NATION IN BRIEF : WASHINGTON, D.C. : Veterans Sue Over Agent Orange Study

The American Legion sued the government for the first time in its 72-year history, seeking to force health officials to finish a controversial study on Agent Orange. The nation’s largest veterans group and the Vietnam Veterans of America, acting together, filed two similar suits concerning the Agent Orange issue in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The lawsuit says that without the study, canceled in 1987, it is impossible to persuade the Veterans Affairs Department to award disability and death payments to thousands of veterans who were exposed to the dioxin-contaminated defoliant.