4 results for “Agent Orange and VA Suppression”
The US military's use of Agent Orange herbicide in Vietnam (1961-1971) and the decades-long effort by the VA and chemical manufacturers to deny connections to veteran illnesses — cancers, type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's, peripheral neuropathy.
Operation Ranch Hand was the US Air Force aerial herbicide spraying programme in South Vietnam from 1962 to 1971. A National Academies committee estimated that about 18 million gallons of herbicides — including Agent Orange, which contained dioxin (TCDD) as a manufacturing byproduct — were sprayed from helicopters and other aircraft over about 3.6 million acres of Vietnam between August 1965 and February 1971. Internal documents from Dow Chemical and Monsanto, the primary suppliers, show that both companies were aware by the mid-1960s that dioxin could injure workers, but the Second Circuit found no evidence that they knew of a cancer or long-term risk to people exposed in use, or that they withheld anything that would have changed the military's decision. A government animal study had uncovered evidence of birth defects by June 1966, but the herbicide programme was not restricted until the study's public release in October 1969, after which the Pentagon barred Agent Orange use near population centres and on April 15, 1970 suspended it. Veterans' claims gained recognition slowly: Congress ordered VA compensation rules in 1984 and wrote presumptive service connection for Agent Orange-related diseases into law in 1991. The record documents corporate awareness of acute toxicity and long delays in official recognition, not proven deliberate concealment of known long-term risks.
The cluster of unexplained chronic symptoms affecting ~25-32% of 1990-91 Gulf War veterans, and the decades-long VA resistance to acknowledging it as a distinct service-connected condition.
Claims circulate that pharmaceutical companies or medical institutions suppress Repatha (evolocumab, a PCSK9 inhibitor approved by the FDA in 2015) or effective alternatives to statins. The claim has no documentary basis. Repatha is FDA-approved, actively marketed by Amgen, and available by prescription in more than 60 countries. Its limited uptake relative to statins reflects cost, insurance coverage, and prescribing guidelines — not suppression. Statins remain the first-line standard of care because they are proven, inexpensive, and widely effective; PCSK9 inhibitors are used as second-line or add-on therapy for high-risk patients who cannot tolerate or do not respond adequately to statins.