Take Action to STOP DoD censorship of Veterans concerned about herbicide exposure, including Agent Orange! We must defend our Veterans' voices and demand oversight for DoD's herbicide contamination.
For Veterans benefits, an exposure can be designated as a "presumption" related to service in certain locations, which means the Veteran no longer has to prove that exposure occurred during their service. An example is the VA presumes Vietnam Veterans who served in specified areas were exposed to Agent Orange, which makes granting of benefits for certain conditions much easier.
Herbicides, including Agent Orange are covered under 38 CFR 3.307, which was recently proposed by VA for a change to extend areas for presumption of exposure to locations in the United States, Canada, and India. Unfortunately, locations were left off the list, including the former Fort Ord, U.S. Army, where thousands of gallons of the mixture of the two active toxicants in Agent Orange were sprayed in the troops training fields to control Poison Oak. You can visit the website FortOrdContamination.org for more details on this shocking in-country use of Agent Orange which made national news coverage by the Washington Post and USA Today.
In 2018, there was a policy change for herbicides which enables the DoD Armed Forces Pest Management Board (AFPMB) to voluntarily review their own use of herbicides, including Agent Orange, and to report that list to VA for the purposes of determining presumptive locations for Veterans benefits. In the past, listing of locations for herbicide use and presumption for Veterans benefits has come about because of the concerns of Veterans, VA, or members of Congress. With the policy change, DoD has no apparent oversight for herbicide location listing--despite the fact that their interest is in national security and that the Department is without expertise in environmental health. Further, DoD has no direct stake in granting Veterans benefits and protecting Veterans health.
Even more troubling, VA actually directs Veterans to contact DoD's AFPMB with their concerns about herbicide use at specified locations. In point of fact, DoD continues to arbitrarily classify certain herbicide uses as "tactical," including the use of the Agent Orange toxicants. This arbitrary designation enables them to exempt considering the harmful effects of Agent Orange being sprayed to control vegetation at in-country DoD installations as was done at Fort Ord.
Sign our letter to stop DoD censorship of Veterans and remove their authority as a determiner of Veterans benefits from herbicide exposures, including to Agent Orange.
Our demands are in the spirit of creating a process for determining presumption of herbicide exposure that is scientifically based, fair, consistent, transparent, timely, and Veteran-centric. Our asks:
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Remove the authority assigned to DoD’s AFPMB and instead expect this body to respond timely and transparently to any and all requests for evidence of herbicide use by the VA’s Presumption Decision Process (PDP) leadership.
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Create a process whereby any and all reviews by AFPMB for the purposes of Veterans benefits determinations are conducted with oversight by outside individuals with environmental health expertise from the VA.
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Remove the arbitrary classification on “tactical” uses of herbicides and the exemption for listing locations where herbicides, including the carcinogenic toxicants in Agent Orange were used for installation vegetation management by trained pesticide applicators.
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Follow through on all recommendations made by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) to improve the scientific validity, transparency, and Veteran-centric nature of the PDP.
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Create a transparent process, including a point of contact, for Veteran Service Organizations (VSOs) to raise their concerns for exposures that they believe meet the threshold for review for presumption of benefits for herbicides and other exposures.
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Convene regular, publicized meetings where VSOs can review those concerns raised by their fellow Veterans that they believe merit an assessment for presumption to ensure that there is transparency and consistency in how exposures are being filtered and entered into the PDP review.
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Add Veteran toxic exposure advocate members to the core committees in the PDP review process.