Diabetes is the most common ailment for which Vietnam veterans are receiving government disability compensation, despite tenuous grounds for the claims, the Associated Press reports.
About 270,000 veterans of the war, or 27% of those on disability of any kind, are claiming the checks for diabetes, an AP investigation discovered. Their claims total at least $850 million annually, out of $34 billion spent on disability benefits for all wars.
Claimants ostensibly attribute their diabetes to exposure to the defoliant Agent Orange, which was used widely during the campaign. But decades of research have failed to prove a certain link, according to the AP.
A 2000 study by the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine concluded that a link between Agent Orange and diabetes was merely possible, prompting Veterans Affairs to designate diabetes as an ailment qualifying for automatic benefits approval. A study carried out five years later found airmen who carried out Agent Orange spraying missions were actually less likely to develop diabetes than pilots not participating.
One claimant draws diabetes disability despite having spent just eight hours in Vietnam, during a layover on a flight home, the AP reports. Other common ailments, including erectile dysfunction, are also drawing compensation due to putative links to Agent Orange exposure.
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