Thirty years of follow-up show that the overall death rates in Vietnam veterans are no higher than in veterans who did not serve in Vietnam, according to investigators at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. However, those who served in the Vietnam War have been more prone to accidental and drug-related deaths.

The original Vietnam Experience Study (VES) post-service mortality investigation followed approximately 18,000 US Army veterans from their date of discharge through 1983, Dr. Drue H. Barrett and colleagues note in the current issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

Compared with veterans who served during the same period, but not in Vietnam, the initial data showed excess all-cause mortality. However this was the case only during the first 5 years after discharge.

This increased risk “seemed to be mostly due to motor vehicle accidents…which may be related to stress issues,” Barrett said in an interview with Reuters Health.

To get a better idea of how chronic conditions with a slower progression have affected the two groups, the team extended follow-up through the year 2000, by which time there were 1138 more deaths.

“We found no significant differences in disease-related mortality,” Barrett noted.

During the entire follow-up period, the risk of unintentional poisoning and drug-related deaths were about twice as high in the Vietnam veterans.

For both groups, the primary causes of death were motor vehicle accidents and diseases of the circulatory system, Barrett said.

The main point of this study is that the causes of death among Vietnam veterans are “essentially the same” as the causes of death in the rest of the US population, she added.

However, the increase in motor vehicle accidents within 5 years of their return suggests that this “should be something that is addressed in the group that is coming back from Iraq.”

SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, September 27, 2004.