HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — Connecticut’s senior senator is calling for more research into genetic issues in veterans caused by exposure to toxins while they were serving in the military.
In particular, Vietnam War veterans and their children say exposure to Agent Orange caused lasting genetic damage they are still dealing with five decades later.
On a good day, you can’t tell Molly Loomis was born with spina bifida.
“You can’t see pain on looking at someone,” Loomis, the daughter of a Vietnam War veteran, said. “You can’t see chronic infections, you can’t see the impact of surgeries.”
For years, she didn’t see the connection between her birth defect and her father’s service in what’s known as the “Blue Water Navy,” but she kept researching.
“I plugged in the name of his ship, the Ogden, and all of a sudden references to Agent Orange started popping up,” Loomis said.
The U.S. military sprayed Agent Orange on the jungles of Vietnam to kill the foliage and make it harder for the enemy to hide, but it’s since been shown to cause cancer and birth defects. Army veteran Jerry Augustine knows he was exposed, and so was the gear he brought back from Vietnam.
“My young son was 2-years-old at the time and started to play with my gear, and he even used it for Halloween and everything and he became 100% disabled,” Augustine said.
That son died this year, another son of his also died, and a third is currently sick.
U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is now reintroducing a bill that expands research on health issues among descendants of toxic-exposed veterans.
“There is almost no cost involved in the research to be done here which can be in effect augmented or added to other program that are already ongoing,” Blumenthal explained.
The bill he is reintroducing is named after Loomis, who hopes it will help others who struggle with health issues and the source of those issues.
“It’s a really painful place to be,” Loomis said. “So, if there were more answers for more ‘children’ out there, even one person, that means the world to me.”
Blumenthal said Molly’s bill simply ran out of time in the last session and he hopes for bipartisan support this year.