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T. D. Sterling; A. Arundel
Simon Fraser University Burnaby, British Columbia

JAMA. 1985;254(5):609.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

It is important to differentiate clearly between (1) the incidence of birth defects among the children of Vietnam veterans and (2) the incidence of birth defects among the children of Vietnam veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange. The results of the recent study in JAMA by Erickson et al¹ on American Vietnam veterans and the earlier study on Australian Vietnam veterans² strongly indicate that service in Vietnam is not a risk factor for birth defects. This is not by itself surprising. There are no strong a priori reasons to expect an increase in risk for all 2.6 million Vietnam veterans.

The question of importance, which has caused considerable scientific controversy and several major legal battles, is whether veterans actually exposed to Agent Orange while in Vietnam have experienced an increased risk of birth defects among their children. The Australian study did not address this . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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