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VICTIMS GROUP SAYS CANADIAN AGENT ORANGE
COMPENSATION FALLS SHORT -- A group
representing
victims says the decision ignores massive
amounts
of other chemicals used at Base Gagetown.
For the article describing Base Gagetown Agent
Orange compensation...click here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/07/
nf07/nfSEP07/nf091307-5.htm
For more about Agent Orange and Base Gagetown, use the VA Watchdog search
engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/ses
search.php?q=gagetown&op=and
Story here...
http://www.theglobeandmail.
com/servlet/story/LAC.20070913.OR
ANGE13/TPStory/National
Story below:
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Agent Orange compensation falls short, victims
group says
by OLIVER MOORE
A limited number of people are being offered federal compensation for
the spraying of Agent Orange at a military base 40 years ago, but a
group representing victims says the decision ignores massive amounts of
other chemicals used there.
The federal offer, which admits no legal liability to the victims, is a
tax-free, lump-sum payment of $20,000. It can be awarded to people who
lived or worked near CFB Gagetown in New Brunswick during the spraying
of Agent Orange and who show one of a list of designated ailments.
The government believes fewer than 5,000 people will qualify under its
terms, meaning the package should cost less than $100-million.
The spraying was done over a period of seven days in 1966 and 1967.
Agent Orange, a powerful defoliant used extensively during the Vietnam
War, was one of the so-called "rainbow herbicides" tested then, along
with Agents White and Purple.
Those who believe their health was affected by this spraying have fought
the government for years.
Veterans Affairs Minister Greg Thompson said yesterday that his
government "regrets" that so much time had passed and that so many
Canadians had "waited and worried while their questions went
unanswered."
"We are proud to announce a plan that is fair and shows compassion to
the thousands of Canadians whose lives have been so affected," he said,
announcing the details of the compensation at a news conference in
Fredericton also attended by Defence Minister Peter MacKay.
But Kenneth Dobbie, the leader of the Agent Orange Association of
Canada, said it is "ridiculous" to focus only on those defoliants. He
argues that the government is ignoring extensive use of the contaminant
hexachlorobenzene from the 1950s to the 1980s.
"The gall to define this to a very tightly defined period of two years,"
he said in a telephone interview from his home in Kingston. "We had
hoped that it would have been a fair package but it is totally
inadequate."
Mr. Dobbie, 59, said the scope of the compensation offer, which is
eligible to anyone who lived in any community within five kilometres of
the sprawling base, is a clue that the government realizes the problem
extends beyond the localized spraying of Agent Orange.
Figures compiled for the class-action lawsuit being pursued by Mr.
Dobbie's organization put the number of people potentially affected by
the decades of spraying at 315,000. The number could easily climb to
more than a million if the descendants of direct victims are included.
"Those 315,000 may have had gene damage and could be passing along DNA
that is defective," he said. "There's something terribly wrong [at the
base]."
Mr. Dobbie said that his health began to suffer within months of the
1966 spraying. That summer he was a teenager clearing brush on the base
as part of a government job-creation program.
He has been on disability for the past 17 years, suffering from serious
liver problems, diabetes, frontal lobe atrophy, hypertension and thyroid
problems, among other ailments. A number of his high school friends have
died of cancer in the past two years, and his child has a disability.
"I can claim for the compensation but I'm not sure I'll take it," Mr.
Dobbie said. "I'd rather see the bastards in court."
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Larry Scott --
