Word: dioxins
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...medical detectives at the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control have a well-earned reputation for relentlessly tracking down the causes of such mysterious ailments as Legionnaires' disease. But the agency's record is in danger of being blemished by a bitter controversy over Agent Orange, a defoliant containing dioxin, a suspected carcinogen...
Agent Orange was widely used in Vietnam to strip the thick jungle canopy that helped conceal enemy forces; only later did scientists become aware of the potentially dangerous long-term effects of dioxin, which has produced cancers in animals. The defoliant has been suspect ever since unknown numbers of Vietnam veterans developed various cancers or fathered seriously handicapped children. Based on the inability to prove a conclusive link between those ailments and Agent Orange, the Reagan and Bush administrations refused to compensate veterans for all but a few of these health problems. But critics charge that no clear connections have...
Instead of killing the project outright, the White House panel accepted a proposal by Houk to take blood tests of 646 Vietnam veterans, selected on the basis of their probable exposure, to see if they had elevated blood levels of dioxin. The tests showed that none had abnormal blood levels -- not surprising, given that the exposure would have taken place 20 years earlier and that none of those tested had handled Agent Orange directly...
...started a battle that would rage long after the last American helicopter left Saigon. Over the past 13 years, some 35,000 Viet Nam veterans have vigorously pressed Washington to compensate them for injuries and illnesses that they believe were caused by exposure to Agent Orange. The herbicide contains dioxin, a potent poison that causes cancer in laboratory animals. But Government officials have delayed paying most claims, pointing to a lack of scientific proof that Agent Orange hurt the soldiers. Last week researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control issued a report designed to help resolve the controversy...