VETERANS: Senator Murray Speaks Out Against Amendment to Block Compensation for Agent Orange Exposure

Press Release

Murray: Amendment would undo decades of policy on how we treat veterans suffering from diseases associated with Agent Orange exposure

Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray gave a speech on the Senate Floor speaking out against an amendment that would create a nearly impossible standard that must be met before VA can establish a presumption of service connection based on exposure to Agent Orange. In the speech, Senator Murray described the amendment as another hurdle Vietnam veterans would have to overcome in their 40 year struggle for compensation. Senator Murray pointed out that under the amendment, sponsored by Senator Tom Coburn, veterans would be faced with the impossible task of proving that they would never have gotten cancer, heart disease, or any other disease or condition, if not for Agent Orange. Vietnam veterans who have diabetes, prostate cancer, lung cancer, and blood borne diseases would be denied care and benefits under this amendment.

"These mistakes, these decades of neglect, have a cost. It's a cost to veterans and their loved ones, a cost to the government that sent them to war, and a cost to all of us as Americans," Senator Murray said. "And it's a cost that, even in difficult budget times, even with our back against the wall, we can't walk away from."

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