The DOD and VA didn't learn a thing from the debacle of Agent Orange. The Vietnam War ended in March 29, 1973, forty years ago. In its wake many of the Veterans who served there are among hundreds of thousands of veterans filing for damages four decades after the war. According to the Los Angeles Times, "They account for the largest share of the 865,000 veterans stuck in a growing and widely denounced backlog of compensation claims — some 37%. The post 9-11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq account for 20%. The remainder are from the 1991 Gulf War, Korea, World War II and times of peace... about 40% are making claims for the first time. The rest already receive some compensation. Veterans who are denied can reapply indefinitely to increase their payments as existing conditions get worse or new ones emerge".
Our government began testing of herbicides for use as a military defoliant in 1944 at Ft. Detrick. By the late 1960s, it became known that the manufacture of tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDD), know as dioxin, was the main concern because of adverse health effects from the use of the herbicide. In 2011, I wrote an article about biological warfare dating back to 1952. The discussion of deterrence and the hopes of never having to resort to the use of such weapons were at the heart of the discussion. I had received a video regarding dioxin because WMD's (weapons of mass destruction) were on everyone’s mind back then because of the Cold War between the East Countries of the Soviet Union and Western Allies.
The problem of using our own troops as guinea pigs to test new weaponry and tactics is that the resultant damage is not fully known until years, if not decades later.READ MORE: http://www.examiner.com/article/veterans-and-prostate-cancer-part-1
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