HERALD, W.Va. (AP) — A half a century after serving in Vietnam,
hundreds of veterans have a new reason to believe they may be dying from
a silent bullet — test results show some men may have been infected by a
slow-killing parasite while fighting in the jungles of Southeast Asia.
The Department of Veterans Affairs this spring commissioned a small
pilot study to look into the link between liver flukes ingested through
raw or undercooked fish and a rare bile duct cancer. It can take decades
for symptoms to appear. By then, patients are often in tremendous pain,
with just a few months to live.
Of the 50 blood samples submitted, more than 20 percent came back
positive or bordering positive for liver fluke antibodies, said Sung-Tae
Hong, the tropical medicine specialist who carried out the tests at
Seoul National University in South Korea.
“It was surprising,” he said, stressing the preliminary results could include false positives and that the research is ongoing.
Northport VA Medical Center spokesman Christopher Goodman confirmed
the New York facility collected the samples and sent them to the lab. He
would not comment on the findings, but said everyone who tested
positive was notified.
Gerry Wiggins, who served in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969, has already
lost friends to the disease. He was among those who got the call.
“I was in a state of shock,” he said. “I didn’t think it would be me.”
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