Three decades is a “shamefully long” time for veterans to wait, the groups said in the report, especially considering the prevalence of toxins at military bases and deployment sites. “There isn’t a major conflict in the past 100 years that has been immune to this epidemic,” the report said. About 2.7 million service members who fought in the Vietnam War may have been exposed to the cancer-causing herbicide Agent Orange from 1962 to 1975, officials said. But the first veterans to be exposed had to wait nearly 30 years before Congress passed the Agent Orange Act of 1991, which established a link between the herbicide and certain cancers and diseases. Under the law, affected veterans no longer needed to show they were exposed to Agent Orange to get disability compensation.

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Persons: Mark Jackson, ”, Jackson, marathoner, “, ” Jackson, Orange Organizations: Khanabad, Base, NBC News, DAV Communications, Military, Association of America, DAV, American Veterans, Department of Veterans Affairs Locations: Uzbekistan, Melbourne , Florida, Vietnam