Name:   MAJ USA RET - Subject:   I've been Workin' on the Railroad Date:   2/17/2011 8:13:54 PM

Across the United States and Canada, railroad rights of way need to be cleared of encroaching vegetation.  It’s not like you can have a tractor with railcar wheels and flail blades.  So, the most effective way to keep vegetation out of the rights of way and the ballast is a liberal application of herbicide.  In the sixties, guess which herbicide was preferred?  You got it… agent orange!

Well, you would think that railroad workers and folks along railroads would be flooding lawyers and Congress for redress… hmmm… you would think.

Toxic substances are well studied.  Indeed they are published in the NIOSH Guide to Chemical Hazards http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npg/ and DOT’s Emergency Response Guide http://www.phmsa.dot.gov/hazmat/library/erg .  By reading these guides, workers and medical responders learn that toxic substances attack specific organs or functions and result in specific symptoms.

Then there is the classic “S” curve of toxicity.  It relates the amount of exposure (concentration) to the response in the biological (and human) population. (See a simple explanation at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dose-response_relationship ). 

Ah!  But then there is the time over which an organism… we are organisms… is exposed.  For example:

a)   You get a chest x-ray at the doctor’s office = ~75mREM (instantaneous) to your chest.

b)   The average annual dosage for flight personnel = ~219 mREM (spread over a year)

c)   You are a soldier walking through the jungles of Viet Nam; you occasionally walk through an area treated with agent orange.

d) You are a railroad or state DOT worker; you work for days, weeks, years with Agent Orange.

I NEVER hear of a highway or railroad worker complaining of health issues associated with Agent Orange.  Yet, I will go to a VFW meeting, or tell war stories with fellow vets… and sooner or later I begin to hear of them “suffering” from Agent Orange… or, my word, “Gulf War Syndrome”.  None can agree on any symptoms.  Hmmm… Google the symptoms of Agent Orange or Gulf War Syndrome.

For every toxic substance documented by the medical profession, academia, and insurance companies, there are specific responses to toxic substances.  Not so with Agent Orange or Gulf War Syndrome.

I am want to keep it to myself in their presence… honor their service to their country.  Perhaps I should have kept this to myself.