Agent Orange Linked to Childhood Cancer

W A S H I N G T O N, April 20 -- The children of Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange may have an increased risk of developing childhood leukemia, a new study suggests.

The study shows an association between the chemical herbicide Agent Orange and the childhood cancer but stops short of establishing a direct connection, according to the Institute of Medicine, one arm of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences.

The evaluation revealed new "limited but suggestive" evidence of an association with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) in veterans' children, but the finding is not conclusive.

Previous Institute of Medicine reports found "inadequate or insufficient" evidence to determine whether a link existed for this cancer or other cancers in the children of veterans.

AML is the most common type of childhood cancer, the IOM says. AML is a rapidly spreading form that originates in certain bone marrow cells. The disease accounts for about 8 percent of all childhood cancers. What role environmental exposures play in causing the disease remains unknown.

Association, Not Direct Linkage

"No firm evidence links exposure to the herbicides with most childhood cancers, but new research does suggest some kind of connection between AML in children and their fathers' military service in Vietnam or Cambodia," says Irva Hertz-Picciotto, professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and chair of the study group.

She says: "Additional studies are needed to shed more light on this issue."

Vietnam veterans agree. More research and regulatory action needs to be done to help Vietnam veterans and their families fight this battle, according to Rick Weidman, a spokesman for the Vietnam Veterans of America.

"We're going to have to pick up the pace," says Weidman. "At this pace, literally all of us are going to be dead and our children are going to be older than we are today, who have birth defects … before we get answers and proper treatment and appropriate compensation."