Studying the Effects of Agent Orange on Veterans

Your editorial about Agent Orange refers correctly to the “medical quagmire” resulting from inconclusive data on health effects. This is the best result so far of eight years of study by the Centers for Disease Control and the Veterans Administration.

Statistics are studied to determine if exposure to Agent Orange has actually resulted in increased incidence of cancer in U.S. service persons.

These studies are flawed because of small samples, “vague and incomplete” records of troop locations, and the fact that exposure of U.S. personnel was generally accidental or incidental.

It would make more sense to shift the statistical base to the Vietnamese civilian population. These persons are much more numerous (in a statistical sense), they were at the intended targets and they are apt to show less ambiguity about location.

Perhaps this approach would clear up statistical uncertainty and finally give the answers about Agent Orange, whether desired or not. A U.S. study of this population would imply some offer of aid to the affected, which may also help our desired projects to return MIA relics and U.S. servicemen’s children.

WALTER R. STUDHALTER

Woodland Hills