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Cover Story 5/1/00
A LEGACY OF ILLNESS
The healing process is far from done Perry Buck, 72, a veteran of World War II and Korea, thought he knew everything about the horrors of war. But the Vietnam War, says Buck, one of the nation's first Navy Seals, proved him wrong.
In the steamy mangrove forests of Southeast Asia, Buck came in contact with Agent Orange, the dioxin-laced herbicide used by the U.S. military to defoliate the jungle and give U.S. soldiers a defense against the guerrilla warfare of the enemy Viet Cong. In the peak years for Agent Orange use, 1965 to 1967, Buck was on missions where, he says, "we were caught in the bushes when they sprayed the foliage with it."
Once home, Buck's right lung collapsed. His chest and back were covered with rashes. Then in 1992, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The Department of Veterans Affairs did not see these conditions as "service connected" to Agent Orange exposure.
It was not until 1994, nearly 20 years after the last
Americans left Vietnam, that a congressionally ordered review of Agent
Orange by the national Institute of Medicine linked the defoliant to skin
rashes, called chloracne, and soft-tissue and lymphatic cancers. "That
was the breakthrough," says Mark Brown of the VA, which began compensating
for these conditions in 1996. That same year, the government added prostate
cancer, multiple myeloma, respiratory cancers, and spina bifida, a crippling
birth defect in the children of exposed veterans, to its growing list of
Agent Orange-related illnesses. The Institute of
Medicine is now reviewing the herbicide's possible links
to diabetes.
Unsung survivors. Advances in surgery, drugs, and wound treatment meant that, unlike in previous wars, "in Vietnam, you had a high proportion of very seriously injured people who lived, lots of bilateral, lower leg amputees," says Thomas Holohan, VA chief of patient care services. But the public's antiwar sentiment made adjusting to these disabilities both physically and psychologically challenging. "When they came home, they were called 'baby killers,' " adds Holohan. "It was difficult to reconcile the sacrifice they made with the view that it was totally meaningless."
Because there was no effective hepatitis C test until
1992, many of the transfusions used to keep soldiers alive in Vietnam were
likely to be contaminated with the virus. Hepatitis is endemic in Southeast
Asia, so association with local people, blood on the battlefield from infected
soldiers, and intravenous drug use all made the risk of infection high.
Hepatitis C has a 10-to-30-year latency; many veterans don't yet know they
are infected with a virus that can cause liver failure and death. Gary
Rozelle, director for infectious diseases for the VA, evaluated the 54,682
new cases of hepatitis C diagnosed by the VA during 1998-99.
His study found that 62.7 percent were in Vietnam-era
vets.
The Vietnam Veterans of America has petitioned the VA for a "presumptive service connection for hep C," making compensation automatic. A bill pending in Congress, H.R. 1020, would do the same.
But little has been done to address the psychological
fallout to the three million Americans who served in Southeast Asia. "Doctors
didn't recognize post-traumatic stress disorder," says Terry Baker of the
Vietnam Veterans of America. PTSD was not accepted by the American Psychiatric
Association until 1980. "When the WWII guys came back," Baker adds, "they
were able to talk about the war. With Vietnam, vets had to change their
clothes in the bus station because people would spit on them. The biggest
health problem
Vietnam vets still face is our lack of self-esteem."
-Amanda Spake
© U.S.
World News & World Report All rights reserved.
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