Agent Orange & Other Health News - 7/17/15

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Friday, July 17, 2015

Camp Lejeune Family Member Program

https://www.clfamilymembers.fsc.va.gov/
Camp Lejeune Family Member Program
The Camp Lejeune Family Member Program is for family members of Veterans who were stationed at Camp Lejeune. If you are a Veteran, apply here www.va.gov/healthbenefits/apply or call 1-877-222-8387 for help.

From August 1, 1953, through December 31, 1987, people living at the U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, were potentially exposed to drinking water contaminated with industrial solvents, benzene, and other chemicals. On August 6, 2012, the Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012 was signed into law. This law (H.R. 1627, now Public Law 112-154) requires the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to provide health care to Veterans who served on active duty at Camp Lejeune and to reimburse eligible Camp Lejeune Family Members (CLFM) for eligible health care costs related to one or more of 15 specified illnesses or conditions illustrated in the list below.
Bladder cancer
Breast cancer
Esophageal cancer
Female infertility
Hepatic steatosis
Kidney cancer
Leukemia
Lung cancer
Miscarriage
Multiple myeloma
Myelodysplastic syndromes
Neurobehavioral effects
Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
Renal toxicity
Scleroderma
This website will assist CLFMs who want to apply for reimbursement of health care expenses related to one or more of the 15 conditions below. Please review the information on this page to assist you with applying for the Camp Lejeune Family Member Program (CLFMP). When you are ready, scroll to the bottom of this page and select "Start New Application for Family Member". If you’ve already started the application process, select “Retrieve Saved Application."
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Can The Agent Orange Act Help Veterans Exposed To Mustard Gas?

http://www.npr.org/2015/07/16/421747453 ... ustard-gas
To understand the predicament of World War II veterans exposed to mustard gas, take a look at what happened to another set of American veterans who were exposed to a different toxic chemical.
Last month, NPR reported that some of those World War II vets are still fighting for disability benefits from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs because the agency says they don't have enough proof to substantiate their claims.

Alan Oates says that's the same response Vietnam War veterans started receiving from the VA in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

As a young Army private during the war, Oates was providing security for an engineering outfit in the jungle when he first noticed three planes flying overhead spraying something.

"I asked the engineers: What are they doing?" Oates says. "And [one] said: They're spraying herbicides to kill the vegetation, so that the enemy couldn't hide in it."

The herbicide was Agent Orange, and Oates says he assumed it was harmless to humans. But years after coming home, he noticed a tremor in his left hand.

"I had one finger that just one morning started moving back and forth," he says.

Oates made an appointment with his doctor and was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. He's one of thousands of Vietnam veterans who came down with similar diseases — such as type II diabetes, skin disorders and rare cancers — after returning from the war.

But when veterans first began reporting their illnesses, the VA said they didn't have enough evidence to qualify them for service-related compensation.
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Australian War Memorial to revise official record of impacts of Agent Orange use in Vietnam War

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-14/a ... rd/6619118
After a drawn-out campaign longer than the war in which they served, Australia's Vietnam veterans have finally won an important battle in their fight for proper recognition of their service and sacrifice.
The Australian War Memorial (AWM) has decided the official history of the conflict should be rewritten to provide a more accurate account of the use of Agent Orange, the chemical herbicide blamed for a range of cancers and other health problems.

The AWM commissioned independent historian Professor Peter Yule from the University of Melbourne to write a new volume for its official history Medical Aspects of Australia's Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts, 1950-72.

Professor Yule has been tasked to give account of 25 years of new information and accounts from veterans themselves.

"As with any history itself, new information can be uncovered and new histories are actually able to be rewritten," the assistant director of public programs at the Australian War Memorial, Anne Bennie, said.

"The memorial's council has certainly considered this for some time [and] was certainly aware of the veterans' concerns that the official history does not contain the full extent of medical issues related to their service in the Vietnam War."

Between 1961 and 1971 the United States Air Force sprayed tonnes of Agent Orange over large areas of Vietnam.

"The American air force was very frustrated because during the Vietnam War they were unable to be used to their full potential because they couldn't see the ground," Graham Walker, who served as an Australian infantry commander in Vietnam, said.
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