Westover Reservists Exposed to Agent Orange, Officials Confirm After 4-Year Battle
After a four-year battle, federal health officials have ruled flight crews at Westover Air Reserve Base were exposed to Agent Orange during the decade they flew recycled planes from Vietnam, but the decision that could grant them full medical benefits is too late for some.
The study released recently by the Institute of Medicine was the veterans’ last hope to win their long, research-filled battle to receive the same medical care and disability payments as those who served during the Vietnam War when Agent Orange was used as a defoliant.
“The whole population has waited for four years. There has been predictable suffering, financial loss and death. That is unacceptable,” said retired Air Force Major Wesley T. Carter, who served as an air medical technician and flight instructor with the 74th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron at Westover in Chicopee for 20 years.
In the four years that he and others fought the battle for benefits at least a half-dozen people have grown sicker and sicker and several have died. One, Retired Lt. Col. Paul Bailey, received benefits after a long appeal process only to die a month later of cancer. He was 67.
Carter argued the benefits, which include access to free medications, dental care, optometry and hospice, are invaluable and vital to ill veterans. Financial disability payments come tax free and can be passed onto survivors.
Carter, now of Colorado, began the fight for benefits after learning the C-123 Provider planes he and many others flew in from 1972 to 1982 at Westover Air Reserve Base had been previously used to spray Agent Orange to defoliate trees and kill crops of the enemy in the Vietnam War’s Operation Ranch Hand.
While being treated for a heart attack in 2011, Carter was diagnosed with prostate cancer. At the same time he learned a number of his fellow Reservists from Westover were falling ill with diabetes, cancers and other serious illnesses and wanted to find out if there was something in his past that was making him sick.
Using the Freedom of Information Act, Carter requested and started reading reams of government documents. He discovered the C-123 Provider planes he and his fellow Westover Reservists had flown for a decade had been previously used to spray Agent Orange in Vietnam. After the war, tanks and hoses were removed and the planes sent to Westover, Pittsburgh Air National Guard and Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base in Ohio.
Some of the most compelling documents revealed 11 of the 16 planes from Westover tested positive for dioxin, the toxic chemical in Agent Orange, a decade after they were retired and one Westover C-123 was labeled “highly-contaminated” in 1994. Nearly all the planes were eventually shredded and smelted because of the contaminants.
Despite the evidence, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has refused to grant the veterans the same health care and disability payments that Vietnam veterans receive. Anyone who served in Vietnam, even for a day, is eligible for full health care and disability payments under the presumption they were exposed to dioxin if they fall ill from one of the about two dozen diseases known to be caused by Agent Orange.
Department officials repeatedly argued the veterans who flew the planes could not be made ill from the planes because the dioxin was dry and difficult to ingest. Vietnam veterans, on the other hand, were exposed to the chemical when it was being sprayed and was wet.
Veterans and many Agent Orange experts argued that the Reservists spent a lot of time in the planes, ate on them, worked on them and could easily have been exposed to the dioxin.
After years of disagreements, the Department of Veterans Affairs contracted with the Institute of Medicine Committee, an independent, non-profit arm of the National Academy of Sciences, to study the issue.
The study was not mandated by law, but complements the biennial studies required by legislation which requires the department to enter into an agreement with the National Academy of Sciences to perform evaluations of scientific and medical information regarding health effects of exposure to Agent Orange, said Meagan Lutz, public affairs specialist for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The resulting report, “Post-Vietnam Dioxin Exposure in Agent Orange-Contaminated C-123 Aircraft,” backs the veterans. The research committee which wrote the report agreed they were likely exposed to Agent Orange while flying the planes.
“The Committee states with confidence that the AF (Air Force) Reservists were exposed when working in the ORH C-123s (used in Vietnam) and so experienced some increase in their risk of a variety of adverse responses,” the study determined.
It rejected the Department of Veterans Affairs claim that the dried dioxin would not have sickened the veterans because it was immobile. Instead, the authors wrote the Reservists would have disturbed the dioxin while they were working and could have easily ingested it. Mechanics who worked on the planes would have even more exposure.
The amount of contamination is not known since testing on the planes was limited and done more than a decade or longer after the planes were retired from use. But the study said when the testing was conducted, some in 1994 and more done in 2009, there would have been lower levels of dioxin because as long as 20 years had passed from when the veterans were in the planes.
The conclusions from the Institute of Medicine mean the veterans should now be eligible for benefits, like those who served in Vietnam, if they become ill from one of the diseases known to be caused by Agent Orange exposure including diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s disease and a number of cancers, Carter said.
“Now it is about how do you fill out the paperwork versus how do you fight a war,” he said.
The report comes out at a time when the Department of Veterans Affairs is restructuring after being wracked with scandals over failing to provide veterans with adequate and timely health care.
The Department of Veterans Affairs respects the extensive scientific review from the Institute of Medicine committee and is developing a way that veterans can apply for benefits, said Lutz.
“The VA has assembled a group of clinical subject matter experts to review and respond to findings and recommendations in the IOM report,” she said.
She was not specific on how long the review will take, except to say it will be a few months.
While Carter said he is relieved with the results of the study, he said there is no reason he should have spent four years fighting for the benefits, especially since there were no more than 2,100 people who were exposed to dioxin by flying the C-123 planes after Vietnam. Of those people, many are already eligible for benefits because they served in Vietnam or for other reasons, including Carter.
“We really have to have a VA which is proactive. I should have not had to spend the last four years of my life doing thing when they had all the proof in hand in 2008,” he said.
Rick Weidman, the executive director for policy and governmental affairs for the Vietnam Veterans of America, said he is still crossing his fingers that the Department of Veterans Affairs finalizes the issue quickly and easily.
“This is a significant victory and we are deeply grateful for the IOM (Institute of Medicine) for not being bamboozled which some people from the VA (Department of Veterans Affairs) were trying to do,” he said.
The Vietnam Veterans Association is now carefully watching the issue and if it is not settled quickly he said they will start pushing publicly.
“We want the secretary to declare them immediately eligible for medical care while they work through the formalized process,” Weidman said.
He argued officials for the Department lied when they said the Reservists were not exposed to Agent Orange and then created new and impossible standards of proof for the veterans to meet.
“The only reason to create this nonsense is to deny veterans benefits. It is not based on any science,” he said.
Archer B. Battista, of Belchertown, a semi-retired lawyer, called the report “wonderful news.” In his interpretation he said he does not see much wiggle room that would allow the Department of Veterans Affairs to deny benefits further.
“It is such a long fight for a guy like Wes (Carter) who put so much into it. It feels like there is some justice,” he said.
Battista served at Westover starting in 1974 and retired as a colonel from the Air Force Reserve in 2001. He also has cancer and, like many of his fellow Reservists, was already eligible for benefits that he has been fighting for because he served in Vietnam.
But he continues to worry about many who worked on the planes at all three bases and are still unaware they were exposed to Agent Orange.
“That remains a huge issue,” he said.
There is an informal group of Westover Reservists who get together frequently but there is no similar organization in Ohio or Pennsylvania. They have been trying to contact as many people as possible through word-of-mouth and news publications but their resources are limited.
Requests for old squadron rosters have been ignored. Reservists feel they could be used as a starting place to track down the pilots, nurses, mechanics and others who served on the planes.
“Why isn’t the Department of Defense doing this? Why didn’t they start doing this five years ago?” he said.
Battista said he especially worries about people like the furloughed pilot and the young mechanic who may have worked a few years at Westover and then moved across the country without keeping in contact with any of his former squadron members. A number of women, many of whom have long since married and changer their names, also served with the 74th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron and will be difficult to find.
Some legislators, most notably Sen. Richard Burr, R-North Carolina, have been working with the veterans for several years. He urged the Department of Veterans Affairs to move quickly to award benefits.
“The VA’s delay has gone on long enough. IOM’s report confirms what the VA already knew: C-123K crewmembers were exposed to dangerous levels of Agent Orange. Instead of ignoring widely accepted science for three years and then commissioning an expensive study of that well founded science, the VA could have been caring for these veterans. They now have what they need to start helping these veterans,” he said in a letter.
U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield whose district includes Westover, added his support last year after staff met with Battista. He urged the Department of Veterans Affairs to move forward to grant the benefits to the veterans.
“I strongly we believe we have an obligation to provide care for our veterans who defended our country and put themselves in harm’s way. If these Westover based fliers were exposed to deadly toxins while on duty, and this reports suggests they were, I think the VA should help them. And that is why I have written the VA on their behalf. I think these veterans are entitled to these health benefits,” he said.
Tags: Veterans News
