Vol. 64/No.18 May 8, 2000

Toxins plague Vietnam years after war

BY BRIAN WILLIAMS

As working people worldwide celebrate the 25th anniversary of the defeat of U.S. military forces in Vietnam, the criminal acts—from the massive bombardment and use of toxic chemicals like Agent Orange—carried out by the U.S. rulers against the people of Vietnam continues to plague this Southeast Asian country today.

Scientists and government officials in Vietnam point out that some 1 million Vietnamese—combatants, civilians, and their children—were poisoned by Agent Orange, the poisonous defoliant widely used by U.S forces during the Vietnam War.

From 1961 to 1971, U.S. forces sprayed 20 million gallons of herbicide over 10 percent of the land area of what was then South Vietnam. The defoliants, 60 percent of which was Agent Orange, reduced dense lush jungles and mangrove forests to barren wasteland. In 1969, scientists showed that its components caused birth defects in laboratory animals. President Richard Nixon was finally forced to stop spraying Agent Orange-based chemicals in December 1970.

Soil, water, and human tissue samples recently taken in several parts of the country that were sprayed more than 30 years ago reveal high concentrations of dioxin, a highly carcinogenic component of Agent Orange that is one of the world's most toxic substances.

In one heavily defoliated valley in Vietnam's central highlands, for instance, Canadian researchers have found high levels of dioxin in children who were born after the spraying ceased in 1971. Peoples in these areas continue to grow crops in the soil and fish the streams.

'There is no way we can forget'

Vietnamese officials point to the rash of cancers, immune-deficiency diseases, and drug-resistant malaria in the 1970s and 1980s stemming from the use of this chemical. Vietnamese doctors say that dioxin contamination is responsible for an unusually large number of birth defects, particularly malformed limbs and mental retardation.

"There is no way we can forget about the war," stated Pham Tan, 44, who went to work after the war as a construction worker in areas that were sprayed. He, like many, drank the local water and ate vegetables grown on denuded jungle that had been turned into farmland. His son was born with severe mental retardation and no legs.

"It has now become clear that Agent Orange will affect us for many generations," stated Le Cao Dai, a Hanoi physician who has studied the effects of this chemical. He said recent government studies found that children living near the extensively sprayed former U.S. military base at Bien Hoa have dioxin levels 50 times higher than children living in Hanoi.

The U.S. government has refused to acknowledge that Agent Orange is responsible for the rash of birth defects and other ailments among the Vietnamese people, and they have refused to provide funds to clean up the areas that their bombs and chemical agents had destroyed.

In the 1970s and '80s, many of the 2.6 million U.S. military personnel who served in Vietnam reported similar illnesses and birth defects. A group of 20,000 veterans sued Dow Chemical Co. and Monsanto Co., which manufactured the defoliant, and eventually won a $180 million settlement.

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