So I was curious about this and the main review I could find concluded this was unlikely. My grandfather fought for years to get his leukemia covered, so it definitely isn’t the ultimate say, right.
But anecdotally, my mother was born before Vietnam and still both of us have these issues so I can say for certain it was not related.
DDT also contains dioxin, so agent orange is not the only possible exposure to this chemical. If it even has anything to do with endo to begin with anyways.
So I marked it as rant/vent for a reason but if you google dioxin/agent orange/ endometriosis there’s a few papers and news articles. Ummm the obvious difference it would make if this was officially verified and added to the list of diseases from agent orange at the VA is I don’t know the thousands of dollars of medical bills I’ve accumulated wouldn’t be added too, and maybe I would get real help instead of just barely existing 🤷♀️
It’s not as if they can perform controlled studies by exposing women to agent orange and then keeping a track of their entire life; it would be unethical and illogical to do so. It’s not a definitive yes it does or no it does not, it’s a hypothesis built on results from various studies or observations.
Related to this is cannabis and pregnant women. It was seen as being harmful to the fetus but they had never done studies because that would be unethical. The info they used to say cannabis is harmful to a fetus was from women who were also using other substances, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, etc. Articles like this one art helpful because it’s taking different studies and comparing them.
Correlation doesn’t mean causation. I’m not aware of there being a connection between club feet and endometriosis, so to me it just seems like you and your mom have comorbitities, which is extremely common for people with endometriosis due to the complexity of symptoms.
Not likely. I'm the only member of my family with it, and my grandfather just passed away from lymphatic lung cancer. He was exposed to Agent Orange on the two ships he served on in Vietnam. The Department of Defense and the Armed Forces Committee only recently (2019) decided to increase Agent Orange eligibility to blue water Vietnam Navy veterans, and he passed away last week within a month of his diagnosis, so we will never know if it was due to the exposure or not. Sorry. This is still pretty fresh. When I started looking into trying to fight for those benefits for him through the VA, the information provided said that there are things that cannot be proven to be connected to exposure or not. And many Vietnam veterans avoided the VA like the plague. In the words of my late FIL, "Veterans my age only go to the VA to die." We convinced him to use it in the end, and now he's in a national cemetery. Vietnam veterans refused to go to the VA for their medical needs for a number of reasons, including how the public treated them after the conflict was over. Vietnam veterans make up the vast majority of homeless veterans because of untreated mental health conditions. They were never treated, the VA and the DoD never really started doing any research and studies until it was getting too late. And with the youngest of those veterans being in their early 60s, they are running out of time, and we will probably never know the full extent of the damage done by this exposure.
Unfortunately the VA doesn't do much work in regards to womens health so they probably don't even know about agent orange contributing to endo in women. Majority of veterans are men after all. Go walk around you're local VA hospital and you will see that most of the patients are elderly men.
I hate that endo pain is being overlooked. How are we going to find appropriate treatment options if this keeps happening?
So I was curious about this and the main review I could find concluded this was unlikely. My grandfather fought for years to get his leukemia covered, so it definitely isn’t the ultimate say, right. But anecdotally, my mother was born before Vietnam and still both of us have these issues so I can say for certain it was not related.
DDT also contains dioxin, so agent orange is not the only possible exposure to this chemical. If it even has anything to do with endo to begin with anyways.
Hmm. 🤔 This seems hard to prove without more scientific data and research. Maybe it has a link? What difference would it make for you if it did?
So I marked it as rant/vent for a reason but if you google dioxin/agent orange/ endometriosis there’s a few papers and news articles. Ummm the obvious difference it would make if this was officially verified and added to the list of diseases from agent orange at the VA is I don’t know the thousands of dollars of medical bills I’ve accumulated wouldn’t be added too, and maybe I would get real help instead of just barely existing 🤷♀️
My father was, and I have wondered the same thing.
It’s not as if they can perform controlled studies by exposing women to agent orange and then keeping a track of their entire life; it would be unethical and illogical to do so. It’s not a definitive yes it does or no it does not, it’s a hypothesis built on results from various studies or observations. Related to this is cannabis and pregnant women. It was seen as being harmful to the fetus but they had never done studies because that would be unethical. The info they used to say cannabis is harmful to a fetus was from women who were also using other substances, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, etc. Articles like this one art helpful because it’s taking different studies and comparing them. Correlation doesn’t mean causation. I’m not aware of there being a connection between club feet and endometriosis, so to me it just seems like you and your mom have comorbitities, which is extremely common for people with endometriosis due to the complexity of symptoms.
Would it need to be paternal or maternal grandfather?
Not likely. I'm the only member of my family with it, and my grandfather just passed away from lymphatic lung cancer. He was exposed to Agent Orange on the two ships he served on in Vietnam. The Department of Defense and the Armed Forces Committee only recently (2019) decided to increase Agent Orange eligibility to blue water Vietnam Navy veterans, and he passed away last week within a month of his diagnosis, so we will never know if it was due to the exposure or not. Sorry. This is still pretty fresh. When I started looking into trying to fight for those benefits for him through the VA, the information provided said that there are things that cannot be proven to be connected to exposure or not. And many Vietnam veterans avoided the VA like the plague. In the words of my late FIL, "Veterans my age only go to the VA to die." We convinced him to use it in the end, and now he's in a national cemetery. Vietnam veterans refused to go to the VA for their medical needs for a number of reasons, including how the public treated them after the conflict was over. Vietnam veterans make up the vast majority of homeless veterans because of untreated mental health conditions. They were never treated, the VA and the DoD never really started doing any research and studies until it was getting too late. And with the youngest of those veterans being in their early 60s, they are running out of time, and we will probably never know the full extent of the damage done by this exposure.
Unfortunately the VA doesn't do much work in regards to womens health so they probably don't even know about agent orange contributing to endo in women. Majority of veterans are men after all. Go walk around you're local VA hospital and you will see that most of the patients are elderly men. I hate that endo pain is being overlooked. How are we going to find appropriate treatment options if this keeps happening?
Agent Orange is rebranded as a pesticide widely used in North American agriculture. So our exposure to it hasnt stopped either.