WSU to Study Iraq Toxins' Effect
Spokesman-Review
by Bert Caldwell
Research to examine how exposure might damage offspring of soldiers
Washington State University scientists will use a $1.7 million grant to study what multi-generation genetic damage might be done by toxins U.S. troops could encounter in Iraq.
The research using laboratory rats, not humans, will be the first for the military to examine the epigenetic effects of pesticides, herbicides and other compounds, said lead scientist Michael Skinner, director of the university's Center for Reproductive Biology.
Previous studies have looked at the health effects of other substances, notably the Agent Orange used to defoliate jungles in Vietnam, on the soldiers directly exposed, he said, not on their children or grandchildren.
"The science really had not caught up with the trans-generational stuff," said Skinner, one of several WSU pioneers in the field of epigenetic, or multi-generational, inheritance.
Besides herbicides and pesticides – which and in what combinations has not been determined – the study also will look at the effects of explosives residues, he said.
The four-year study will allow researchers to see how any changes in genetic chemistry that develop are passed along through two subsequent generations of rats, he said, noting that only the first two years of research have been funded.
Among the problems that might develop are kidney disease, or changes in the male and female reproductive organs, he said.
If any genetic markers are identified in rats, Skinner said, follow-up research could look at whether they might show up among members of the military as well.
That would be of particular interest to Dave Holmes, interim chief operating officer of the Institute for Systems Medicine, which was awarded the U.S. Department of Defense grant passed through to Skinner.
Holmes' son, Tim Hammond, did two tours in Iraq with the U.S. Marine Corps.
"They sprayed all kinds of stuff on them," Holmes said.
Although the grant money, the first awarded ISM, will fund work in Pullman, he said the organization's supporters hope any subsequent clinical studies will be done in Spokane.
"There's a lot of excitement about making it happen," he said.
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Concord vet who tested Agent Orange now lives with consequences
By John Simerman
Contra Costa Times
Bob Decker fought prostate cancer a decade ago, then three years ago got another jolt — a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease.
He never thought about a link — much less one 45 years in the past, halfway around the world — until he met a Vietnam veteran in 2008 while fishing for tuna off the San Diego coast.
"He had prostate cancer and he said, 'Oh yeah,
the VA gave me so much per month,' " said Decker, sitting slightly hunched in his Concord home. "The wheels started turning."
Decker, 69, never fought in Vietnam, yet he worked intimately with Agent Orange, the herbicide and defoliant that the U.S. military sprayed across the jungle to deny Vietnamese forces crops and cover. Containing a powerful dioxin, it has since been linked to more than a dozen cancers and other illnesses, including prostate cancer and, more recently, Parkinson's.
As a draftee fresh out of college in South Dakota, Decker volunteered for a small Army group that tested Agent Orange, Agent Purple, Agent Pink — named for the colored bands around their containers — and other chemicals on a remote military reservation in Thailand.
Decker said he spent six months there in 1965, and declassified reports show Pfc. Robert L. Decker with "calibration, vegetation evaluation" duties for the Army Biological Laboratories testing program. They would mark off 10-acre plots, spray the chemicals from a twin-engine Beechcraft and study which worked
best in killing big-leaf plants. Decker was 23, with a degree in agronomy and a $9 per-diem.
"It was really nasty stuff. We didn't wear masks. When we were spraying it, we didn't know it could affect humans," said Decker, who manages a local real estate office. "There's no way I can prove Agent Orange caused my infirmities — logic says it did."
Recognition of the health impacts of Agent Orange on Vietnam veterans, millions of Vietnamese, and their children continues to grow.
In a major decision last fall, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki agreed to add three new diseases — ischemic heart disease, Parkinson's and hairy cell leukemia — to the list of now 15 "presumed service-related" illnesses for Vietnam veterans. They no longer need to prove a tie between those illnesses and their military service, speeding up the application process for medical and death benefits.
The ruling, spurred by a 2008 report from the national Institute of Medicine and a push by veterans groups, could bring claims from as many as 200,000 veterans or their family members, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The cost remains uncertain pending a final rule, but budget increases for 2010 and 2011 include nearly $30 billion to account for the ruling, including 4,000 new benefits positions to deal with an expected surge in claims. The bulk of those cases will relate to heart disease, spokesman Drew Brookie said.
But whether Decker will qualify remains unclear. While he's filed a claim for benefits, the new federal ruling so far applies only to Vietnam veterans and a specific group of Americans who were serving in South Korea during the Vietnam War.
Decker didn't serve in Vietnam. He is working with the county veterans services agency, trying to show where he worked and how Agent Orange may have affected him.
"If he was there, we'll prove it," Phil Munley, Contra Costa County's veterans services officer, said. "Eventually we'll get it for him."
Munley said he's heard from about 150 veterans and family members since the October ruling. It could mean up to $2,673 per month for a single veteran, depending on the degree of disability, he said. Many claimants are family members of deceased veterans.
"It's well-deserved," Munley said. "Our guys fought in Vietnam, came home, they were called baby killers and they were spit on. Their lives were forever changed. Thank God the VA's stepping to the plate."
Mike Martin of Vietnam Veterans of Diablo Valley said the veterans health system has been aggressive in testing veterans.
"We chastise our people for not taking the Agent Orange protocol," Martin said. "They run checks on God-knows-what. Blood tests, colonoscopies, the whole enchilada. They really get after the stuff."
But some advocates say Veterans Affairs continues to shy away from comprehensive studies that may link Agent Orange or other chemicals — or a combination — to disease in Vietnam veterans and their children. The VA recognizes evidence of one disease, spina bifida, with a link to Agent Orange through fathers who served in Vietnam.
"One of the big chemical exposures that has not been looked at is organic phosphates, the use of malathion in Vietnam for controlling mosquitoes," said Alan Oates, who heads a committee on Agent Orange and toxic exposure for Vietnam Veterans of America. "We need to look at what the combined effect of these chemicals might have been."
Oates said he was diagnosed in 2006 with Parkinson's, and joined a veterans' group that grew to more than 300. Their average age of diagnosis was 52, he said, more than a decade younger than the general public. They also found an eerie similarity: Most were diagnosed about 32 years after they left Vietnam.
"It got so when a new person would join the group, we were able to ask, 'When were you in Vietnam,' and hit within a couple of years of when they were diagnosed with Parkinson's disease," said Oates. "It was spooky."
One member of the Army team that tested Agent Orange with Decker in Thailand said he'd "been covered with Agent Orange more than 10 times. We'd be in the jungle when it was being sprayed."
Arthur Hungerford, who lives in Washington state, said he knew little about it.
"I didn't know it contained dioxin. This all came out after we were discharged," he said. "Our charge was to put together a chemical that would defoliate the tropical jungle. It worked and did what it was supposed to do, but I talked to a couple of vets who applied the chemicals. They said it wasn't all that great. We could see (the enemy), but they could see us, too."
Decker thinks it probably helped American soldiers in Vietnam, but also wonders how many it harmed, how many Vietnamese suffered, and about his own condition.
"I walk a little funny, my steps are not the same. My balance is screwed up a little bit," he said. "But to date it's not bothering me that much."
As he awaits a decision on benefits, Decker said he hopes to shed a little light on a once-classified operation that he joined for the adventure and some extra money, a small group of scientists and soldiers who made a huge impact in Vietnam, and beyond.
"I started thinking, we'll all be dead and nobody will know we ever existed," he said. "Based on what we found there in Thailand, they took this stuff over to Vietnam, and Lord knows how many vets... It's an important little tidbit of history."
Contact John Simerman at 925-943-8072
