Nevertheless, the study recommends service personnel with prior exposure to TCDD to seek counselling on skin cancer. “Patients involved directly with spraying the agent and those with light eye and skin colours may be most susceptible to the development of nonmelanotic invasive skin cancer,” the study concludes. SEEKING REDRESS While Merchant suggests that the report alone presents sufficient evidence to proceed with a lawsuit, he believes that there are not enough veterans with skin cancer to pursue a class action suit against the government in Canada. “You can’t take them to court over a person who has lymphoma as a result of Agent Orange, because if they want to fight the long fight, then it will cost a million dollars to do that and you won’t get a million dollars in damages,” he notes. In 2005, Merchant Law launched a suit against the federal government with a group of soldiers who had developed health problems following exposure to Agent Orange in CFB Gagetown. The court accepted that the probability of health problems had increased significantly and certified the action, but it was overturned at the appeals court due to the sheer diversity of the group being represented — the veterans had 26 types of lymphomas and various kinds of cancers. The court ruled that Merchant Law would have to take each individual group separately. Seeking compensation through other means is not likely to be any easier. While the probability of causation may have
gone up in cases like the Gagetown veterans, Merchant says workers’ compensation boards often argue that the cause of adverse health effects cannot be proven beyond doubt. While skin cancer was not cited as one of the associated health effects in the Ontario Independent Fact-Finding Panel on Herbicide 2,4,5-T — released last June to investigate the use of the chemical spray by government workers — the Workers Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario (WSIB) will review and consider new studies and scientific evidence as they emerge, says Christine Arnott, spokesperson for the WSIB in Toronto. Following the report’s publication, the WSIB has moved forward with the adjudication process, and some workers have since received compensation. “For workers whose claims have been allowed, recognizing their direct exposure to 2,4,5-T and high levels of TCDD, the WSIB provides a broad range of benefits, which can include full healthcare coverage, loss of earnings benefits [and] benefits related to the degree of a worker’s permanent impairment,” Arnott says. The board has also set up an occupational-disease information line on which concerned workers can leave a message. But adjudication in occupational disease claims remains a complex matter. “In each case, we review the individual’s work activities and exposures, along with expert scientific and medical evidence regarding the worker’s condition and its relation to the workplace exposure,” Arnott says. Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada
Carmelle Wolfson is assistant editor of
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