Mr. B Billson MHR
Federal Member for Dunkley
PO Box 501
Frankston VIC 3199

Sunday 23^rd of April 2006

Dear Mr Billson

The issues this Association has collectively faced over the past 20 or so years have borne fruit for the majority of our members. Recognition was the first hurdle. To get someone in Federal Government to actually agree that maybe, just maybe, the 25 trips to and from Vietnam that HMAS Sydney undertook were NOT pleasure cruises, and, in fact, we actually went to a place where people were shooting at each other – a war zone, and that there is no such thing as a rear echelon in the Navy – everyone on board a Navy ship has an action station.

I also find it rather ironic that in more recent times we find ourselves being the subject of investigations into water contamination and having statistics quoted back at us stating that we were more at risk from Agent Orange and its derivatives than what the shore based personnel ever were. I hope the current Federal Government doesn’t conveniently forget the soldiers brought back home on the return journey by HMAS Sydney, we having, unbeknown to us, filled our fresh water tanks with contaminated water. They, as do we, deserve better than this.

Mr Billson, you may have noted recent articles in the Melbourne Herald-Sun (20^th March p. 12, 08^th April pp.25-26 and 10^th April p.14) by Neil Wilson regarding this very same issue, He, in similar fashion to us, is very keen to get hold of a copy of the DVA epidemiological study which has been on the go for in excess of three years now. The question that also must be asked, is how valid will this dated information be? I for one can only presume that our particular part of the epidemiological study was based upon figures provided by DVA when there were only 10,207 RAN members recorded as having served in the logistical support role. These details were subsequently mentioned in the first edition of the Nominal roll of Vietnam Veterans (1996). The latest figures this Association has from an informal, updated and yet to be published nominal roll, puts the number of RAN members who served in the logistical support role as at 28^th February 2006, at 12,918; almost 3,000 more than when the study first started in December 2002, with more entries being submitted and checked almost every day.

Nobody in authority has even appeared slightly worried or concerned about the soldiers and airmen we brought home. Each of the return trips noted below as having Army or RAAF personnel on board would have seen anything upwards of five hundred of these people in the so called ‘safe’ environment of HMAS Sydney; glad of a warm meal, a ‘brew’ whenever they wanted it, and able to take a regular shower (albeit a very short one). After serving ashore for almost twelve months, these people were then exposed to the same contaminated water as we were. Why haven’t they been included in these studies? Surely the RSL and like-minded ex-service organisations will soon be asking the same questions that we are asking now. The following data amplifies the point regarding sailors doing the round trip, and others such as Army and RAAF Units returning to Australia and partaking of the same contaminated water while in transit from Vietnam to Australia.

Trip 01 – May/June 1965 – 725 RAN only for the round trip
Trip 02 – September/October – 840 RAN only for the round trip
Trip 03 – April/May 1966 – 732 RAN only for the round trip
Trip 04 – May/June 1966 – 692 RAN only for the round trip
Trip 05/06 – April/May 1967 659 RAN & 500+ 5RAR returning *
Trip 07 – May/June 1967 681 RAN & 500+ 6RAR returning *
Trip 08 – Dec. 1967/January 1968 731 RAN only for the round trip
Trip 09 – January/February 1968 738 RAN only for the round trip
Trip 10 – March/April 1968 736 RAN & 500+ 7RAR returning *
Trip 11 – May/June 1968 757 & 500+ 2RAR returning *
Trip 12 – November 1968 709 RAN only for the round trip
Trip 13 – February 1969 606 RAN & 500+ 1 RAR returning *
Trip 14 – May 1969 686 RAN & 500+ 4RAR returning *
Trip 15 – November/December 1969 ? RAN & 500+ 9RAR returning *
Trip 16 – February/March 1970 631 RAN & 500+ 5RAR returning *
Trip 17 – October/November 1970 695 RAN & 500+ 8RAR returning *
Trip 18 – February/March 1971 674 RAN & 506 7RAR returning *
Trip 19 – March/April 1971 613 RAN only for the round trip
Trip 20 – May/June 1971 630 RAN & 500+ 2RAR returning *
Trip 21 – September/October 1971 567 RAN & 518 3RAR returning *
Trip 22 – October/November 1971 612 RAN & Army support units *
Trip 23 – Nov/Dec. 1971 617 RAN & 365 4RAR & RAAF returning *
Trip 24 – Feb/March 1972 663 RAN & 474 Army personnel returning *
Trip 25 – November 1972 609 RAN & 44 Army personnel for round-trip 

All of the above figures have been gleaned from official documentation. Where numbers of RAN personnel are concerned, these numbers were obtained from the crew lists for HMAS Sydney for each of her 25 trips. There was only one trip, trip 15, which was incomplete, because the list of officers borne for that trip was missing. Where numbers of Army and RAAF personnel are concerned, these numbers were obtained from HMAS Sydney Commanding Officer’s Report of Proceedings (ROP), for the trips when the ship had Army and RAAF personnel aboard who were returning to Australia. The return trips are those indicated by an asterisk. The only departure from this is trip 25, for which the 44 troops carried in HMAS Sydney were considered to be part of the ship’s company and participated in the whole journey. It may therefore be concluded with some confidence, that between 7,000 to 7,500 personnel from the other two services would not have been included in the as yet to be published contaminated water study. In the opinion of this writer, they should have been.

If my suggestions are correct and I think they are, the study has been based upon the original 10,207 RAN members involved in the logistical support role and the numbers of RAN personnel involved in what was colloquially known as ‘Gun-line’ and other combat related service which accounts for at least another 2,858 [1] personnel which neatly fits the ‘over 13,000 RAN Vietnam veterans’ statement made by you Minister on or about the 08^th of April 2006 in response to questions posed by Neil Wilson of the Melbourne Herald-Sun.

The publication which will have formed the basis of the above, as yet to be published study would have been Mortality of Vietnam Veterans: the Veteran Cohort Study, which was carried out in 1997 on behalf of the DVA by the University of Western Sydney (UWS). At Chapter 9 of this publication sub-section 9.1, sub-titled Mortality compared with Australian males, it is reported that: “The estimated Standard Mortality Rates (SMR) for 1980-1994, which also take account of under-ascertainment of deaths, varied by branch of service:”

          1.00 (95% CI 0.94 to 1.05) for Army Vietnam Veterans
          1.12 (95% CI 0.97 to 1.27) for Air Force Vietnam Veterans; and
          1.37 (95% CI 1.23 to 1.52) for Navy Vietnam Veterans [2]

These figures tend to suggest that, for the years 1980-1994, Navy Vietnam Veterans were at least one third more likely to have died during this period when compared to (a) the general population of Australian males, and (b) the other two branches of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). Support for this assertion is also contained in a study titled Cancer Incidence in Australian Vietnam Veterans (2004), in which Wilson, Horsley and Van der Hoek have stated: “The incidence of cancer varied by service branch. Navy veterans had the highest incidence rate of cancer of the three service branches, elevated by 28 %.” (p.3678)[3]

The five (5) Statements of Principle (SOP) that the Repatriation Medical Authority have amended to include consumption of potable water now include the following sub-paragraph under the sub-heading of “Factors”. For example; the SOP for Hodgkin’s lymphoma at 5, Factors, (c) states that one of the factors “that must as a minimum exist before it can be said that a reasonable hypothesis has been raised connecting Hodgkin’s lymphoma” etc, etc, includes:

(c)   being:
(i)    on land in Vietnam, or
(ii)   at sea in Vietnamese waters, or
(iii) on board a vessel and consuming potable water supplied on that vessel, when the water supply had been produced by evaporative distillation of estuarine Vietnamese waters, for a cumulative period of at least thirty days, at least five years before the clinical onset of Hodgkin’s lymphoma;

Yet by comparison, a claim by a veteran for the very same medical condition, when viewed by the United States Department of Veterans’ Affairs under the regulations contained in U.S. Public Law 102-4, is considered valid or otherwise by what the U.S. authorities term ‘a Presumptive Service-Connection’ which, when applied to a veteran’s claim, simply presumes that:

Any veteran who served in Vietnam between January 9, 1962, and May 7, 1975, and has one or more of the diseases on the list of presumptive conditions that the VA maintains is presumed by VA to have been exposed to herbicides, and therefore that his or her disease is recognized for service-connection if rated as 10 percent or more disabling. (p.4)[4]

Section 3.313(a) of the United States Code of Federal Regulations specifically defines service in Vietnam as including: “serving in the waters offshore, or service in other locations if the conditions of service involved duty or visitation in Vietnam.” There does not appear to be any form of mandatory time limits imposed on ‘time in the zone’ or amount of exposure required for one to qualify for treatment or compensation for Agent Orange related illnesses. The only real stipulation is that the condition is rated by medical evaluation as being 10 per cent or more disabling.

It seems to me to be rather strange that on one hand we have the most scientifically advanced nation on earth (U.S.) being extremely more accepting of the fact that there is a valid connection between exposure to Agent Orange and other chemicals of similar formulation, the many and varied ways that it may be ingested into the human system, and military/naval service in Vietnam. But similar authorities here in Australia, i.e., the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) and the Repatriation Medical Authority (RMA) appear to be far more stringent and far less accommodating in their interpretations of the medical/scientific evidence relating to this and other comparable conditions. Why?

As you Mr. Billson and your Parliamentary colleague Mr. Pearce should by now know, South Vietnam was divided up into four military zones. These zones were known as Corps areas One, Two, Three and Four. According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) publication titled Vietnam and Agent Orange: (1994) “Three Corps was the most heavily sprayed area in Vietnam, receiving about 53 percent of all herbicide sprays from 1965 to 1971.”  The Rung Sat Special Zone (RSSZ) in Three Corps, located to the South and East of Saigon and through which the Long Tau Shipping Channel wound its way “was the most heavily sprayed area in the whole of South Vietnam.” (p.104) Run-off from the spray would have made its way down the Long Tau and into the Bay de Gahn Rai. HMAS Sydney and her escort(s) always anchored in the northern end of the Vung Tau anchorage, adjacent to Can Gio, to allow the battalion to disembark while Sydney’s cargo handling crew unloaded their stores and equipment. This anchorage position was a constant one, which was virtually opposite the mouth of the Long Tau Shipping Channel where the channel meets the Baie de Gahn Rai.

The U.S. Commander Naval Forces Vietnam (COMNAVFORV) has defined the RSSZ as: “The general area of operations bordered on the West by Long An and Co Gong Provinces along the Soi Rap River, on the North by Nhan Trach district of Bien Hoa Province, to the East by Phuoc Tuy Province and to the South by the South China Sea.” The RSSZ was centred 20 miles south-east of Saigon and measured approximately 18 miles East to West and 20 miles North to South.

I have enclosed a map of herbicide spray missions (1966-1967) carried out in the RSSZ, contained at p.105 of the NAS publication, Vietnam and Agent Orange, which also gives details regarding the date of the mission, the number of gallons sprayed and the type of herbicide agent used.

I have also recently located a copy of a signal from COMNAVFORV DTG 021124Z April 68 to the Commanding Officer 7^th Air Force Saigon, which reads as follows:

Defoliation in RSSZ (U)
1.      I am greatly appreciative of the many defoliation missions flown by Ranch Hand aircrews in the RSSZ. As you well know, a major concern in the RSSZ is the vegetation along the main shipping channel, the Long Tau. Your continuing efforts under difficult and hazardous flying conditions, in keeping this area and the inland areas in the RSSZ devoid of vegetation have contributed considerably in denying the enemy the protective cover from which to ambush the slow moving merchant ships and U.S. Navy craft.
2.      With the coming of the S W monsoon season, and commensurate with the priorities of your in-country projects, I am hopeful that we can continue to keep pressure on the enemy in the RSSZ. RADM VETH sends.
GP-4

Initially, the U.S forces were not at all concerned about the after-effects of Agent Orange as, in very simplistic terms, it (Agent Orange) was being used against the enemy.

Of particular interest to Australian Veterans is the assertion by Hardell, Eriksson and Axelson (1998) of the Department of Oncology, Orebro Medical Centre, Sweden, when writing in the International Journal of Health Services, in an article entitled Agent Orange in war medicine: an aftermath myth. They have written that:

The results of some of the epidemiological studies on cancer risk associated with exposure to these compounds have been manipulated and misinterpreted, particularly by the Australian Royal Commission on the Use and Effects of Chemical Agents on Australian Personnel in Vietnam. Furthermore, a book on Australian war history entitled Medicine at War, commissioned by the Federal Government, reiterates several of these misinterpretations, despite available contrary evaluations from Australian and U.S. authorities.

Furthermore, in a Reuters Health article dated 18^th October 2001, titled Snafu Puts Hold on Compensation for Some Vietnam Vets, it is stated, amongst other things of immediate relevance, that:

A gaffe by Australian researchers has forced the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to temporarily cancel plans to compensate Vietnam veterans for cancers linked to the infamous herbicide Agent Orange.

A faulty survey questionnaire distributed to 50,000 ex-soldiers in Australia has called into question a major study that led experts last Spring to link Agent Orange exposure to rare but highly fatal acute myelogenous leukaemia (AML) in children of veterans. [5]

For your Department, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) to assert that there is insufficient sound medical scientific evidence to link leukaemia and other diseases such as diabetes with exposure to dioxins is inferring that the US research that assumes a valid connection is wrong. This assertion in my opinion is flying in the face of clinical logic and sound scientifically based reasoning, carried out by the US National Academy of Sciences – Institute of Medicine – an Institution with a world-wide reputation. 

In conclusion, my letter of the 06^th of February 2006, in connection with the above, and the ongoing issue of Lieutenant EG Kennell RAN and Lt. Commander Ferguson RANR, has, to date, not received any form of written acknowledgement, from either yourself or Mr. Pearce. This was in regards to my written inquiry as to whether or not I should make fresh submissions to you, the incoming Minister, or would past submissions suffice with respect to these very important issues?

Regards

 

Dr. John R Carroll PhD EdD MAPsS
Hon. Secretary
HMAS Sydney & VLSV Assoc. (VIC)

Email carrollj@bigpond.net.au

Sunday 23^rd of April 2006