Cancer Link in Vietnam Vets’ Kids

The children of veterans exposed to herbicides such as Agent Orange during the Vietnam War may have a greater chance of being afflicted with a certain type of leukemia, a study suggests.

The analysis released Thursday by the Institute of Medicine makes the first connection between the childhood disease and the pesticides. It stops short of saying the link is conclusive.

Anthony J. Principi, secretary of Veterans Affairs, called the report “very serious.”

“I’m deeply concerned about the implications for the children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange,” he said in a telephone interview.

Principi said President Bush has directed him to prepare legislation to provide assistance for children with the disease.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said the finding “should prompt Congress to extend veterans’ benefits to Vietnam veterans’ children suffering from this form of leukemia.”

Rick Weidman, vice president of Vietnam Veterans of America, said his group is “pleased that they recognized one additional birth defect in children born to Vietnam veterans.” But, he added, it is also very sad news because most of these children have already died. The median life expectancy for children diagnosed with this type of leukemia is two years, he noted.

Dr. Linda Schwartz, head of the association’s health care task force, said that Congress approved a broad program last year to assist female Vietnam veterans’ children with birth defects. She called for a similar program for children of male vets.

“No firm evidence links exposure to the herbicides with most childhood cancers, but new research does suggest that some kind of connection exists between [acute myelogenous leukemia] in children and their fathers’ military service in Vietnam or Cambodia,” said Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina who chaired the institute committee that prepared the report.

Acute myelogenous leukemia is a fast-spreading form of the disease that originates in bone marrow cells. It accounts for about 8% of all childhood cancers, the report said.

The report is the most recent in a series by the institute, a division of the National Academy of Sciences, to look at the effects of the herbicides used in Vietnam.

During the Vietnam War, thousands of veterans were exposed to Agent Orange, a defoliant used to clear areas of jungle so the Viet Cong could be seen and attacked from the air.

The report also reaffirms earlier findings linking herbicide exposure with the development of soft tissue cancer, Hodgkin’s disease, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and chloracne in veterans.

The committee said it based its finding on two studies published last year.

Although the studies lacked a direct measure of exposure to the herbicides, both were conducted with Vietnam veterans, and an association was indicated with childhood AML, though not with other forms of childhood leukemia.

One study, for example, looked at 50,000 Australian veterans of the Vietnam War. It found 13 cases of AML in their children, while in a normal population that size the number of cases expected would be from zero to six.