a year being enough. American veterans are already getting $32 billion a year provided to them by the VA. That is why an extra $42 billion in just the next 10 years is such a shocking leap for many.
Actually there is some ‘Credible evidence for association’
Victoria Anne Cassano is the Veterans’ Health Administration Director of Radiation and Physical Exposures. She explains that there was a federal law created on Agent Orange in 1991 saying that chemical agents and afflictions do have a correlation with Agent Orange “if the credible evidence for the association is equal to or outweighs the credible evidence against the association.”
It isn’t hard, says the Post, to fit that proof. Cassano asks, “Does it make you take a deep breath? Does it give you pause? Yes. But you still do what you think is the right thing to do.”
U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs
publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/diseases.asp
Washington Post
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/31/AR2010083106819.html
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange
The children of Agent Orange, 2008 (WARNING: Disturbing content)
youtube.com/watch?v=9zay0zcC0K4
