Fred Wilcox - Scorched Earth

• Hundreds of articles about the defoliation campaign in Vietnam, 1961–75, appear in newspapers and magazines in the US, Europe, and other parts of the world.

• Scientists, doctors, ex-soldiers, Agent Orange advocates, and victims gather at international conferences in Hanoi, Paris, Boston, and Stockholm, to examine the legacies of chemical warfare in Southeast Asia.

• Filmmakers scour the length and breadth of Vietnam, documenting evidence of environmental degradation and human suffering related to Agent Orange.

Scientists also release well-researched studies on the effects of Agent Orange/dioxin on human beings. Among them:

• Researchers conducting a mortality study for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts conclude that “the results suggest that Vietnam veterans may be at increased risk of death due to soft-tissue sarcoma, kidney cancer, suicide, motor vehicle accidents, and stroke compared to non-veterans.” 2

• A study conducted by the Veterans Administration finds that former Marine Corps ground troops who served in Northern I Corps Region of Vietnam have “died of lung cancer and certain lymph cancers at a significantly higher rate than colleagues who did not serve in the war.” 3

The state of Wisconsin concludes a study of Vietnam veterans, comparing their death rates to Vietnam-era veterans, veterans not of the Vietnam era, and nonveterans within the state of Wisconsin. The study concludes that:

Relative to other Vietnam-era veterans, those who served in Vietnam had excess mortality from cancer of the pancreas, diseases of the genitourinary system, and pneumonia. An excess of connective tissue cancer was noted when Vietnam veterans were compared with veterans not of the Vietnam era…. No significant excess was noted, however, when Vietnam veterans were compared with other Vietnam-era veterans or with non-veterans. 4

A West Virginia study concludes:

Both Vietnam and non-Vietnam veterans experienced increased mortality from cancer of the respiratory tract, but increases in relative frequency of death from cancer of connective tissues (3 observed vs. 0.7 expected) and Hodgkin’s disease (5 observed vs. 2.4 expected) were confined to Vietnam veterans. When Vietnam veterans were compared directly with non-Vietnam veterans, these excesses persisted, and, in addition, there were more deaths among Vietnam veterans from testicular cancer (3 observed vs. 0.6 expected). 5

An Australian study of 19,205 Vietnam veterans and 25,677 veterans who did not serve in Vietnam determines that:

In addition to an overall elevated death rate, Vietnam veterans had increased death rates for digestive system diseases, diseases of the circulatory system, and external causes. The death rates from neo-plasms (all types convinced) were similar in the two groups. 6

1991:Congress passes the Agent Orange Act, entitling veterans who served in the country and who are suffering from any Agent Orange-associated diseases to health care and disability compensation. In 2009, the Veterans Administration compensates for a long (and still growing) list of Agent Orange-related illnesses, including soft tissue sarcoma, chloracne, Hodgkins Disease, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, and prostate cancer. 7

1994:The Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences (IOM) publishes a comprehensive study of the health effects of exposure to herbicides used in Vietnam, including dioxin. The IOM finds an “association between herbicide exposure and many different types of diseases and defects.” 8

2000:The Environmental Protection Agency states that dioxins, and “in particular the TCDD form contained in Agent Orange are potent and persistent animal toxicants with potential to cause widespread human health effects.” 9

2002:Wayne Dwernychuk of Hatfield Consultants LTD leads a study that finds high levels of dioxin in the soil of the A Luoi Valley and high levels of dioxin in fish, animal fat, human blood, and breast milk. 10

2003:Dr. Arnold Schecter, professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Texas, finds that the environment and the food chain in Bien Hoa City are contaminated with dioxin. The study concludes that people continue to be poisoned by dioxin when they eat contaminated food. 11

In his book-length ruling, Judge Weinstein refuses to accept arguments (“causation”) that plaintiffs’ injuries—cancer, diabetes, miscarriages, skin rashes, children born with serious birth defects, early deaths—can be traced to their exposure to Agent Orange/dioxin:

The summary of the harms allegedly caused to plaintiffs or their progeny is set forth by plaintiffs in brief anecdotal form. The fact that diseases were experienced by some people after spraying does not suffice to prove general or specific causation, i.e., that the harm resulted to individuals because of the spraying. Post hoc ergo propter hoc remains a logical fallacy unacceptable in toxic tort law. Proof of causal connection depends primarily upon substantial epidemiological and other scientific data, particularly since some four million Vietnamese are claimed to have been adversely affected. Anecdotal evidence of the kind charged in the complaint and set out below cannot suffice to prove cause and effect.

Availability of necessary scientific information from Vietnamese studies needed for epidemiological analysis has not been furnished to the court. It is not available with the richness of demographic and other data published in the United States. An agreement between the United States and Vietnam provides for some joint efforts to collect relevant data. 12

Judge Weinstein writes that US scientists have devised an agreement to collect “relevant data” in Vietnam. He seems unaware that even as preparations for this study appeared to be moving forward, one prominent US scientist, colluding with an employee at the US Embassy in Hanoi, was maneuvering to undermine this project.

At the same time, the US ambassador to Vietnam ridiculed the Vietnamese campaign to help “alleged Agent Orange victims” as “mere propaganda.” According to the ambassador, Vietnamese officials were trying to con money out of the United States government. They were also trying to win a propaganda coup.

In a cablegram to the secretary of state, dated February 16, 2003, the ambassador wrote that the government of Vietnam (GVN)

has no intentions of allowing its scientists to engage in genuinely transparent, open, rigorous scientific investigation to determine the true extent of the impact of AO/dioxin on health in Vietnam. Why? Because, we believe, the GVN will never permit research that in any way might discredit the main theme of its two-decade long propaganda campaign, i.e., AO/dioxin is to blame for a huge range of serious health problems—especially birth defects and mental retardation—of residents of central and southern areas and/or northern soldiers who served there…. It would also open a pandors’s [sic] box of questions about why the GVN—and more importantly, the Communist Party—has misled its people and focused on demonizing AO/dioxin and failed to carry out appropriate public health programs that would have mitigated other sources of threats to human health. 13

To the dismay of US and Vietnamese scientists, critics of the cooperative research project managed first to reduce the timeline for the proposed study from five to three years; then, they demanded that the project “be performed only as the US officials required.” And finally, they ended all funding for the research, blaming the Vietnamese government for the entire debacle and vowing never to approve a project for US scientists to perform research in Vietnam . 14