There are 12,000 MDS diagnosis a year. With US population of 320,000,000 this amounts to about 38 patients per million. There are about 1,645 MDS transplants for 12,000 patients or about 14% of MDS patients in the US receive a transplant. Therefore there are 38 x .14 = 5 transplants per million US population.
The VA does a total of about 84 MDS transplants a year. There are 2 hospitals, Puget Sound did 28, TN. did 56. This is for all veterans. This means the VA did 84/21.8 million = 4 transplants per million veterans. Just slightly less than the general population.
Does agent orange cause MDS? There is little proof that it does. However it as likely as not that agent orange plays a role. The only chemical shown to play major role in primary MDS is benzene. Benzene containing solvents (including gasoline) were used to make agent orange easier to spray. There was also a small amount of dioxin in the herbicide as an unwanted containment.
Am I a shill for the VA? Consider they give me $917.13 a month. They also give me free the 19 drugs I take for GVHD which cost around $400 a month, free medical services, hearing aides, eye glasses, etc. You judge. No way am I going to tell them to stop. I am being treated fairly. I would gladly give them back all the comps if I could be cured of my disability. When I found that I had MDS I went to a VA oncologist. Bottom line, I had MDS, there is a long waiting list, I would be dead before my number came up. I called the hospital and was told there was no waiting list. All I needed was a referral from my VA oncologist. Catch 22.
I have done 6 clinical trials. I am willing to participate in a study.
The numbers are not guaranteed to be 100% accurate. I think the sources are pretty accurate. I could not find MDS rates among those deployed to Southeast Asia.
There are 21.8 million veterans of the U.S. armed forces as of 2014. There are 319 million Americans, according to the bureau.Nov 10, 2014
Vietnam War (1964-1975) Total U.S. Service members (Worldwide) 8,744,000, Living Veterans 7,391,000 85% of Vietnam veterans still living. Deployed to Southeast Asia 3,403,000 x .85 = 2,893,000 still alive.
Ray
references
http://bloodcell.transplant.hrsa.gov.../survival.aspx
https://bethematch.org/tcdirectory/search
http://www.va.gov/opa/publications/f...ricas_wars.pdf
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/dat...data-boot-camp