Activist Calls Agent Orange Bill Inadequate : Legislation: A measure passed this week guarantees payments to only some of those who say they were harmed by the toxic defoliant in Vietnam.

For Vietnam veteran Steve Goldsmith, legislation approved by Congress this week to aid disabled veterans who had been exposed to Agent Orange offered no relief.

Goldsmith and more than 30,000 other veterans who say they suffer medical problems as a result of exposure to the toxic defoliant used in Vietnam are not covered by the bill’s promise of disability payments.

The bill guarantees payments to about 3,800 Vietnam veterans--those suffering from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and soft-tissue sarcomas, two relatively rare forms of cancer, or chloracne, a severe skin condition--and to their survivors.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs had agreed to those payments last year but without acknowledging that Agent Orange caused the illnesses. The legislation approved Wednesday writes that decision into law and applies it to future claimants.

“Basically, they haven’t accomplished anything,” said Goldsmith, who blames his liver problems and skin blisters and his daughter’s congenital heart defect on Agent Orange. “People call me from all over the country and say ‘Congratulations on the victory,’ and I say, ‘What victory?’ ”

James Donaghe, a Vietnam veteran who runs the national Agent Orange Community Support Group from his home in Burbank, said: “On one level I’m ecstatic over it, but it’s also a realization that it’s taken 12 years to get this far and it’s so little.”

Perhaps more significant than the disability payments, veterans said, is the section of the legislation requiring the National Academy of Sciences to review research to determine whether a link can be scientifically proven between Agent Orange and 28 other illnesses claimed by veterans groups. Those conditions include cancers, birth defects, reproductive disorders, liver dysfunction, nervous system disorders and suppression of the immune system.

Numerous other studies of the connection, including some by the government, have been inconclusive or contradictory. Some studies have concluded that exposure to the chemical raised the likelihood of later illnesses, while others have said such a conclusion could not be justified.

If the academy’s research demonstrates a link, however, thousands more veterans could become eligible for monthly payments of as much as $1,500.

“It will take it out of the realm of the political arena,” said Donaghe, who blames his recurring skin cancer, aching joints and liver problems on his exposure to Agent Orange in 1968. “In that sense, it’s very important.”

Donaghe, 43, won a federal court suit three years ago to gain disability payments.

Goldsmith, who keeps a needle and a vial of Demerol with him at all times to blunt sudden attacks of liver pain, and other San Fernando Valley Vietnam veterans who have been denied benefits said they hold little hope that the bill will help those whose ailments are not specifically mentioned in the legislation.

Bitter and skeptical after years of fighting for official recognition of the cause of their illnesses, the veterans say that the government will find a way to circumvent any promise to pay benefits. “The government has ignored it and will continue to ignore it because of the fact that if they had to pay the compensation to all the veterans suffering from Agent Orange it would be more than the federal deficit,” said Goldsmith, who works for the California Lottery.

Tom Sherwood, executive director of Vietnam Veterans of America, which along with the American Legion pushed hard for the legislation, acknowledged that it contains a substantial loophole because it allows the veterans department to decide whether to accept the findings of the academy, a private group that does research for the government.

Sherwood said the legislation should have required the veterans department to pay service-related disability benefits to all those whose illnesses are in any way related to Agent Orange. That group has been said by veterans organizations to number as many as 60,000.

“We’ve made a small step forward in terms of this legislation,” said Sherwood, who is based in Philadelphia. “But . . . down the line it may be a hollow victory,” depending on whether the veterans department accepts the academy findings.

To David Geschke, a former Marine who suffers from chloracne, post-traumatic stress disorder and a nagging ulcer, all of which he believes may have been caused by Agent Orange, the legislation is “a day late and a dollar short.”

“This has gone before Congress I don’t know how many times . . . and now they are saying they are going to pay on things that they are already paying on,” said Geschke, 42, who lives in North Hollywood.

Disabled by his illnesses, he receives Social Security and a small monthly pension from the Marines. If his ailments were shown to be related to Agent Orange, he would get additional payments that would help him support his wife and four children.

Sponsors of the legislation acknowledged that its passage was partly motivated by the desire to set up a system for dealing with disabilities that might be caused by chemical weapons in the war with Iraq.

“Now, with chemical warfare, they want to pass this legislation to prepare for the worst,” said Geschke, who said he worked with the highly toxic dioxin-based Agent Orange with his bare hands while stationed in Vietnam. “But, in the meantime, they’re doing nothing for the Vietnam vet that hadn’t already been done.”