Betty Mekdeci,
Executive Director of the Birth Defect Research for Children (BDRC), will
address the Associates of Vietnam Veterans of America (AVVA) at the annual
luncheon, to be held Wednesday, August 14, 2013, at the Hyatt Regency
Jacksonville-Riverfront, in Jacksonville, Florida.
Said AVVA President
Nancy Switzer, “We are honored that Betty Mekdeci will be joining us, and we
look forward to hearing about all of the work she has done in research
regarding our children who have been affected by Vietnam Veteran’s parent being
exposed to Dioxins.”
Since 1986, when the first Agent Orange Class
Assistance Programs were funded, Betty has been working with families of
Vietnam veterans with birth defects and functional disabilities. Although BDRC
did not have AOCAP funding, Mekdeci worked with the University of South
Carolina in case work that involved counseling with veterans’ families and in
creating a series of fact sheets on the disabilities they were reporting in
their children. During this time BDRC, with the help of the New Jersey Agent
Orange Commission, began the first initiative to set up the National Birth
Defect Registry, partly to collect the information being reported by the
veterans.
Betty is married to Dr.
Michael Mekdeci, retired Assoc. VP of Stetson University, and they have two
children, Kristy, a high school art teacher, and David, who is the Associate
Director for BDRC.
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