LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Vietnam veterans around the nation affected by Agent Orange have won another battle in the ongoing effort to get recognition for the numerous maladies resulting from their exposure to the herbicide.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) reported that it has begun distributing disability benefits to Vietnam veterans who qualify for compensation under recently liberalized rules for Agent Orange exposure.

Coverage has now been expanded to include B-cell (or hairy-cell) leukemia, Parkinson's disease and ischemic heart disease.

The changes took effect Oct. 30.

“The joint efforts of Congress and VA demonstrate a commitment to provide Vietnam veterans with treatment and compensation for the long-term health effects of herbicide exposure,” VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said in a written statement.

The US military used Agent Orange – along with a host of other, similar dioxin-based herbicides – to defoliate the jungles in Vietnam in order to take away the cover used by enemy forces in the country. It was sprayed in a variety of ways, including by aircraft and people on the ground.

The VA said that up to 200,000 Vietnam veterans are potentially eligible to receive VA disability compensation for medical conditions recently associated with Agent Orange because of the rule change.

The three new conditions have been added to a list of other recognized illnesses under the VA's Agent Orange “presumption” rule.

“Agent Orange itself is not a claim, it's not a disability,” said Lake County Veterans Service Officer Jim Brown.

The presumptive rule means that it's assumed that if a Vietnam veteran has any of the conditions that they resulted from exposure to Agent Orange, and the VA will grant service-connected disability ratings, said Brown.

The other illnesses previously included in the presumptive rule include acute and subacute transient peripheral neuropathy, which is a nervous system condition resulting in motor weakness, numbness and tingling; the skin condition chloracne, which resembles other types of acne seen more commonly in teens; and chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

There's also diabetes mellitus (Type 2); Hodgkin's Disease; multiple myeloma, a cancer that affects white blood cells in bone marrow; Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma; porphyria cutanea tarda, which officials said is characterized by liver dysfunction, hair thinning and blistering of skin in sun-exposed areas; and AL Amyloidosis.

The herbicide also is presumed to have caused a host of different types of cancers, including prostate cancer; respiratory cancers; and soft tissue sarcoma, a group of cancers other than osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma, Kaposi's sarcoma or mesothelioma.

Based on interactions with local veterans services, Brown estimated that about 200 local veterans are dealing with Agent Orange-related health issues.

With the new health conditions added, “I'm sure that's going to increase,” he said.

Brown said he expects that more veterans will come in under ischemic heart disease, which is a condition that is characterized by chest pain, resulting from a reducing blood supply to the heart. He said he knows of local vets who have previously sought benefits due to the condition but were turned down.

Dean Gotham, president of the local chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of America, said most of the veterans he knows who would be affected by the Agent Orange rule changes already are 100-percent disabled due to other causes.

Veterans advocate for more studies, more help

The VA reported that Agent Orange was the most commonly sprayed herbicide in Vietnam. Altogether, 19 million gallons of herbicide were used in that country. Studies were done that linked it to birth defects and deaths among the Vietnamese population.

During the Vietnam era many veterans offshore also were exposed to chemical testing such as in the “Big Tom” Navy test and Project SHAD, as Lake County News has reported.

Getting recognition for Agent Orange-affected veterans has been a long and often difficult process.

While the VA gave special access to health care to veterans exposed to Agent Orange beginning in 1978, it took until 1981 to offer such vets priority medical care.

Veterans with medical problems related to the herbicide began to receive disability compensation from the VA in 1985.

In 1991, Congress passed the Agent Orange Act, which established an initial list of diseases presumed associated with exposure to the herbicide agents.

Gotham said the national Vietnam Veterans of American leadership is heading up the work to gain additional recognitions and assistance for Agent Orange-related conditions.

In June, the organization issued a statement in which it said that Vietnam veterans are more than twice as likely to develop Type 2 diabetes as the rest of the population, and the same was true for other presumptive conditions, including prostate cancer.

“This points, yet again, to the need for federal funding of additional research into the adverse health impacts on Vietnam veterans, on our children, and on our grandchildren, by respected independent scientific entities outside of the VA,” the organization stated.

The statement continued, “The clear need for such research is even more pressing today, given the number of Vietnam veterans who have died well before their time in the last 20 years, and the number who are continuing to die early because of the ravages resulting from exposure to Agent Orange/dioxin in Southeast Asia.”

Gotham said it's those “intergenerational effects” on the children and grandchildren of Vietnam veterans that still need to be studied.

“It turns out Agent Orange causes genetic damage,” he said.

Because Agent Orange causes sterility issues and can result in damaged sperm, “There's a whole lost generation that people don't even know about,” Gotham said.

He said a study was done on children in Vietnam and how they were affected but a study so far hasn't been done in the United States on the children of veterans. “It pisses us off,” Gotham said.

Because of an anticipated surge in Agent Orange-related claims, the VA has launched new initiatives to modernize processes and handle claims through automation and operational improvements, the agency reported.

The VA reported that survivors' benefits may be available for spouses, children and dependent parents of Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange.

While providing initial payments or payment increases to the 200,000 veterans who will qualify under the new rules will take several months, the VA nevertheless encouraged veterans to apply for help if they qualify.

Veterans interested in applying for disability compensation under one of the three new Agent Orange presumptives should go to www.fasttrack.va.gov or call 1-800-827-1000.

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