[chadham]

This is the best place I could find to put this, and the content is deadly serious to our Veterans and their families.

THUS...I ask that this not be a place of finger pointing, legal and political debate, soap box pandering, or anything else which could warrant removal of the thread to a site which can not be accessed by everyone.

I would like for this thread to be about the sharing of information which will be useful to anyone affected by Agent Orange exposure. That would certainly mean that posters should share stories about the challenges associated with fighting for recognition and assistance with the effects of Agent Orange exposure.

If the poster wishes to share opinions about war and politics, then please post that in a different thread.

Below, I have posted a link to a virtual research library related to Agent Orange cases and the development of the Agent Orange litigation. I will also use my access to virtual law libraries to post published case law and other materials associated with the issue.

Finally, my legal practice does not extend to this area. I can not provide legal advice, representation, or act in a fiduciary capacity as it relates to these matters. That does not mean that I can not use my resources to help you find the information you need to secure appropriate legal representation, so email me if you have a personal question. I and my staff will do everything possible to direct you to help and answers. I also ask that any lawyers out there refrain from advertising legal services here.

So here is the link to the Agent Orange library for a Texas University compiling stacks on Agent Orange and the benefits available to those who suffer from AO exposure to this very day:

?http://vietnam.ttu.edu/vietnamarchiv...entorange.htm?

[chadham]

This is a link to the governmental site:

?http://www1.va.gov/agentorange?

This site includes information on applying for benefits which has nothing to do with the now long depleted settlement fund. These are benefits available now to all Veterans and their families.

[Nancy]

Thank you, Chad.

[chadham]

but it is you I thank for making us aware of this tragedy and for doing all that you do for our Veterans.

This is a link to the Vietnam Veterans Home Page. It has everything from searches to find other Veterans to links to other websites to help Veterans. There is also an Agent Orange page and I will post a link directly to that as well:

?http://grunt.space.swri.edu/index.htm?

[chadham]

This is the link directly to the Agent Orange page on the Veterans Home Page:

?http://grunt.space.swri.edu/aodiocan.htm?

The Home Page looks like it has everything you would ever need to know for Veterans on any issue.

If my office can provide any assistance, you can email me through this site or call us at (504) 269-5205. This does not fall in my area of practice, so I can not offer representation, but we can put our resources at the disposal of anyone needing help with research, referrals, or whatever is within our abilities. If you call, just let Julie know that you are from the Sinatra Website and she'll get your message to me. Any assistance we can give will be free of charge.

God Bless You All and Happy Holidays!

[Nancy]

Another Viet Nam veteran friend of mine had to undergo surgery for a large lung tumor the doctors said was a result of AO.

He has had many other health issues over the past thirty years but he was extremely lucky this time because the tumor was benign.

....You serve your country...some gave their lives then....and others are suffering with the after-effects 30 years later.....

[chadham]

Thank God for that news. AO exposure seems to cause such a wide range of health problems. From what I have read, conditions once not thought to be AO related are being added to the list of AO causation illnesses every year. If a Veteran or their family member has previously been denied coverage (say for adult onset diabetes), they should reapply, as these illness are now being recognized as AO related and coverage is being extended. Their claim can be reopened and payment of benefits can be backdated, in some cases, to the original onset date. That could mean a lump sum reimbursement for expenses previously paid from the family savings, as well as coverage for future medicals.

I also want to point out one more thing...these VA benefits were paid for by the service members. It is provided just like any other employment benefit. There may also be disability coverage available through Social Security and Medicare in addition to VA benefits. You paid a premium for this coverage everytime you received a paycheck. It is no different than paying your premiums for health insurance coverage. No one would buy health insurance and then never file a claim if they get sick, but if you do not file the claim, you'll never get the coverage you paid for.

Let's also not forget the vets that have, are and will suffer from depleted uranium, nor the citizens where it was used.

Plenty to read here. I will spend some time doing just that.

[MAP 55]

.....NY TIMES, Sunday 8/08/04: In Vietnam and America, Some See a wrong still Not Righted.....By William Glaberson.........Mr Van Quy was a Vietnamese soldier , he has cancer and his two children have birth defects....His wife Vu Thi Loan says "We have to Endure"..........In 1984 , after years of battles over science and damage tabulations, seven American chemical companies settled a huge class-action suit by Vietnam veterans who claimed that the defoliant Agent Orange caused cancer, birth defects and a nightmarish brew of other health problems.....The companies paid out $180 million. By 1997, after the last payments had been made, 291,000 people had recieved benefits.The Settlement was reached after a federal judge persuaded the companies to buy themselves out of protracted litigation. It was called a landmark legal peace on a brutally contentious issue, and it was supposed to be the final word from the courts on Agent Orange, a defoliant containing the deadly substance dioxin...but today, a new cast of victums, this time Vietnamese as well as American, has returned to the same American court seeking justice and dollars. One suit filed on behalf of as many as 4 million Vietnamese says thier land and people were so poisoned by Agent Orange that supplying it to the military amounted to war crimes by the Chemical companies......So you see the Devastating Effects of Agent Orange are still effecting the next generations......This horror will never go away....and it makes one think, What posions will be effecting the soldiers of this Iraqi War ?....and their children........War's effects can last several generations.....Good reason to get out of this WAR NOW!!!

[MAP 55]

...A new book of photos by Philip Jones Griffiths.....Agent Orange: "Collateral Damage" in Vietnam and his forthcoming VietNam at Peace stand as an epilogue to that great book...warranting Henri Cartier-Bresson judgement.." Not since Goya has anyone portrayed war like Philip Jones Griffiths"...some other reviews read as follows: "The face of War is in this book"...-The Nation....."The photographic record of America's most lethal secret agent.....-- The Washington Post....

[Savatri]

Where is the outrage here - a legal battle started in the 1970s -

VA rebuked for balking on Agent Orange care
A court says the agency must provide benefits to Vietnam veterans with a type of leukemia.
By Henry Weinstein, Times Staff Writer
July 20, 2007

Poison
War victim
In a stinging ruling, a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ripped into the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs on Thursday for its continued resistance to paying benefits to veterans suffering from chronic lymphocytic leukemia because of their exposure to Agent Orange.

Thursday's 3-0 decision marked the sixth major ruling against the government by the appeals court or a federal trial judge in a case that started in 1986. It stemmed from a clash between Vietnam veterans and the government over a chemical defoliant used by U.S. armed forces to clear dense jungle in Southeast Asia.

"What is difficult for us to comprehend is why the Department of Veterans Affairs, having entered into a settlement agreement and agreed to a consent order some 16 years ago, continues to resist its implementation so vigorously, as well as to resist equally vigorously the payment of desperately needed benefits to Vietnam War veterans who fought for their country and suffered grievous injury as a result of our government's own conduct," Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote in the opinion.

"Whether the Vietnam War was just or not, whether one favored or opposed it, one thing is clear. Those young Americans who risked their lives in their country's service and are even today suffering greatly as a result are deserving of better treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs than they are currently receiving," said Reinhardt, an appointee of President Carter.

"We would hope," he concluded, "that this litigation will now end, that our government will now respect the legal obligations it undertook in the consent decree 16 years ago, that obstructionist bureaucratic opposition will now cease, and that our veterans will finally receive the benefits to which they are morally and legally entitled."

Judges John Noonan, an appointee of President Reagan, and Milan D. Smith, who was named by President George W. Bush, joined in the opinion.

The legal battle over Agent Orange started in the late 1970s when Vietnam veterans filed a federal class-action suit in Brooklyn, N.Y., against the manufacturers of dioxin and the federal government seeking compensation for their injuries. In 1984, the manufacturers — Dow Chemical Co., Monsanto Co., Diamond Shamrock Corp., Uniroyal Inc., T. H. Agriculture and Nutrition Co., Hercules Inc. and Thompson Chemical Co. — agreed to establish a $180-million fund to compensate class members. The claims against the government were dismissed in that case.

But the veterans pursued their claims in another forum. They sought disability compensation from the Veterans Administration (later renamed the Department of Veterans Affairs), saying the diseases they developed were caused by exposure to Agent Orange during military service in Vietnam. The agency consistently took the position that only one disease — a skin condition called chloracne — was caused by exposure to Agent Orange. As of Oct. 1, 1983, the agency had denied 7,709 of 9,170 claims filed by veterans.

The next year, amid concern about possible long-term health effects of Agent Orange, Congress enacted the Veterans' Dioxin and Radiation Exposure Compensation Standards Act to ensure compensation to veterans "for all disabilities arising after [service in Vietnam] that are connected, based on sound scientific and medical evidence."

In 1986, angry veterans, represented by the National Veterans Legal Services Program, sued the VA, challenging the way the agency was handling claims for disability benefits filed under the new law by thousands who served in Vietnam.

Nearly three years later, after extensive proceedings, U.S. District Judge Thelton E. Henderson of San Francisco rejected the VA's procedures and ordered the agency to reconsider the claims of more than 31,000 veterans.

Henderson ruled that the VA wrongly required proof that the herbicide caused various diseases. He held that the agency's adoption of a cause-and-effect requirement, rather than the lower standard of a statistical connection, violated the federal dioxin compensation law. In addition, Henderson concluded that the agency had failed to give veterans' claims "the benefit of the doubt" standard to which they were entitled.

"These errors, especially sharply compounded with one another, sharply tipped the scales against veteran claimants," Henderson wrote. He ordered the government to reopen all claims denied under the rules the agency had been using.

That ruling was a major victory, said Barton Stichman of the Veterans Legal Services Program, who has been the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs. In addition to reopening claims, it led to further congressional actions — chief among them 1991 legislation that compelled the VA to contract with the National Academy of Sciences to conduct independent studies of which illnesses could be attributable to Agent Orange.

Since then, Stichman said, Vietnam veterans suffering from Type 2 diabetes, lung cancer, multiple myeloma, larynx cancer, trachea cancer, Hodgkin's disease, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, soft-tissue sarcoma and prostate cancer have received $30 million in disability benefits. The VA asserted that veterans were not entitled to retroactive disability benefits over prostate cancer, but Henderson and the 9th Circuit ruled in their favor several years ago.

Subsequently, the VA resisted making retroactive disability payments for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), one of the four main types of leukemia. Over time, according to medical studies, the dangerous cells multiply and replace normal lymphocytes in the marrow and lymph nodes. CLL cells are not able to fight infection like normal lymphocytes do.

In December 2005, Henderson ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on the CLL payments. The VA appealed, leading to Thursday's 9th Circuit ruling.

The VA did not respond to phone calls seeking comment. A spokesman for the Justice Department, which represented the agency in the case, said the department was reviewing the ruling and had no further immediate comment.

Plaintiffs' attorney Stichman, who has been litigating on behalf of veterans for more than 30 years, said he was pleased with the decision but remained troubled that "the VA has been an obstacle to justice for veterans exposed to Agent Orange. It is very hard to change the ocean liner that is the VA." He said he expected that Thursday's ruling would lead to many millions in benefits for disabled veterans.

Orlandes Shuemake, who repaired sighting mechanisms on heavy artillery such as howitzers in South Vietnam in 1969 and 1970, said he hoped the decision would help other veterans like himself who suffer from chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Shuemake, who is 58 and lives in Hercules, 25 miles northeast of San Francisco, said lymph nodes in his neck began to swell in 2001 and soon thereafter he was diagnosed with the disease.

"I am no longer able to work the way I used to," said Shuemake, who worked in telecommunications for many years after being discharged from the Army, where, he stated proudly, he had earned a Bronze Star.

He said that the VA "blew me off" when he initially attempted to get help after discovering that he had CLL.

"With the help of the Veterans of Foreign Wars," Shuemake said in a telephone interview, "I felt that there was a pathway to get some support."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
henry.weinstein@latimes.com

[Ace917]

YES!

That $180 million dollar payout was a joke. Our own Hank was one of the hundreds of plaintiffs. You'd think he'd get a decent settlement to help with his and Brandy's extensive problems. He got a check for $42.

[Judy]

$42.

Shameful.

[Savatri]

My God - and I always think of Hank when I think of Agent Orange. But I haven't kept up with Hank. Don't think he posts much, and no wonder. But $42.00 - I wish this could be brought up during any Congressional hearings (not that there are any more) into the matter and Hank could throw that money into their faces. This is such an insult to all of those veterans who managed to survive in Viet Nam. A National Academy of Sciences' report was done on the subject but that becomes dull stuff to 'ordinary' people. Reports don't seem to help. It has to be the people who get up in arms about such things.

There is nothing more important than treating our veterans fairly and knowing that they get the medical care that is needed after a horrible war. This just doesn't happen. When the military lets loose on the veterans and they become just ordinary citizens, the military and its service organizations and especially the VA considers them forgotten -old hat, no one of any influence will ever raise a voice again in their favor or will ever notice.

What we need is not a Secretary of Veterans' Affairs but a Secretary of Forgotten War Heroes. Those like Senator McCain are lucky. They paid a horrible price, but they were the wealthy ones. None of the others are. I get so incensed about this. No one in our government does. Once in a while a story like this appears in the papers.

[Ace917]

One of our members of the Vietnam Veterans of America (of which Nancy is a Life Member) did a little analysis of the "Taps" section which lists those Vietnam veterans who have passed away. Over a two month period, the average age at death was 61.95 years. The national average is 74 and a fraction.

Go figure.

[Nancy]

When I think how long we have been begging for help, pleading with the presidents and the secretaries of veterans' affairs I get furious all over again.

[George Lyons]

Amen.

[Oren]

There waS an article in the paper here about a young man who loSt hiS leg in Iraq. He waS at a VA hoSpital before being flown back here to florida.

They wouldn't releaSe him becauSe, he had a T-Bone Steak while he waS at the hoSpital and that iSn't one of the free mealS. Before he could go home he had to cover hiS food bill.

All he gave for our country, We can't give the kid a Steak??

People are dying from cancer from all the chemicalS they encountered and we throw them a check for $42...

ThiS country needS major work on Some policieS.


(Sorry for the capS with the letter S, Something iS wrong with my keyboard here at work)