Is McCain cancer tied to Agent Orange?
Vietnam veterans with glioblastoma say it is, fight for VA compensation
When Amy Jones’ dad, Paul, was diagnosed with glioblastoma last month, she wondered whether it could be tied to his time in Vietnam.
Then, last week, when Sen. John McCain, RAriz., also a Vietnam veteran, was diagnosed with the same aggressive brain cancer, the Visalia, Calif., woman searched online for glioblastoma and Vietnam vets.
She soon learned the disease is one of a growing list of ailments that some Vietnam veterans and their relatives believe is caused by exposure to Agent Orange, the toxic herbicide sprayed during the war.
“Honestly, it’s not easy to even admit that this is happening, let alone to
even talk about it,” said Jones, whose 68-year-old father has had surgery to remove a brain tumor and now is receiving radiation treatments. “It’s only been six weeks. It’s such a devastating diagnosis.”
McCain’s diagnosis comes as the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is under increased pressure to broaden who is eligible for Agent Orange-related compensation. During the war, the military sprayed millions of gallons of the herbicide in Vietnam to kill enemy-covering jungle brush, and in the process, it may have exposed as many as 2.6 million U.S. service members.
News of his illness has prompted Jones and others to call on the VA to study a possible connection between their loved ones’ Agent Orange exposure and glioblastoma.
Under current policy, the agency makes disability payments to veterans who develop one of 14 health conditions, but only if they can prove they served on the ground in South Vietnam, where the chemicals were sprayed. Veterans who served off the coast in the Navy and those with other diseases not on the list — such as brain cancer — are left to fight the agency for compensation on a case-by-case basis.
Although McCain primarily served at sea from the deck of an aircraft carrier — and survived more than five years in a prison camp after his plane was shot down over North Vietnam — the VA would presume he was exposed to Agent Orange because he also spent time on the ground in Saigon.
Still, McCain never has sought to connect any of his health troubles, including prior bouts with skin cancer, with Agent Orange exposure, and he has a mixed record when it comes to compensating fellow veterans for wartime exposures.
McCain’s office did not respond to emailed questions about a possible link between glioblastoma and the chemical.
Memories of his father
Brad Riddell, a 35-year-old communications specialist living in Austin, also thought of his father when he heard about McCain’s illness. His dad, Jerry Riddell, served in a Navy construction battalion in Da Nang during the war and routinely came in contact with Agent Orange, which was used to clear brush before paving roads and runways.
Riddell was in high school when his father had a seizure while driving from work one day. A brain scan later that day revealed a tumor the size of a grapefruit and a medical term that still makes Riddell shudder: glioblastoma.
His father endured three surgeries — including two at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston — before doctors told him there was nothing more they could do. He entered hospice and died in February 1999, just 14 months after the diagnosis.
“I absolutely thought about Dad when I heard about McCain,” Riddell said. “Any time I hear that diagnosis, it just feels like, ‘Man, that person is a goner.’ It’s terrible.”
After his father’s death, Riddell’s mother gave him a bag of his military records and told him to hold onto them: “She said, ‘You need to have all these records in case there’s ever a connection made between your dad’s cancer and Agent Orange.’ ”
In a statement, a VA spokesman said the agency does not recognize a connection between Agent Orange exposure and brain cancer but is examining the topic anew in light of the questions that have been raised.
In March, the VA asked a National Academy of Medicine panel studying the effects of Agent Orange to focus special attention on glioblastoma. The VA also is asking about brain cancer in a sweeping survey of Vietnam veterans now underway.
Over 500 vets diagnosed
VA data provided to ProPublica last fall shows that more than 500 Vietnam-era veterans have been diagnosed with glioblastoma at VA health facilities since 2000. That does not include the unknown number diagnosed at private facilities.
Since news of McCain’s illness broke last week, dozens like Jones have found a Facebook support group for widows of Vietnam vets who suffered from glioblastoma. Its members support one another and offer advice on navigating the VA’s labyrinthian process for seeking disability and survivor benefits.
“Every one of us, our phones were blowing up the day it came out” that McCain had glioblastoma, said Kathy Carroll-Josenhans, one of the group’s leaders.
The group now has some 450 members, about double its size from a few months ago.
One of their challenges is that the VA’s handling of claims related to glioblastoma has been somewhat inconsistent. Between 2009 and last fall, the Board of Veterans’ Appeals, the VA’s inhouse tribunal for adjudicating benefit denials, issued more than 100 decisions in cases in which widows have appealed benefits denials related to their husbands’ brain cancer, according to a ProPublica analysis of board decisions. About two dozen have won.
Regardless of McCain’s position on the matter, advocates hope his diagnosis will spark a conversation.
In a statement last week, John Rowan, the president of Vietnam Veterans of America, said he was saddened to learn “yet another Vietnam veteran” had been diagnosed with glioblastoma:
“Unfortunately, brain cancer is not on the presumptive list for exposure to Agent Orange,” Rowan said in the statement, “despite the efforts of our fellow veterans and their family members.”