MORTALITY AMONG ARMY CHEMICAL CORPS VIETNAM VETERANS

Army Chemical Corps personnel who sewed in Vietnam were among those se rvice personnel with the greatest potential for exposure to herbicides . An earlier evaluation of the mortality experience of 894 Army Chemic al Corps Vietnam veterans found a statistically significant excess ris k of dying from digestive disease, primarily due to cirrhosis of the l iver and from motor vehicle accidents. That study was expanded to incl ude 2,872 Vietnam veterans who sewed with the Army Chemical Corps and a comparison cohort of 2,737 veterans who never served in Southeast As ia but who did serve in the same occupational category. The results of the analysis comparing the Vietnam cohort to the non-Vietnam cohort s upport the earlier finding of a significant excess of deaths from dige stive diseases (adjusted relative risk (RR) = 3.88, 95% C.I. = 1.12-13 .45) primarily due to liver cirrhosis. Non-significant elevated relati ve risks were observed for all cancers combined, digestive and respira tory systems cancers, skin cancer lymphopoietic cancers, and respirato ry, system diseases. Compared to the mortality rates in the general po pulation, the non-Vietnam Ar-my Chemical Corps veterans had a statisti cally significant deficit in mortality from all causes combined, which is consistent with a 'healthy selection bias' seen among military pop ulations (SMR = 0.79, 95% C.I. 0.66-0.94). For the Vietnam veterans, p atterns of elevated but nonsignificant SMRs persisted for diseases of the digestive and respiratory systems and for selected cancer sites. ( C) 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.