Thursday, March 30,
2000 Agent Orange Linked to
Diabetes
A report from the
Air Force has found the most clear-cut evidence to date linking exposure to the
herbicide Agent Orange to the prevalence of diabetes
among Vietnam War
veterans. Beginning in 1982, the
Air Force studied 1,000 of its veterans who participated in aerial spraying of
the defoliant. Their health records were compared to those of another group of
veterans of the same age, race and military occupation, but who were not exposed
to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. Air Force analysis shows there were 47
percent more diabetes cases among veterans exposed to Agent Orange compared to
veterans not exposed. "Certainly among
Agent Orange exposure populations there's a fair amount of diabetes," says Dr.
Michael Harbut, medical director at the Center for Occupational and
Environmental Medicine in Southfield, Michigan and a professor at Wayne State
University in Detroit. The herbicide, he tells OnHealth, "disrupts the
production of insulin.". Diabetes is a
result of the body's inability to properly produce and use insulin. According to
the American Diabetes Association, 6 percent of the American population, or 15.7
million people, suffer from the
disease. Agent Orange, nicknamed for the
orange-striped barrels it was transported in, has been blamed for numerous
illnesses, including cancers, birth defects and skin infections. The U.S.
military sprayed about 19 million gallons over the Vietnamese countryside in an
effort to destroy the foliage that provided cover for North Vietnamese forces.
Use of all defoliants was stopped in 1971, shortly before the war
ended. --ByKatrina Woznicki
