Agent Orange: The Gift That Keeps on Giving

 In the Summer of 1984, I spoke before the Federal Court in Brooklyn, New York, words that made it not only to the front pages of most of this nation's newspapers, but into books, such as "Waiting for an Army to Die".  My words were a warning to the nation that the children of Vietnam combat veterans would someday marry into the families of those who did not serve in the conflict arena and that the nightmare of health issues that the vets were just beginning to display and the mutated DNA that they would be passing on to their own offspring, would eventually destroy the children and grandchildren of millions of families in America.  This is, very unfortunately what has taken place over the past twenty or more years, not only in this country, but in places like Vietnam, Australia, Korea and the list goes on.  No one listened to my words and my warnings, all those years ago and my words are still being ignored because of what the government perceves to be a financial nightmare.  Just the epidemic of autism in the United States alone, over the past 2 decades, should create some interest in what ignorance and lack of respect for the damages done, will in short time, bring this country to its knees and our standing in the world community to that of a brain-damaged child.

When my son, who is now 33 years of age, was four years old, he was incredibly bright, however, there were things that we did not have great success in teaching him to do.  My efforts to teach him to read or recognize numbers were futile to say the least.  Because he had been born with numerous and strange health problems and because my husband and I were very active in the newly recognized Vietnam Veteran Agent Orange movement, we were able to arrange an appointment with Dr. Bennett Shaywitz, one of the nation's top pediatric nuerologists, who practiced at Yale Medical Center in New Haven, Conn.  After examining and testing our son, Dr. Shaywitz diagnosed him as "high intellegence, multiple dyslexic" and we knew that if our child was going to stand a chance as a competitive adult in the future, we had little to no option but to homeschool our son, which is what we did for the majority of his growing years.  What we would come to find out, after going public with our son's condition, was that more than seven out of every ten children born to exposed vets, had some sort of nuerological impairment, from the very mild to the most horrendous and severe problems.  At that time in approximately 1981, the rate of autism in this country was one in every 2500 children, but now, in 2010, it is between 1 in 75 to 1 in 90 children who suffer from every rung on the autistic sprectrum ladder.  Despite continued efforts to interest the CDC, autistic study groups, the government, etc., to study the concept of dioxin poisoning and the mutated DNA of the family backgrounds of these children, still there is nothing but disinterest or disregard for what has caused this epidemic and what can be done to help the children and the children's children who are continuing to procreate an epidemic. 

The only other nation in the world with figures regarding birth defects and severe nuerological impairment, is the over 3 million offspring in Vietnam, especially in the Southern portions of Vietnam where the dioxin remains as a large killing field producing the largest number of birth defects in the world; far exceeding the effects of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. 

In 1984, a lawsuit by the Vietnam veterans was settled with the 11 chemical companies who supplied the herbicides and pesticides to the DOD for use in Vietnam, for the paltry sum of $180 million dollars.  This settlement was arrived at as a "nuisance value payment" to the veteran community and the chemical companies did not have to admit any guilt or responsibility.  The only entities that enjoyed the fruits of this settlement were the attorneys who had bought their way into the lawsuit, while the payment for a deceased vet was a whopping $3,800.00, while the monies lasted.  The purpose for this settlement and the reason that future lawsuits were denied feasibility by the Federal Judge Jack Weinstein, was due to the reality that the chemical companies were never really liable in the first place.  When a person goes into military service, he or she is precluded by the Feros Doctrine from suing the government for whatever happens to them during their term of service and rather than have the most highly trained military in the world turn on the government after all the turmoil and conflict that took place in this country to end the war in Vietnam; a concession was reached between the government and the chemical companies to allow the vets to go ahead with a lawsuit against the wrong defendants just to shut them up.  Unfortunately, despite all the actions that we, as activists tried to bring forth to stop this farce, the silence that the plaintiffs was achieved for a number of years. 

The reality of what must be done now is that while the children of not only American vets, but the children of all countries effected, who are not governed by any doctrine regarding suit against the United States and the DOD, must bring suit in order to have the mutations to their very lives and their future generations recognized and either treated or compensated (or both) and to have research provided to attempt to stop the nightmare of their lives.  Too many vets and family activists refuse to understand (probably because the chemical companies are less frightening to want to hold to task than the government) that the chemical companies are just the middleman in this horror.  They created a product according to the specs provided by the DOD and shipped that product for the purchaser to use.  The companies were paid and what the mlitary did with the product was none of their concern.  It is simply understood if one thinks of going into a restaurant and ordering a steak dinner, which they consume and then suffer food poisoning from the food or the preparation.  Does the injured party seek monetary compensation from the restaurant, or from the cow???

In May of 2009, this writer testified before the International Tribunal of Conscientious, in Paris, France, which in their deliberations found the United States guilty of a war crime in the spraying of Agent Orange, but nothing was ever done by the World Court.  This is not acceptable to those of us whose children and grandchildren have to bear the brunt of their father or grandfather's service to their country.  In this writer's situation, my husband passed away from service-connected Agent Orange poisoning at the young age of 64 and whose son is now suffering from all of the same illnesses and conditions that took his father's life and the father of an autistic son. 

Now is the time for the children to bring suit against the DOD, as plaintiffs in an action brought by the children of one of the other soverign nations that were effected by the dioxin poisoning and chemical spraying.  Anyone wishing to provide information or receive a questionaire, is welcome to contact this writer at rpkopy@yahoo.com.