A couple of weeks ago, House the Homeless blog talked about how the Veterans Administration (VA) arrived at an impasse where it could not even pretend to keep up with compensation claims. Documents were shredded, and requests for help ignored, resulting in immeasurable harm to veterans who are sick, disabled, unemployable, suicidal, potentially homeless, or actually on the streets.
How bad did the scandal get? In Texas, whose ruling politicians are traditionally loath to part with a dollar, the state even kicked in a few bucks to help the federal agency fund its payroll and get some claims processed.
The VA had its excuses, of course. Despite the fact that bosses collected bonuses (another scandal), the overall sluggish economy did not allow for the hiring of staff. Furthermore, the agency claimed that the problem could be traced to one of its very own accomplishments. Veterans were hearing about and applying for the available services in greater numbers, and the reason for this was that outreach programs had become so much more effective. The VA was doing its job too well!
Nice try, boys
Meanwhile, Agent Orange disability claims were mounting up, and the most egregious excuse of all was that the Veterans’ Administration didn’t see it coming. Really? Back in 1962, when the U.S. started dumping more than a dozen toxic defoliants onto Vietnam, the effects on human health were not a mystery. High school kids, if they knew which magazines to subscribe to, could read about what the herbicides used in that war would do to humans, including the troops on the ground in Southeast Asia. And the all-knowing military hierarchy didn’t know? That calls for a sarcastic eye-roll.
Stateside, Agent Orange had for some reason also been used extensively in Oregon, and in the ’70s a lot of dead babies were born there. That it caused liver damage and at least a couple of kinds of cancer was already known, and the Environmental Protection Agency banned the chemical for use in the United States. This information comes from a very thorough uncredited piece published by The U.S. Veteran Dispatch.
It doesn’t stop there. In 1979, Vietnam veteran Rep. Tom Daschle caused the National Veterans Task Force on Agent Orange to be created. Its mandate was to commission an extensive study of veterans who had been exposed. The writer says:
Over the next four years, the VA examined an estimated 200,000 veterans for medical problems they claimed stemmed from Agent Orange and other herbicides used in Vietnam. But many of those examined were dissatisfied with their examinations. They claimed the exams were done poorly and often in haste by unqualified medical personnel. Many veterans also claimed that the VA seemed to have a mind set to ignore or debunk Agent Orange connected [to] disability complaints.
The Centers for Disease Control spent $43 million trying to figure out what was going on, and screwed it up royally (according to the Institute of Medicine) by adopting a research method that excluded those veterans most likely to have been in contact with Agent Orange. A spokesperson for the Institute could imagine only two options — the study was either “monumentally bungled” or “politically rigged.”
Cassandra Anderson, writing for Infowars.com, came out in favor of “politically rigged,” alleging a cover-up in which the Environmental Protection Agency is also involved:
US courts have protected Monsanto and Dow Chemical from liability and criminal prosecution… President Reagans’s administration, in cahoots with the CDC, thwarted a $43 million Congressional Study of Agent Orange in 1987 to protect itself and its corporate pals Monsanto & Dow from accountability…
According to this theory, if the full truth got out it would not only bankrupt the herbicide makers, but would also negatively impact other industries including plastics, paper, and agriculture. And all the while, veterans were showing up with soft tissue sarcomas and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Since the government is pretty much untouchable, litigation must be aimed elsewhere, and vets filed a class-action lawsuit against Monsanto, Dow, and other manufacturers of Agent Orange. Apparently, they could have provided a defoliant that did the job without the horrible effects on humans, if only they had cared to take a little more time in the manufacturing process and relinquish a slight bit of profit.
Red flag disregarded
Now, check out this statement made by the assistant secretary of Health and Human Services, Dr. Edward Brandt, Jr., in the year this legal action started, 1982:
The early warning sign has gone up.
That was more than 30 years ago. Anyone who didn’t see the approaching wave of demand upon the VA system had their head someplace where heads aren’t supposed to be. The only wonder is that the deluge did not hit sooner. That lawsuit, by the way, was settled (for not nearly enough money once it was all divvied up) and the chemical manufacturers didn’t have to take any official blame. Anderson is not a fan of Judge Jack Weinstein, and believes he committed several offenses related to this lawsuit and similar ones:
Weinstein appointed attorneys to represent the veterans and then intimidated the attorneys into agreeing to a ‘nuisance’ settlement of $180 million — nowhere near enough money to cover the medical treatment of hundreds of thousands of injured vets.
In 2010, “automatic funding” of Agent Orange claims was instituted, which effectively transferred the liability to the U.S. taxpayers, who pay for the health care and hospitalization of affected veterans. Meanwhile, says Anderson:
The Veterans Administration claims they have no idea how many vets have been treated for Agent Orange injuries, or how much taxpayer money has been spent.
Reactions?
Source: “The Story of Agent Orange,” The U.S. Veteran Dispatch, Nov. 1990
Source: “White House, US Courts and EPA shaft Veterans to protect Monsanto,” Infowars.com, 02/08/12
Image by dancingqueen27.
