Death Rate Not Unusual in Agent Orange Study

Servicemen who were exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War are dying at about the same rate as the general population, according to the latest figures from a 20-year study of people who worked with the herbicide.

“We find no reason for anxiety (about Agent Orange),” said Dr. William Wolfe, who heads the epidemiology department at the School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base.

“We’ve learned that these people do not appear to be dying at any increased rates or of unusual causes,” Wolfe said Thursday.

Since the Air Force began keeping figures in 1982, 55 servicemen, or 4.4%, of the 1,257 in the study group died, about what would be expected of a group of similarly aged people, Wolfe said.

Study Only Beginning

However, the doctor noted that the results are far from complete and that they represent only the beginning of a $100-million 20-year Air Force study supervised by Brooks researchers.

The study, to be completed in 2002, will compare death and sickness rates of servicemen exposed to the herbicide in Vietnam with those of the general population.

Agent Orange, which contains dioxin, was used to strip jungle foliage. Earlier comparisons based on physical exams showed that servicemen in the same test group had a higher incidence of skin cancer than those of a comparative group who had not been exposed.

The new statistics mark the third time researchers have compared the test group and the unexposed group. The first two comparisons had similar results.

Further Physical Exams

Project researchers are also performing the second of seven physical exams that will be done about every other year. Wolfe said he hopes further physical exams will determine whether the first exams’ finding of increased skin cancer was significant.

The servicemen in the test group belonged to an Air Force unit that sprayed Agent Orange from the air between 1962 and 1970.

Late last year, Vietnam veterans and their families sued the U.S. government for $1.82 billion, accusing officials of frustrating efforts to collect money for injuries and deaths due to exposure to the herbicide.

The suit was a response to an out-of-court settlement reached in a veterans’ class-action suit against seven manufacturers of Agent Orange. Under that settlement, almost $200 million was set aside for veterans exposed to the chemical, but some activists contend the amount was insufficient.