Peter Sills - Toxic War: The Story of Agent Orange

TOXIC WAR

TOXIC WAR

The Story of Agent Orange

Peter Sills

Vanderbilt University Press

NASHVILLE

2014 by Vanderbilt University Press

Nashville, Tennessee 37235

All rights reserved

First printing 2014

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file

LC control number 2013032550

LC classification number DS559.8.C5S55 2014

Dewey class number 959.704'38dc23

ISBN 978-0-8265-1962-7 (cloth)

ISBN 978-0-8265-1964-1 (ebook)

For my Grandfather, Elias Fife

For Crow

And most of all, for Susan

Contents

Foreword

This book has been gestating for a long timesince the early 1980s, when Vietnam veterans and their families brought a class action against the federal government and the manufacturers of Agent Orange. The court ordered the defendants to turn over every piece of paper in their possession mentioning either dioxin or herbicides used in the Vietnam War. The case was settled before going to trial, and all the protective orders covering these records were removed.

In a former life, I was an attorney tangentially involved in that litigation, so I had a pretty good idea what was in those documents. I telephoned Joseph Ditalia, the deputy clerk in charge of the federal court in Uniondale, NY, for permission to see them. He enjoyed my request more than any good bureaucrat should, laughing nonstop for about forty-five seconds and then warning me (while still gasping for breath): Some reporter came down to check them out the other day, and lasted about fifteen minutes.

I didnt grasp what had amused him so much until I visited the courthouse. Boxes nearly bursting with paper were piled ceiling high, completely filling two large basement rooms. I never bothered to count them all, but ten million pages is a conservative estimate. Mr. Ditalia, Cynthia Mann (the courts operations manager), and the rest of the courthouse staff were uniformly friendly, helpful, and efficient, despite my sometimes odd and difficult demands.

More times than I care to remember, I led a research crew of six Vermonters down to Uniondale to copy many of these documents. It was a preposterous task, and I thank the crewAnne Miller, Lawrence Black, Jeffrey Gilbert, Trish Nunan, Tim Sestrick, and Spencer Smithfor making it sort of fun (and for doing an excellent job).

In this book, Ill refer to the lawsuit as the Class Action and to these records as the Class Action Documents. These documents will be identified in the same manner as they were submitted to the court during discovery. A list of these identification labels and their respective sources is included at the beginning of the Notes section. All these documents have since been taken from the courthouse and placed in a government repository. Ill occasionally focus on the documents themselves, instead of the information contained in them, especially when they omit an important part of the story. Sometimes documents that ought to exist arent there. Others fail to mention important events and conversations that unquestionably took place. It would be unfair to automatically presume an intent to hide something, but its a possibility that needs to be considered. Ill also quote from some of the depositions taken during the Class Action. Unless I specifically state otherwise, any testimony mentioned in this book comes from those depositions.

My analysis of the governments Agent Orange health studies is based largely on records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request made by Congressman Ted Weiss (now deceased). At the time, attorneys for the American Legion and Vietnam Veterans of America were preparing a lawsuit against the government for failing to conduct this research properly, and they invited me to look through these documents. Id like to thank Bart Stichman and Mark Venuti of the National Veterans Legal Services Project for giving me that opportunity, and Congressman Weiss and his committees investigator, Mark Smolonsky, for graciously providing me access to those records. The rest of the book is based on interviews (all of which I conducted myself), government documents, scientific journals, newspaper articles, and presentations made at scientific and other public conferences.

This is an enormous topic that cant be covered completely in one book. Ive focused primarily on the decisions made by industry and government concerning 2,4,5-T and dioxin. Ive also shied away from matters already well covered by other writers. This book includes a bibliography for those who want to study those other areas in more detail.

Id also like to apologize in advance for using so many abbreviations. Chemicals, diseases, and government bureaucracies all tend to have lengthy, complex names. Abbreviations can be awfully bloodless, but theyre less eye-glazing than repeating long-winded technical jargon over and over.

I could not have written this book without Anne Miller. Annes general brilliance, astute reading of the documents, and capacity to grasp biology, epidemiology, statistics, and other branches of science well enough to impress experts in those fields were all indispensable. Thank you so much, Anne.

I would also like to thank Eli Bortz for his inspiration, encouragement, and support in taking this book to print.

Introduction

One Statistic

Something is tragically wrong out there. Too many veterans are sick. Too many have lost faith in the system they fought to protect. Too many are crying out for answers that do not seem to be forthcoming. These men and women are not cry babies as some heartless souls have suggested. They are the cornerstone of this democracy. They are the ones that volunteer to place their very lives on the line when their country calls. They are the backbone of our society. They deliver our mail, work in our factories, drive the trucks, and tend to the sick. If we forget and abandon them, we abandon all that is worthwhile about this country.

William W. Lewis, director of the Pointman Project

He who suffers remembers.

Chinese fortune cookie

Dave and Laurel Maier spent the first night of their married life in downtown Cleveland, in a hotel that later became the local YWCA. They waited two months and journeyed several thousand miles for their second night together. They had no idea what theyd gotten themselves intoa strange, terrible war, and two glaringly different, barely comprehensible societies. But their adventure didnt really begin until they got back to Cleveland.

Twenty-seven years later, Dave and Laurel told me they were, in some ways, grateful for the suffering theyve endured. Their lives are undoubtedly richer, and theyve had a powerful impact on others. But when asked if they would choose to go through it all again, Dave could only laugh. Laurel cried out, No! Nobody would ever choose that! Thats why those choices arent left to us.

They met placidly enough, in 1965, at a Methodist young adult group in the Cleveland suburbs. Dave was twenty-one and in college. Laurel was just under eighteen and about to graduate high school. Both were devout Christians, descended from a long line of German settlers. They had always kept close to home.

They started dating almost immediately and were engaged a year later. Dave dropped out of college to work as a bank teller. He joined the Navy Reserves in 1964, partly to avoid being drafted and sent to Vietnam. He hoped the war would be over by the time he finished his two years of training. But he was wrong.

Dave was due to ship out sometime in 1967. They wanted to get married as soon as possible, but their parents were against it. Laurels mother and father liked Dave, but their daughter was only twenty, and her new husband would be leaving for two years, maybe to die in combat. It made more sense to wait.