The Hague

Aug 11

15 min read

Updated: 5 days ago

Agent Orange children are hiding in this story: inside the word “family”.

A Royal Commission is Australia’s highest form of public inquiry, established to investigate serious matters of public importance and make findings and recommendations to government.

On 23 June 2022, the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide heard directly from Associate Professor Ben Edwards and Dr Galina Daraganova about the Vietnam Veterans Family Study.

Counsel told the Commissioners that the study would be the subject of “some detailed evidence”.

Edwards told the Commission that the central question was whether there were intergenerational effects of Vietnam War service on veterans’ offspring.

Daraganova explained that the study examined the physical, mental and social health of the children of Australian Vietnam veterans.

This was not simply a mental-health study.

The Royal Commission was hearing evidence about intergenerational health.

Daraganova told the Commission that children of Vietnam veterans were showing worse outcomes overall than children of Vietnam-era personnel. These included higher reported depression, anxiety, PTSD and suicidal behaviour.

Edwards told the Commission that suicidal thoughts were reported by 41% of Vietnam veterans’ children compared with 31% of the comparison group.

He also explained that veterans in roles with greater potential exposure to traumatic events tended to have worse outcomes, while veterans with less exposure tended to have better outcomes — and their children had better outcomes. Daraganova said longer deployments were also associated with worse outcomes in children.

There was another important point.

Most of these children had not even been born when their fathers were deployed to Vietnam.

The intergenerational issue therefore could not simply be explained as children experiencing their fathers being away at war. It concerned what happened after the veteran returned home and the effects that followed through their families.

Edwards told the Commission that the implications for children and spouses could be lifelong and that government investment should extend beyond the veteran to their family.

When counsel returned to suicide among adult offspring, Edwards described the suicide results as “clear findings”.

The picture before the Royal Commission was therefore much bigger than the individual veteran:

Vietnam veterans → adult offspring → intergenerational effects → physical health + mental health + social health → mortality → suicide → lifelong consequences → family-specific research and support.

The 2014 Vietnam Veterans Family Study was formally in evidence

The Royal Commission didn’t simply hear witnesses talking about the Vietnam Veterans Family Study. The 2014 study itself became part of the Royal Commission’s evidence.

On 23 June 2022, the Commission formally admitted:

Exhibit 35-01.005 — Volume 1 of the Vietnam Veterans Health Study.

Exhibit 35-01.006 — Vietnam Veterans Health Study, Volume 2: A Study of Health and Social Issues in Vietnam Veteran Sons and Daughters (2014).

Exhibits 35-01.007 and 35-01.008 — additional volumes of the Vietnam veteran family research.

Exhibit 35-01.009 — research concerning spouses and partners of Vietnam veterans.

Exhibit 35-01.011 — The intergenerational consequences of war — anxiety, depression, suicidality and mental health among the children of war veterans.

Then, on 12 March 2024, only months before the Royal Commission delivered its Final Report, the 2014 Sons and Daughters study appeared in evidence again as Exhibit 90-02.070, together with the mortality study as Exhibit 90-02.071.

So the Royal Commission had an evidence package dealing with:

Vietnam veterans → spouses → sons and daughters → family health → mortality → intergenerational consequences.

Importantly, physical health was part of that evidence.

The hearing confirms that the physical-health component was absolutely known to the Royal Commission. Daraganova testified about it expressly. So nobody can reasonably describe the 2014 Vietnam Veterans Family Study as having been designed solely around mental health.

The 2014 Vietnam Veterans Family Study was expressly designed to examine the physical, mental and social health of veterans’ sons and daughters.

That matters when we later get to the Royal Commission’s recommendations about research, data and the health and wellbeing of Defence families.

The adult children of Vietnam veterans were already sitting in the Royal Commission’s evidence.

What did the 2014 Family Study actually compare?

The principal comparison in the 2014 Vietnam Veterans Family Study was not between the children of Vietnam veterans and the general Australian population.

It compared:

children of Vietnam veterans

with

children of Australian Defence personnel from the Vietnam era who did not deploy to Vietnam.

That comparison was designed to examine differences associated with Vietnam deployment.

But it did not answer a different and important question:

How did the physical health of Vietnam veterans’ sons and daughters compare with mainstream Australians of the same generation?

The study itself acknowledged limitations in making comparisons with the general Australian population.

This distinction matters.

Finding little or no difference between two military-family populations is not the same thing as establishing that either population has the same health profile as the broader Australian population.

The study was also cross-sectional and retrospective. The researchers acknowledged that this limited their ability to identify the precise mechanisms behind intergenerational effects and that stronger prospective longitudinal research would provide better information.

That left an important research question:

What happens to the physical health of these sons and daughters as they grow older?

And then there was Agent Orange.

The 2014 Vietnam Veterans Family Study explicitly considered herbicides, pesticides and other chemical exposures during the Vietnam War, including Agent Orange.

But there was a fundamental question: how was a veteran’s Agent Orange exposure actually determined?

The study did not reconstruct individual exposure using a combination of Defence records, unit locations, military occupations, duties, spraying records or individual historical TCDD measurements.

Instead, veterans were asked essentially:

Do you believe you were exposed to Agent Orange?

and

Has that belief been confirmed?

The report itself states there were:

“no details on how this information was confirmed.”

Thirty-one per cent of participating sons and daughters were classified as having fathers who believed they had been exposed and whose exposure had reportedly been confirmed.

That distinction matters.

An absence of confirmed exposure is not necessarily evidence of an absence of exposure.

This becomes particularly important when military occupation, unit, deployment location and duties could potentially provide additional information about likely historical exposure.

My father was a Plant Operator with the Royal Australian Engineers in Vietnam.

The study itself was capable of linking veterans with service information including rank, corps and primary role.

Yet its Agent Orange exposure measure relied heavily on veterans’ reported belief and whether that belief had been “confirmed”.

So when the study reported that it had not found a causal link between paternal Agent Orange exposure and children’s health, that finding has to be understood in the context of the exposure measure and the study’s other limitations.

The researchers also acknowledged that some relevant diseases may emerge later in life and that associations could potentially become detectable as the sons and daughters grew older.

For some rare outcomes, there simply weren’t enough cases to draw reliable conclusions.

The study did not prove that Agent Orange could not affect veterans’ children. It did not establish a causal link within the study it conducted. Those are not the same statement.

And what happened next is important.

In 2015, veterans and their organisations formally told DVA that more research was needed.

Following publication of the 2014 Vietnam Veterans Family Study, DVA conducted a formal feedback process.

The Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia explicitly recommended further investigation of chemical exposure and its effects on veterans’ children and grandchildren.

Under the heading “Future Research”, DVA recorded a recommendation that:

“the link between exposure to chemicals and herbicides by Vietnam veterans and their descendants be fully investigated”

including groups that had been excluded from the original study.

DVA’s summary of future research priorities also included continued research into the health of Vietnam veterans and their extended families, including second and third generations, as well as chemical exposures that may have affected long-term health.

The comparison group was questioned too.

Feedback recorded in Appendix A said the comparison should have been made against:

“mainstream Australian peers”

rather than relying only on non-deployed Vietnam-era military families.

There were also calls for treatment and compensation pathways for descendants of Vietnam veterans, including suggestions for Gold Card coverage.

One piece of feedback described the study as:

“Only descriptive of a situation, not prescriptive for a remedy”.

The Royal Australian Regiment Association also said that while the study might have come too late for many Vietnam veterans themselves, it remained relevant to their children and grandchildren.

So by 2015, DVA had formally received concerns about:

chemical and herbicide exposure → children and grandchildren → second and third generations → comparison with mainstream Australians → further research → treatment and compensation.

These weren’t questions raised for the first time after the Royal Commission.

They were already sitting in the Australian Government’s own records.

And then I went back even further.

To 2007 — They were already asking these questions

The research behind the Vietnam Veterans Family Study began years before the final 2014 report.

In 2007, experts considering how Australia should investigate the intergenerational health effects of military service recorded:

“Epigenetics is an emerging field likely to be relevant to intergenerational health effects.”

They even discussed collecting biological material such as saliva samples for possible future research.

That was 2007.

The experts also said:

“A combination of administrative data and survey data is good.”

They contemplated using Defence data alongside DVA data, as well as information already available about veterans from previous studies.

That sounds remarkably similar to the data-linkage approach Australia is now pursuing through the National Veterans’ Data Asset.

But there was something else in the original research design.

The experts proposed two phases.

Phase 1: compare the children of Vietnam veterans with children of Defence personnel from the same era who did not deploy to Vietnam.

Phase 2: compare them with children of the non-military siblings of Vietnam veterans — effectively creating a community comparison group of cousins.

So the obvious question:

Why didn’t they think of comparing Vietnam veterans’ children with a civilian/community population?

has a surprising answer.

They did.

It was contemplated in the original research design.

The proposed community comparison group was not recruited during the initial phase, and the principal analysis ultimately published in 2014 relied on the two military-family populations.

So another question remains:

What happened to Phase 2?

The 2007 research work also contemplated identifying subgroups that might be particularly affected and examining groups of children with particular health conditions.

That matters when considering military occupations and different potential exposures during Vietnam service.

It doesn’t establish that Plant Operators were identified as a specific Agent Orange-exposure subgroup.

But it shows that the researchers already understood an important principle:

not every Vietnam veteran necessarily had the same service experience or the same potential exposures.

And the qualitative research later recorded something else.

Sons and daughters were expressing concern about their own health, their siblings and their own children, linked to:

“the possible future effects of a veteran’s exposure to Agent Orange and other chemicals in the Vietnam War.”

Agent Orange.

Children.

Grandchildren.

Intergenerational health.

Epigenetics.

Administrative and Defence data.

Community comparison groups.

Potentially affected subgroups.

These questions were already being discussed in Australia’s own veteran-family research process in 2007.

And Australia already had an even longer history of examining physical conditions in the children of Vietnam veterans.

The 2007 research-methods work reviewed earlier Australian investigations into the health of Vietnam veterans’ children.

It recorded previous concerns about spina bifida and acute myeloid leukaemia (AML).

For spina bifida, different statistical models produced different estimates of risk. The research record says the Australian Government ultimately selected a model producing an estimated relative risk of 1.52 and provided benefits to eligible children affected by the condition.

The earlier analysis of acute myeloid leukaemia also found more cases among Vietnam veterans’ children than expected, and Australia accepted AML for treatment purposes for eligible veterans’ children.

That history matters.

Australia had already accepted that the physical health of Vietnam veterans’ children warranted investigation and, for certain conditions, government assistance.

So this is not a history in which government knew nothing about descendants until recently.

By the time the major Vietnam Veterans Family Study was being designed, Australia already had:

decades of Vietnam veteran health information

previous research concerning their children

recognised conditions affecting some veterans’ children concerns about Agent Orange and other chemical exposures, discussion of epigenetics, proposals for civilian/community comparison groups and proposals for further intergenerational research.

The eventual $11.5 million Vietnam Veterans Family Study was itself designed to investigate whether Vietnam service affected the:

“physical, mental and social wellbeing”

of veterans’ sons and daughters.

DVA later acknowledged that Vietnam veterans’ families experienced more significant emotional, physical and social problems than the Vietnam-era comparison families.

Yet the Agent Orange question remained unresolved.

The study reported that it “did not find a causal link” between paternal Agent Orange exposure and children’s health.

That wording matters.

“Did not find a causal link” is not the same as “proved there is no link.”

And by 2015, veterans’ organisations were formally asking Government to investigate the chemical/herbicide question further.

Then, in 2021, the Vietnam Veterans Family Study appeared again in the parliamentary record.

In October 2021, the Vietnam Veterans Family Study appeared again during Senate Estimates.

A DVA official told the committee:

“The Vietnam veterans family study taught us a lot as well, so the family component of veterans’ affairs is essential.”

That statement matters because the study had been published seven years earlier.

DVA was still pointing to it as important evidence about the place of families within the veteran system.

Then, less than a year later, on 23 June 2022, the study and its researchers were before the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide.

The Royal Commission heard about the intergenerational effects of Vietnam service, the physical, mental and social health of veterans’ children, lifelong consequences for families, and the particularly serious findings concerning suicide among adult offspring.

And the study itself was formally entered into evidence.

Then the Royal Commission started looking at a much bigger problem:

What was Australia actually doing with all of the veteran health research and data it already had?

The Commission was told there was significant potential in:

“underused existing datasets” and that Australia needed to improve opportunities for new research and the:

“translation of research into practice.”

It also heard about the potential for longitudinal data capable of following an ADF member through:

induction → service → transition → post-service

Importantly, that concept extended beyond the veteran.

The Commission heard that such an approach could:

“include both ADF members and their families.”

The Royal Commission was therefore looking at something much larger than simply commissioning another report.

It was looking at how Australia could connect existing information, follow people over time, include their families, identify research gaps and turn research into actual policy and practice.

And in 2024, those concerns appeared in the Royal Commission’s Final Report and recommendations.

When the Royal Commission delivered its Final Report in September 2024, it did not simply recommend more research.

It recommended changing how Defence and DVA collect data, conduct research, publish it, independently scrutinise it and turn it into policy and practice.

The Commission found that Defence and other agencies already held significant amounts of useful data, but that information was not always well managed, integrated or available in a form that provided a holistic picture of serving and ex-serving members and their families.

The recommendations that followed are important when read together.

Recommendation 107 — Establish the National Veterans’ Data Asset

The Royal Commission recommended bringing together Defence, DVA and other government data through a national linked-data asset.

Importantly, the purpose was broader than suicide monitoring.

The NVDA was intended to improve understanding of the:

“health and wellbeing among serving and ex-serving members and their families.”

Recommendation 110 — Review Defence’s data assets and address issues with their quality, management, integration and use

The Commission specifically identified:

quality

awareness

management

access

integration

use

as issues requiring attention.

In other words, the problem wasn’t necessarily that Australia possessed no information.

Some of the information already existed. The problem was being able to bring it together and use it properly.

Recommendation 114 — Prioritise research into veteran health and wellbeing and publish research workplans

Defence and DVA would be required to make their research priorities and work underway visible.

Recommendation 115 — Publish Defence and DVA research into veteran health and wellbeing

Research should not simply disappear inside government departments. The Commission also wanted independent research scrutiny.

Recommendation 116 — Improve the quality, evaluation, translation and sharing of research findings

This recommendation is particularly important.

The Commission wanted Defence and DVA to maintain a central library of relevant research and evaluations and monitor whether research findings actually make their way into:

“policy, programs and practice.”

In other words:

research → evidence → action

rather than:

research → report → filing cabinet.

Recommendation 117 — Establish an expert committee on veteran research

The Commission wanted expertise from government, academia and elsewhere, including expertise relevant to health, rehabilitation and family support.

And then comes the recommendation that matters enormously to Vietnam veterans’ children:

Recommendation 121 — Enable research into the health and wellbeing of Defence families

The Royal Commission recommended expanded research into Defence families involving NHMRC funding, Defence and DVA, people with lived experience, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Institute of Family Studies, using existing datasets and the new National Veterans’ Data Asset.

And remember what “family” includes in this story.

The sons and daughters of Vietnam veterans were already in the Royal Commission’s evidence.

The Australian Institute of Family Studies had been involved in the original Vietnam Veterans Family Study.

So when Recommendation 121 talks about Defence families, Vietnam veterans’ adult children are not a population completely outside the history that produced these recommendations.

We were already there.

The Royal Commission’s research architecture can be reduced to something remarkably simple:

improve the data → integrate it → publish the research → independently scrutinise it → translate findings into policy → fund further research → research Defence families.

And it made those recommendations with the 2014 Vietnam Veterans Family Study sitting in its evidence base.

Then the story moved again.

In 2025, new Australian research looked at the adult children of Vietnam veterans.

In 2025, Dr Alarna Vrieling completed new Australian research examining the experiences and health of the adult children of Australian Vietnam veterans.

Her research brought the focus back to a generation that was now much older than when the 2014 Vietnam Veterans Family Study was conducted.

And her conclusion included an important physical-health finding:

“veterans’ physical health was statistically related to their children’s physical health.”

That finding matters in the context of everything that came before it.

The Australian Government had already studied the physical, mental and social health of Vietnam veterans’ sons and daughters.

Veterans’ organisations had already called for further investigation of chemical and herbicide exposure and its effects on descendants.

The original research designers had already contemplated epigenetics, administrative data linkage, affected subgroups and a community comparison group.

The Royal Commission had already received the Vietnam Veterans Family Study into evidence.

And the Royal Commission had now recommended that Australia improve its veteran research and data systems and specifically enable research into the health and wellbeing of Defence families.

Then Vrieling’s research found a statistically significant relationship between the physical health of veterans and the physical health of their children.

That does not, by itself, establish that Agent Orange caused particular conditions in particular children.

But it reinforces something much more fundamental:

the physical health of Vietnam veterans and the physical health of their adult children cannot simply be treated as unrelated research questions.

And by this point, these “children” were no longer children.

They were adults in their 40s, 50s and beyond, with decades of their own health histories — and, in many cases, children and grandchildren of their own.

Which takes this story directly into 2026.

The Royal Commission’s recommendations are no longer just recommendations sitting in a Final Report.

The machinery to implement them is now being built.

better data + linked data + family research + independent research expertise + research translation.

And there is another important development in 2026.

The Defence and Veterans’ Services Commission (DVSC) has been established as the permanent independent body arising from the Royal Commission reforms.

Its role includes independently monitoring and scrutinising implementation of the Royal Commission’s recommendations and examining systemic issues affecting serving and ex-serving ADF members and their families.

That means the Royal Commission may have finished.

Its work has not.

And neither has this story.

Government language may call us “Defence families”, “veteran families”, “sons and daughters”, “adult offspring” or “descendants”.

I call us Agent Orange children.

But whichever terminology government uses, we are in the family.

And after following this paper trail from the early research, through DVA, Senate Estimates, the Vietnam Veterans Family Study and ultimately the Royal Commission, one thing is very difficult to argue:

Australia did not suddenly discover in 2026 that the health of Vietnam veterans’ descendants was a question worth asking.

It has been asking versions of that question for decades.

And people wonder why I filed at The Hague.

I filed at The Hague in 2025 because after decades of these questions sitting inside Australian systems, I wanted an external record before I walked through those systems again.

What followed was exactly what I wanted documented: referrals, jurisdictional boundaries and agencies explaining what they could and could not investigate — activity, but still no remedy.🤬

The Defence and Veterans’ Services Commission is now underway.

There are developments occurring around the implementation of the Royal Commission recommendations, Defence-family research and the new oversight structure that I am following very closely, the same as I was for Robodebt.

I will explain what is happening — and why it matters to Agent Orange children — in the near future.

Update 2/10/2026

🚨 16 DECEMBER 1969

The UN General Assembly declared that the Geneva Protocol’s prohibition covered:

➡️ Chemical substances — gas, liquid or solid

➡️ Used for their direct toxic effects

➡️ On humans, animals OR PLANTS

🇦🇺 Australia & 🇳🇿 New Zealand had been parties to the Geneva Protocol since 1930.

My NZ-born Australian Plant Operator father arrived in Vietnam the VERY NEXT DAY — 17 December 1969.

The UN record also confirms the vote was 80–3–36.

* 🇦🇺 Australia — AGAINST ❌

* 🇳🇿 New Zealand — ABSTAINED ⚪

* 🇺🇸 United States — AGAINST ❌

The UN had spoken. It was chemical warfare.

DVA’s own material records Australian Army testing/use in Vietnam. In one documented incident, Australian personnel tested 2,4,5-T; DVA identifies G. A. Lugg and Major E. S. Holt as directly involved and says they sprayed a small test quantity. In another incident, on 28 July 1968, Australian hygiene officer Major J. C. Rhodes used Agent Orange obtained from US sources when Australian supplies of their usual herbicide had run out.

Sources

https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/645944?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/wars-and-missions/vietnam-war/home/agent-orange

🚨 2023 US Airforce Ranch Hand scientific study 16/9/26

https://agentorangechild.wixsite.com/agent-orange-child/post/us-air-force-epidemiological-study-1979-to-2024-15-9-2026

🚨 14/8/26 update

The DVA has changed the Vietnam war history on their website - June 2026

I have spelt out the changes here with sources

⬇️

https://agentorangechild.wixsite.com/agent-orange-child/post/what-dva-now-admits

🚨Dr Alarna on the DVSC Advisory Board

(Daughter of a Vietnam Veteran is sitting at the big table) ⬇️