I am an attorney, trying to find a connection between agent orange and
crohns disease.

---

Request for Question Clarification by knowledge_seeker-ga on 06 Oct 2003 08:08 PDT

Hi stuartlaw - 

It might be helpful to understand that "Agent Orange" itself is
generally not considered to be the causative agent for most of the
conditions associated with it. Agent Orange is a 50/50% mixture of
2,4-D and 2,4,5-T which produced the toxic breakdown product, TCDD --
otherwise known as Dioxin.

The toxic effects of Dioxin have been well documented since Dioxin
used to be a biproduct of the paper industry as well as a biproduct of
the defoliant Agent Orange. In animals effects include wasting
syndrome, gastric ulcers, immunotoxicity, hepatotoxicity,
hepatoporphyria, vascular lesions, chloracne, teratogenicity,
fetotoxicity, impaired reproductive performance, endometriosis and
delayed death.

I was unable to find any research that connects Dioxin with Crohn's
Disease, however there are some animal studies that discuss dioxin's
effects on certain aspects of the digestive tract, including gastric
ulcers.

I'd be happy to provide you with bibliographies and abstracts for
those studies if you like.

Let me know --

-K~

---

Request for Question Clarification by knowledge_seeker-ga on 15 Oct 2003 10:24 PDT

Hi stuartlaw,

I saw your question still here and I wondered, given the information
we have provided you so far, if there is anything further you'd like
us to do for you?

-K~

I don't think you'll find a definitive relationship between this
disease and Agent Orange; at least not yet. Officially, there are ten
(and soon to be eleven) recognized conditions related to Agent Orange
exposure:

"Ten diseases are presumed by VA to be service-related for
compensation purposes for veterans exposed to Agent Orange and other
herbicides used in support of military operations in the Republic of
Vietnam between Jan. 9, 1962, and May 7, 1975. The diseases presumed
are chloracne or other acneform disease similar to chloracne,
porphyria cutanea tarda, soft-tissue sarcoma (other than osteosarcoma,
chondrosarcoma, Kaposi's sarcoma or mesothelioma), Hodgkin's disease,
multiple myeloma, respiratory cancers (lung, bronchus, larynx,
trachea), non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, prostate cancer, acute and subacute
peripheral neuropathy and diabetes mellitus (Type 2). VA has announced
plans to establish a presumption for one additional disease, chronic
lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), in 2003."

http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/fed_prog/va_benefits/3-ben-progs.htm

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga

You may also wish to see the list on http://www.cwcd.com/agent_orange.htm
answerfinder-ga

Please specify the actual kind of connection you require i.e.,
pharmacological or chemical?

I found this article from 1998 in PubMed MEDLINE by doing a search for
"Agent Orange" AND Crohn's disease:

Am J Gastroenterol. 1998 Sep;93(9):1457-62.  

Military history of patients with inflammatory bowel disease: an
epidemiological study among U.S. veterans.

Delco F, Sonnenberg A.

The Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and The University
of New Mexico, Albuquerque 87108, USA.

OBJECTIVES: The military history of patients with inflammatory bowel
disease (IBD) contains types of exposure that are not available
through other sources and may provide clues about the as-yet unknown
etiology of IBD. We therefore sought to describe the epidemiology of
IBD among veterans, with particular emphasis on their military
history. METHODS: A case-control study compared 10,544 IBD patients
and 42,026 controls with respect to age, gender, ethnicity, time
period of military service, military duty in Vietnam, status as
prisoner of war, and exposure to Agent Orange. RESULTS: Subjects with
Crohn's disease were younger than those with ulcerative colitis or
without IBD (odds ratio: 0.85; 95% confidence interval [CI]:
0.83-0.87). Both types of IBD affected female veterans significantly
more often than male veterans, the relative female predominance being
more pronounced in Crohn's disease than ulcerative colitis (0.70;
0.61-0.81 vs 0.83; 0.71-0.96). Whites were more prone to develop both
types of IBD than nonwhites (2.46; 2.27-2.68 vs 2.11; 1.95-2.27).
Military duty in Vietnam and a status as prisoner of war both exerted
a protective influence against Crohn's disease (0.84; 0.75-0.96 and
0.60; 0.41-0.87, respectively), but not ulcerative colitis.
CONCLUSIONS: The results are consistent with the hypothesis that
exposure to poor sanitation decreases the future risk of developing
Crohn's disease.

PMID: 9732925 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]