Pinellas county, Florida, veteran claims 40-year cover-up by Air Force (Agent Orange)

Pinellas veteran claims 40-year cover-up by Air Force (Agent Orange)

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) – A former U.S. Air Force pilot called it the great betrayal.

Scott Nelms claims a 40-year cover up by the Air Force may have cost veterans and their families dearly. Nelms said the USAF sprayed significant amounts of the toxic defoliant Agent Orange at bases in Thailand.

The Pinellas County veteran accuses the Department of Veterans Affairs of stonewalling veterans who served in Thailand and ignoring the facts about what and when they suffered exposure.

Nelms points to a now-declassified 1973 report that said significant use of defoliants occurred on U.S. bases in Thailand. The Project CHECO Southeast Asia report “Base Defense in Thailand” also stated the defoliants were used inside the perimeter of bases.

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Steve Andrews has been an investigative reporter for this news station for awhile. He's a pretty no non-sense type of reporter. The information he's obtained from this veteran is quite compelling.

It seems there was a lot more to this story that was not brought to light as it should have been all those years ago when this was a major news story.

If indeed true, this is utterly appalling. I cannot fathom how a government can tout the might of their military and then knowingly mistreat those that volunteered to serve. Even worse, is they choose to cover it up and deny deny deny without any regard to the ongoing health and welfare of the veterans and their family members that trusted their superiors and who served their country so diligently.

I do hope that they (if these allegations turn out to be true) A) admit to it B) be accountable for doing it... and C) do everything possible (sparing no expense) to assure that any veterans and/or family members affected by this are compensated.. Greatly!

Our active duty service members and veterans alike deserve nothing less than the best while they're serving and after they've served, for the rest of their lives!

I have a very close personal friend who is a victim of this cover up....He secretly flew f-4's out of Laos and Agent Orange was used to clear the trees around his air base. He would jog the perimeter every morning for his exercise....He now is suffering from Parkinson's and due the secrecy of his mission the VA will not acknowledged or treat him for his exposure during his tours in Nam.......


SHAMEFUL!!!

Atomic testing,gulf war syndrome,agent orange etc etc militaries world wide have a standard operating proceedure world wide for such things, deny and obfuscate till there is only a few survivors left then pay a pittance.

a reply to: UberL33t

A great friend of the family here in Tampa just passed away earlier this year because he was exposed to Agent Orange during his Air Force tour in Vietnam.

Yea, the Air Force and department of Veteran Affairs is right on schedule for a class action law suit.

It's inevitable.

a reply to: UberL33t

It's interesting to see this resurface.

I had a friend who was exposed to Agent Orange and went through a long drawn out court battle, but like others he received a large settlement in the end. I suspect many are still uncompensated.

Here is some more info -

Agent Orange Record

The Settlement Fund closed in 1997.

The Settlement Fund closed in 1997. Below is a brief history.

The Agent Orange Settlement Fund was created by the resolution of the Agent Orange Product Liability Litigation - a class action lawsuit brought by Vietnam Veterans and their families regarding injuries allegedly incurred as a result of the exposure of Vietnam Veterans to chemical herbicides used during the Vietnam war. The suit was brought against the major manufacturers of these herbicides. The class action case was settled out-of-court in 1984 for $180 million dollars, reportedly the largest settlement of its kind at that time.

I know my friend received a large enough settlement to see him through the rest of his life. I wonder how many did not know that they won the case and money was available?

Tough call on some where they have something like lung cancer, have smoked their whole lives and believe it was caused by Agent Orange. I can see why they would need to set a time limit of some kind.

Agent Orange was a plant growth regulator, er it was supposed to just be a plant growth regulator, but there "was some kind of cockup" in the mix, which just kept happening again and again each batch they mixed up. I figure the pilots thought they were just supposed to be dumping the defoliator, where the deliberate agenda was actual proper chemical warfare of the anti-human biology variety.

a reply to: ColdWisdom

The problem is that this was so long ago the Class Action is settled and the money was paid out. This was a long time ago.

They will have a difficult time after all these years blaming their ailments on Agent Orange since they did not make a claim before when funds were available to them. Tough thing for those who are correct about Agent Orange being the cause.

a reply to: Blaine91555

I don't want to go into the details of my late friend's case because there is in fact a litigation pending.

But the litigation will be with the Hillaborough Co. VA.

I have the utmost respect for people willing to go to war when need be.
Having said that, I could never myself give up my freedom to become a tool used by my government however they see fit and to have them treat or expose me however they seem acceptable. I can't understand how they still get people to join up willingly. You give up your life to them. You are just a number used till you expire and replaced with another. You are taught to never question an order but to comply, even if it means guaranteed death. I could never have that much trust in government.
It's reason like this I KNOW I made the right choice to never be involved in any of their institutions.
My hats off to any who took that path, voluntarily or by draft.

a reply to: ColdWisdom

Yeah, I imagine there are a few who's symptoms showed up after the fund was closed already. Tough thing and I hope it works out.

a reply to: Blaine91555

Do you think that with the new information (in regard to the allegation that additional locations where Agent Orange was being dispersed and potentially affected more service members than originally reported/admitted to) that this could be considered a "new" class action suit?

Those that settled, were stationed in the areas that they admitted to using this chemical. Now that it appears there were other locations this was used as well, and subsequently would have affected a completely different batch of service members.. I would think that this would be a separate class action suit than the one that was settled in the 90's.

a reply to: UberL33t

I'd hope they could. As time moves on and since it's widely known about the missions into area's they should not have been, it might be possible.

I'd think a good move would be to get some folks in Congress on their side.

They outlawed agent orange, but agent white is allowed to be used in this country. en.wikipedia.org...

It is used on power lines and on roadsides to kill off vegetation. It doesn't contain dioxin but does contain another sulfur based adjuvant which makes it almost as dangerous. The difference with agent orange and agent white is that agent orange got a bad name so it was tested a real lot. Testing on Agent White is restricted, not much is done. I understand we do need a herbicide, but they should inform those around where they are spraying that it is bad for you. I hate picking berries where they spray it. I haven't picked berries on the power lines anymore since I did some research on it. I also ask people about the use of it or other chemicals on the roadsides, they are starting to spray instead of brushing roadsides now.

Be informed that similar chemistries that can cause us harm are out there. They may be safe for one person but harm others if the person has limited ability to detox the chemistry. This limited ability is not rare, around thirty to forty percent of people can have problems with various chemistries. I am being very conservative with that last sentence.

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Those are dioxins. One of most toxic organic compounds known to men. They are pretty stable also. It is byproduct of many reactions - for example manufacturing of some kinds of herbicides.

My next door neighbor's dad fought in Vietnam. He came back with agent orange poisoning. He was constantly tested every month for at least 40yrs before he passed away. Had several incidents involving ambulances because of it. They said with the amount of it he had in his system, he should have died 30 years before he did. Military took care of him tho. Even after he passed, the military still takes care of his wife.