NOTES ON AGENT ORANGE & DAPSONE FROM JEAN WILLIAMS:
The United States of America Court ruled on 28 October, 1996 that the formulations of six pesticides have to be fully stated:
Atrex (Atrazine)
Weedone (2,4-D)
Roundup (glyphosate)
Velpar
Garlon 3A, 2,4,5-J Jrichlorophenoxy propionic acid
Tordon (Picloram)
Re Tordon - Picloram - Agent White in Vietnam...
Problems - skin, liver, urinary, reproductive, mutagen, male reproductive system, cancer promoter.
2,4-D - skin, muscle, blood, immune system, respiratory, cardiac, nerve tissue, gastro-intestinal, liver, urinary, female reproductive, mutagen, chromosome, cancer promoter, mitochondria and teratogenic.
Extract from US Vietnam Veterans Review magazine, November 1982 Article by Australian veterans: Alan, a veteran who works in the VA office in Wyong "We seem to be men who have lost our souls. He told of meeting a World War II veteran in a pub in Tenterfield, after returning from Vietnam and discussing war experiences with him. When the man found out Alan had been in Vietnam he turned his back on him. The Agent Orange connection was first suspected six years after the end of the Vietnam war, when research in the US began linking it with illnesses suffered by veterans and with deformities in their children;.
The concern about possible genetic damage is perhaps the worst of all the agonies facing Vietnam veterans. According to Senator Don Grimes, who was speaking at an RSL conference "there would appear to be a disturbing incidence of malformed births and miscarriages amongst the off-spring of Vietnam veterans and in Vietnam itself.
Between 1965 and 1971 the US Air Force sprayed approximately 17,612,000 US gallons of Agent Orange, Agent White and Agent Blue on the Vietnamese countryside, including heavy and repeated sprayings of the province where Australian troops were located.
Alan, from the Wyong Branch of VVAA verified this. He hadn't heard of Agent Orange until he was told of it when he went to a doctor complaining of continued stomach complaints, which two operations had not cleared up. The doctor asked how long he had the illness and Alan said since returning from Vietnam. The doctor then told him about the research into Agent Orange.
"I went back home and got out my photos. I've got pictures of Vietnamese hosing the perimeter of our camp with defoliant using American equipment. They were hosing an area right near our water supply. They came back a few days later and hosed the area again and the ground turned black," he said.
If the water supply had been contaminated it would be a terrible irony because it had been put inside the camp to protect from any Viet cong attempts to poison it. What people don't understand is we want the Government to tell us that there is no link between what's happened to us and Agent Orange," Ken Gott, President of the Central Coast Branch of VVM, said.
"But they won't do it! They keep stalling and evading the question. We accept that whatever poisons have gone through us have done their damage. What we don't accept is that our children and our wives should have to suffer because of it."
He said there was evidence coming to light now that suggest that the real genetic damage may not become fully apparent until their grandchildren have children;.
"We want them to do something now, so that we can fix it in time. But they won't. They've just left us in limbo because they don't want to face the political consequences," he said. The WAA has had some victories over a recalcitrant Government headed by the man, Malcolm Fraser, who was the Minister in charge of the Army and the Defence Deparatment for much of the Vietnam war. A bill was passed giving Vietnam veterans the same rights to the "arising out of" clause which has in the past only applied to veterans of World War II. "We have no confidence in the Australian Government," Ken Gott said...
Fifteen years after Mark Butler's article in US veterans' magazine, little has changed. The toxic chemicals have proved to be the cause of cancer and many other illnesses suffered by Vietnam veterans. Veterans Affairs Department continues to treat many sick veterans with less-than-adequate methods -In March 1997 a seriously ill AAJJV veteran suffering after effects of Agent Blue (arsenic) was refused the use of a wheelchair in his home - returned from Greenslopes by car instead of ambulance service.
Vietnam Veterans must not stay silent. Research shows that veterans who were part of the Dapsone 'experiment' are suffering illhealth at a far greater ratio than others. The Departments' silence on this aspect is deafening.
Jean R Williams Nambour March 1997