Agent Orange exposure not limited to Vietnam

#Middlebury #Veterans

The Government Accounting Office (GAO) stepped into the fray to document exactly where all the Agent Orange (AO) was used and stored when it released a report entitled “Actions Needed to Improve Accuracy and Communication of Information on Testing and Storage Locations” in November 2018. The GAO report compared the records it had unearthed against the information provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DOD).

It found that half the Agent Orange was used in Southeast Asia but that records were incomplete. Of the 13.9 million gallons of AO shipped, documentation was found for only 12.1 million gallons. The GAO took the VA and the DOD to task for omitting testing and storage locations and for failing to update the locations for more than a decade – even though both had been getting reports about it since 2006.

In 2006 the GAO found 40 locations not in Vietnam, some in the U.S., that never made it to the DOD list provided to the VA. Now, at the GAO’s prodding, the DOD has provided a list (posted on the VA website) of U.S. locations where Agent Orange was tested, disposed of or stored: Arkansas, California, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Ohio, Oregon, Kansas, Mississippi, Washington, Puerto Rico, Texas, Georgia, Montana, Indiana, Florida and Utah. How’s that for close to home? Foreign countries include Cambodia, Canada, India, Johnston Atoll, Korea, Laos and Thailand.

Veterans trying to verify or determine their exposure to AO have been stymied, of course. As of June 30, 2018, the VA denied service-connected decisions to more than 58,250 veterans for service outside Vietnam.

To read the whole GAO report, go to www.gao.gov/assets/700/695490.pdf. Be sure to read the Objectives, Scope and Methodology sections starting on page 62. The GAO left no stone unturned.

For the (now supposedly correct) list on the VA site, go to www.publichealth.va.gov and put Herbicide Tests and Storage Outside Vietnam in the search box.

© 2020 King Features Synd., Inc.