The Renaissance Journalism Center has chosen 15 top journalists for a reporting fellowship program that will enable them to investigate the toxic legacy left in Vietnam by the use of the herbicide Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.
The Vietnam Reporting Project Fellowship is designed to use the power of journalism to raise public awareness about the health and environmental problems that continue to affect Vietnam and its people. During the war, the U.S. military defoliated millions of acres of forest and farmland by spraying Agent Orange. The herbicide contained dioxin, a highly toxic organic pollutant linked to cancers, diabetes, birth defects and disabilities.
“Even though the war ended 35 years ago, the toxic impact of Agent Orange lives on, damaging the lives of millions of people,” said Jon Funabiki, executive director of the Renaissance Journalism Center, which is based at San Francisco State University. “Journalists can put a human face on this all-to-forgotten tragedy and help the general public to understand the full dimensions of the problem. Unfortunately, many news organizations are so financially strapped that they can’t afford to send reporters to the scene.”
The fellows represent newspapers, television, radio and the online news sector. The group is cross-cultural and intergenerational with representatives from the mainstream, independent, Vietnamese American and college media. The reporting fellows include:
Sean Connelly, photo editor/multimedia producer, Los Angeles Times; K. Oanh Ha, reporter, KQED Public Radio; Duc Ha, editor and senior correspondent, OneViet.com; Tara Haghighi, journalism student, San Francisco State University; Catherine Karnow, independent photographer; Ed Kashi, independent photojournalist and filmmaker; Henry Liem, columnist, VTimes; Victor Merina, senior correspondent and special projects editor, Reznet; Katy Newton, video journalist, Los Angeles Times; Nguyen Qui Duc, independent radio and television journalist; Connie Schultz, columnist, The Plain Dealer; Nick Ut, photographer, Associated Press; Thuy Vu, reporter/anchor, KPIX TV; Laura Waxman, student journalist, San Francisco State University; Yumi Wilson, assistant professor of journalism, San Francisco State University.
The journalists will receive training, travel support and other resources to help them produce in-depth articles, essays and columns, television and radio reports and web-based multimedia packages. The products will be distributed by their news companies, featured on a special project website (www.vietnamreportingproject.org) and distributed to interested news outlets, including Vietnamese American media.
The Renaissance Journalism Center (www.rjcmedia.org) was created by San Francisco State University’s Journalism Department to stimulate and test promising new practices in journalism. The center also sponsors the Media Greenhouse, which offers mini-grants to community and ethnic news media outlets; and the New Media Lab & Incubator, which is incubating new nonprofit media models. The center is operated in partnership with the ZeroDivide (www.zerodivide.org).
The Vietnam Reporting Project was developed in collaboration with Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (www.aapip.org) and is funded by the Ford Foundation (www.fordfound.org).
According to the Vietnam Red Cross, an estimated 3 million Vietnamese suffer health problems linked to Agent Orange and 150,000 children have serious birth defects. About a dozen “hot spots” are contaminated by dioxin. In the U.S., Agent Orange also has been linked to serious health problems widely reported by American veterans.
Source: Renaissance Journalism Center
http://www.rjcmedia.org/updates/renaissance-journalism-center-awards-15-journalists-vietnam-reporting-fellowships
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Presidential Executive Orders Defense Production Act
The Position of Dow Chemical Company today remains that Agent Orange was never a health hazard and never posed a health risk. As a safe guard against any liable action. Dow notes that its chemical operation related to Agent Orange had been commandeered by the US federal government during Vietnam by Presidential executive order under the emergency powers of the Defense Production Act and that if anyone should be sued it would be the Federal Government, including the Pentagon, Department of the Army, and Department of the Air Force. As a nation at war, the U.S. government compelled a number of companies to produce Agent Orange under the Defense Production Act. The government specified how it would be produced and controlled its use.
Innovest group has advised both Dow Chemical of the investor risk related to Agent Orange use outside Vietnam, The Dow Chemical has never rebutted that notion other than claim Agent Orange was not a health risk during Vietnam. This documentation alone should suffice to give Veterans and effected residents outside Vietnam the benefit of a doubt, since the Department of Defense can neither confirm of deny Agent Orange was manufactured at Paritutu New Plymouth New Zealand or stored on Guam during the Vietnam War.
Even if there is not sufficient proof that Agent Orange was manufactured at Paritutu and shipped on to Guam during the Vietnam War, the chemical companies who produced it under orders from the DoD appear to believe it was. This should be good enough for the VA to add Paritutu and Guam to the list of presumed locations of Agent Orange use, storage, or trans shipment.
“
The scientific investigation on Agent Orange has gone on since the Vietnam War and continues today. There have been extensive epidemiological studies of those veterans most exposed to Agent Orange. Today, the scientific consensus is that when the collective human evidence is reviewed, it doesn’t show that Agent Orange caused veteran’s illnesses.”
The same position paper in which Dow Chemical today claims that “the scientific consensus is that when the collective human evidence is reviewed, it doesn’t show that Agent Orange caused veteran’s illnesses” also has Dow Chemical coming across as if the chemical companies “federalized” by the U.S. government during Vietnam were also victims of the Agent Orange they claim that the US government produced.
In fact, in arguing its latest lawsuit filed by Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange use in Vietnam the chemical companies successfully argued right up to the Supreme Court that the governments involved in the Vietnam War must resolve the issues surrounding exposure to Agent Orange, for the chemical companies had no choice but to produce what DoD and the White House wanted under the Defense Production Act.
This view is reinforced by the position taken by Monsanto, “There have been other lawsuits since that time [the Agent Orange settlement]. In March of 2009, a key legal question was settled in the United States when the U.S. Supreme Court let stand unanimous lower court rulings disallowing recovery from lawsuits on the Agent Orange issue. The Supreme Court agreed that the companies were not responsible for the implications of military use of Agent Orange in Vietnam, because the manufacturers were government contractors, carrying out the instructions of government.”
Agent Orange use outside Vietnam
With one face the two faced Dow Chemical and Monsanto deny the health risk to Veterans of Agent Orange poisoning but are quick with their other face to be cautioned about the Corporate Investment Risk of future claims or lawsuits due to Agent Orange use on Guam and elsewhere outside Vietnam.
Their strategy tends to be placing the blame on the federal government. America’s Veterans need to ask this hard question could the chemical companies be right? History of the Agent Orange lawsuits tends to support their position. If not, how come Vets and lawyers were so willing to settle out of court, and how come the compensation and research aspects surrounding Agent Orange have been within the realm of the US government NOT the chemical companies. This includes US allied countries Governments outside the US involved in the Vietnam War.
The US Presidential Executive Order of the US Defense Production Act also applied to its US owned overseas chemical production plants, one being Ivon Watkins Dow Chemical Plant at Paritutu New Plymouth New Zealand in full cooperation and agreement with its Vietnam War allie the New Zealand Government.
Innovest group has advised both Dow Chemical of the investor risk related to Agent Orange use outside Vietnam, The Dow Chemical has never rebutted that notion other than claim Agent Orange was not a health risk during Vietnam. This documentation alone should suffice to give Veterans and effected residents outside Vietnam the benefit of a doubt, since the Department of Defense can neither confirm of deny Agent Orange was manufactured at Paritutu New Plymouth New Zealand or stored on Guam during the Vietnam War.
Even if there is not sufficient proof that Agent Orange was manufactured at Paritutu and shipped on to Guam during the Vietnam War, the chemical companies who produced it under orders from the DoD appear to believe it was. This should be good enough for the VA to add Paritutu and Guam to the list of presumed locations of Agent Orange use, storage, or trans shipment.
“
The scientific investigation on Agent Orange has gone on since the Vietnam War and continues today. There have been extensive epidemiological studies of those veterans most exposed to Agent Orange. Today, the scientific consensus is that when the collective human evidence is reviewed, it doesn’t show that Agent Orange caused veteran’s illnesses.”
The same position paper in which Dow Chemical today claims that “the scientific consensus is that when the collective human evidence is reviewed, it doesn’t show that Agent Orange caused veteran’s illnesses” also has Dow Chemical coming across as if the chemical companies “federalized” by the U.S. government during Vietnam were also victims of the Agent Orange they claim that the US government produced.
In fact, in arguing its latest lawsuit filed by Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange use in Vietnam the chemical companies successfully argued right up to the Supreme Court that the governments involved in the Vietnam War must resolve the issues surrounding exposure to Agent Orange, for the chemical companies had no choice but to produce what DoD and the White House wanted under the Defense Production Act.
This view is reinforced by the position taken by Monsanto, “There have been other lawsuits since that time [the Agent Orange settlement]. In March of 2009, a key legal question was settled in the United States when the U.S. Supreme Court let stand unanimous lower court rulings disallowing recovery from lawsuits on the Agent Orange issue. The Supreme Court agreed that the companies were not responsible for the implications of military use of Agent Orange in Vietnam, because the manufacturers were government contractors, carrying out the instructions of government.”
Agent Orange use outside Vietnam
With one face the two faced Dow Chemical and Monsanto deny the health risk to Veterans of Agent Orange poisoning but are quick with their other face to be cautioned about the Corporate Investment Risk of future claims or lawsuits due to Agent Orange use on Guam and elsewhere outside Vietnam.
Their strategy tends to be placing the blame on the federal government. America’s Veterans need to ask this hard question could the chemical companies be right? History of the Agent Orange lawsuits tends to support their position. If not, how come Vets and lawyers were so willing to settle out of court, and how come the compensation and research aspects surrounding Agent Orange have been within the realm of the US government NOT the chemical companies. This includes US allied countries Governments outside the US involved in the Vietnam War.
The US Presidential Executive Order of the US Defense Production Act also applied to its US owned overseas chemical production plants, one being Ivon Watkins Dow Chemical Plant at Paritutu New Plymouth New Zealand in full cooperation and agreement with its Vietnam War allie the New Zealand Government.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Price Tag on Legacy.. $300 Million.
HANOI, Vietnam—Thirty-five years after the Vietnam War, a $300 million price tag has been placed on the most contentious legacy still tainting U.S.-Vietnam relations: Agent Orange.
An action plan released Wednesday called for the first time on the U.S. government and other donors to provide an estimated $30 million annually over 10 years to clean up sites still contaminated by dioxin, a toxic chemical used in the defoliant.
The funding would also be used to treat Vietnamese suffering from disabilities, including those believed linked to Agent Orange exposure.
Washington has been slow to address the issue, quibbling for years with its former foe over the need for more scientific research to show that the herbicide sprayed by U.S. aircraft during the war caused health problems and birth defects among Vietnamese.
"We are talking about something that is a major legacy of the Vietnam War, a major irritant in this important relationship," said Walter Isaacson, co-chair of the joint U.S.-Vietnam working group that released the report. "The cleanup of our mess from the Vietnam War will be far less costly than the Gulf oil spill that BP will have to clean up."
The report was released by the U.S.-Vietnam Dialogue Group on Agent Orange/Dioxin, a panel of policymakers, scientists and citizens formed in 2007 to look for ways to address the lingering issue.
It called for the cleanup of dioxin-contaminated sites, expansion of care and treatment for Vietnamese with disabilities believed caused by the defoliant, and the restoration of damaged ecosystems.
The U.S. military dumped some 20 million gallons (75 million liters) of Agent Orange and other herbicides on about a quarter of former South Vietnam between 1962 and 1971 to destroy crops and jungle cover shielding guerrilla fighters.
The defoliant decimated about 5 million acres (2 million hectares) of forest -- roughly the size of Massachusetts -- and another 500,000 acres (202,000 hectares) of crops, the report said.
Dioxin has been linked to cancers, birth defects and other ailments. A study released last year by the Canadian environmental firm Hatfield Consultants showed that dioxin levels in some blood and breast milk samples taken from people who lived in affected areas were 100 times above safe levels.
Dioxin levels in soil, sediment and fish in the same area were 300 to 400 times above international limits. That report estimated up to 100,000 people living near the site still face a potential health risk from exposure.
Dioxin is slow to degrade. It works its way from the soil into the sediment of rivers, lakes and ponds via rainwater then attaches to the fat of fish and ducks, which can be eaten by humans and passed on to future generations.
The Vietnam Red Cross estimates up to 3 million Vietnamese children and adults have suffered health problems related to Agent Orange exposure. But the U.S. says the number is much lower, with many Vietnamese birth defects instead likely resulting from other health and environmental reasons, including malnutrition.
"We said, 'Let's leave aside exactly who's to blame for which illness that might have occurred,'" Isaacson, president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit group that promotes international dialogue, said by phone from Washington. "It's a mess we made ... and we'll get private money and a little bit of government money and we'll clean it up."
The Vietnam War ended April 30, 1975 when the former U.S.-backed regime in Saigon, the former capital of South Vietnam, fell to northern communist forces, reunifying the country.
Agent Orange has remained a thorny topic between the former enemies despite strong recent partnerships in areas ranging from economic to military. Next month, the U.S. and Vietnam will celebrate 15 years of normalized diplomatic relations.
The U.S. government has provided $9 million since 2007 to assist with Agent Orange in Vietnam.
Isaacson said he was hopeful the U.S. government will provide at least half the $300 million needed by 2020, with corporations, foundations and other donors supplying the rest.
"We will continue to find constructive ways to work together to ensure the protection of Vietnam's environment and the well-being of Vietnamese people living with disabilities, including by looking for additional funding for dioxin-related projects," Andrew Shapiro, U.S. assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, told reporters during a visit to Hanoi earlier this month.
An action plan released Wednesday called for the first time on the U.S. government and other donors to provide an estimated $30 million annually over 10 years to clean up sites still contaminated by dioxin, a toxic chemical used in the defoliant.
The funding would also be used to treat Vietnamese suffering from disabilities, including those believed linked to Agent Orange exposure.
Washington has been slow to address the issue, quibbling for years with its former foe over the need for more scientific research to show that the herbicide sprayed by U.S. aircraft during the war caused health problems and birth defects among Vietnamese.
"We are talking about something that is a major legacy of the Vietnam War, a major irritant in this important relationship," said Walter Isaacson, co-chair of the joint U.S.-Vietnam working group that released the report. "The cleanup of our mess from the Vietnam War will be far less costly than the Gulf oil spill that BP will have to clean up."
The report was released by the U.S.-Vietnam Dialogue Group on Agent Orange/Dioxin, a panel of policymakers, scientists and citizens formed in 2007 to look for ways to address the lingering issue.
It called for the cleanup of dioxin-contaminated sites, expansion of care and treatment for Vietnamese with disabilities believed caused by the defoliant, and the restoration of damaged ecosystems.
The U.S. military dumped some 20 million gallons (75 million liters) of Agent Orange and other herbicides on about a quarter of former South Vietnam between 1962 and 1971 to destroy crops and jungle cover shielding guerrilla fighters.
The defoliant decimated about 5 million acres (2 million hectares) of forest -- roughly the size of Massachusetts -- and another 500,000 acres (202,000 hectares) of crops, the report said.
Dioxin has been linked to cancers, birth defects and other ailments. A study released last year by the Canadian environmental firm Hatfield Consultants showed that dioxin levels in some blood and breast milk samples taken from people who lived in affected areas were 100 times above safe levels.
Dioxin levels in soil, sediment and fish in the same area were 300 to 400 times above international limits. That report estimated up to 100,000 people living near the site still face a potential health risk from exposure.
Dioxin is slow to degrade. It works its way from the soil into the sediment of rivers, lakes and ponds via rainwater then attaches to the fat of fish and ducks, which can be eaten by humans and passed on to future generations.
The Vietnam Red Cross estimates up to 3 million Vietnamese children and adults have suffered health problems related to Agent Orange exposure. But the U.S. says the number is much lower, with many Vietnamese birth defects instead likely resulting from other health and environmental reasons, including malnutrition.
"We said, 'Let's leave aside exactly who's to blame for which illness that might have occurred,'" Isaacson, president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit group that promotes international dialogue, said by phone from Washington. "It's a mess we made ... and we'll get private money and a little bit of government money and we'll clean it up."
The Vietnam War ended April 30, 1975 when the former U.S.-backed regime in Saigon, the former capital of South Vietnam, fell to northern communist forces, reunifying the country.
Agent Orange has remained a thorny topic between the former enemies despite strong recent partnerships in areas ranging from economic to military. Next month, the U.S. and Vietnam will celebrate 15 years of normalized diplomatic relations.
The U.S. government has provided $9 million since 2007 to assist with Agent Orange in Vietnam.
Isaacson said he was hopeful the U.S. government will provide at least half the $300 million needed by 2020, with corporations, foundations and other donors supplying the rest.
"We will continue to find constructive ways to work together to ensure the protection of Vietnam's environment and the well-being of Vietnamese people living with disabilities, including by looking for additional funding for dioxin-related projects," Andrew Shapiro, U.S. assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, told reporters during a visit to Hanoi earlier this month.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Qantas Media Award
Taranaki Daily News reporter Kirsty Johnston won a Qantas Media Awards for her coverage of the discovery of toxic chemicals in drums buried beneath a public park in New Plymouth.
The story on drums containing dioxin were uncovered under a childrens playground at Marfell Park New Plymouth by stormwater workers, sparking concern from nearby residents.
Dioxin was a by-product of chemicals manufactured by the Ivon Watkins-Dow company from the early 1960s until 1987.
The story on drums containing dioxin were uncovered under a childrens playground at Marfell Park New Plymouth by stormwater workers, sparking concern from nearby residents.
Dioxin was a by-product of chemicals manufactured by the Ivon Watkins-Dow company from the early 1960s until 1987.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
1st, 2nd, and now 3rd Generation effected by Agent Orange.
Each year for the last five years the U.S. has welcomed a delegation of Vietnamese affected by spraying chemicals in Vietnam three decades ago. The Fifth Agent Orange Justice Tour ended recently. It focused national attention on grass roots and legislative efforts to achieve comprehensive assistance to victims in Vietnam, to the children and grandchildren of U.S. veterans, and to Vietnamese-Americans.
It is not news that American troops fighting for the U.S. military in Vietnam were told by their commanders that the defoliants and herbicides sprayed by the U.S. Air Force were “perfectly safe…[they] just kill plants.”
The statistics, while heartbreaking, are, likewise, not news for anyone who pays attention to recent history. From 1961 to 1970 more than 20,000 missions that composed Operations “Trail Dust” and “Ranch Hand” dispersed about 13 million gallons of chemicals over five million acres of Vietnam’s forests and agricultural lands; southern Laos and Cambodia were sprayed too.
To the military mind, defoliating was a practical solution that disallowed cover to the enemy. To the corporate mind – Dow, Monsanto, Hercules, Uniroyal, Diamond Shamrock, Syntex Agribusiness, and more than two dozen others – manufacturing chemicals provided good ROI: one gallon of liquid cost $7 back then. Moreover, corporations sped up the 2,4,5T manufacturing process so they could produce more, faster. They ignored the partially catalyzed molecule, dioxin, that was a byproduct of the faster process; it remained in Agent Orange (AO).
Vietnam’s dense southern uplands’ forests were sprayed with a range of chemicals signified by color-coded barrels: Agents Blue, Orange, White, Pink, Purple and so on. Areas that the C-123 “Provider” airplanes didn’t reach – equal to the size of Rhode Island — were bulldozed with Rome Plows.
Paul Cox was a US Marine fighting along the DMZ for months. Today, he is a civil engineer, a Veteran for Peace member, and a board member of Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign (VAORRC). In a recent presentation in San Francisco, he described the area he fought in at the time as “almost totally denuded from high explosives and multiple spraying sorties; aside from some invasive grass, hardly anything lived, no animals, no bugs, no nothin’. We could operate in the area for days in a row and see no living trees.”
Since 1994, the Canadian company Hatfield Consultants has conducted contamination and mitigation work in Vietnam in close collaboration with Vietnamese Government agencies. More than nine projects in twenty provinces have determined levels of Agent Orange/dioxin in soils, food items, human blood, and breast milk. Hatfield also studies the effects of loss of timber that leads to reduced sustainability of ecosystems, decreases in the biodiversity of plants and animals, poorer soil quality, increased water contamination, heavier flooding and erosion, increased leaching of nutrients and reductions in their availability, invasions of less desirable plant species (primarily woody and herbaceous grasses), and possible alterations of Vietnam’s macro- and micro-climates.
In short, there is no let up to the devastation wreaked by war’s practicality and profit three decades ago.
Consistent determination
Despite VAVA delegates representing three million people when they travel to the U.S., to date U.S. courts have not acknowledged the chemicals’ effects on Vietnam or the Vietnamese.
Yet, under U.S. law, veterans who served in Vietnam between 1962 and 1975 (including those who visited Vietnam even briefly), and who have a disease that the Veterans Administration (VA) recognizes as being associated with Agent Orange, are presumed to have been exposed to Agent Orange and are eligible for service-connected compensation based on their service.
The VA’s list of “Diseases associated with exposure to certain herbicide agents” are Acute and Subacute Peripheral Neuropathy,AL Amyloidosis, Chloracne (or Similar Acneform Disease), Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (now expanded to B Cell Leukemias), Diabetes Mellitus (Type 2), Hodgkin’s Disease, Ischemic Heart Disease, Multiple Myeloma, Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, Parkinson’s Disease, Porphyria Cutanea Tarda, Prostate Cancer, Respiratory Cancers (of the lung, larynx, trachea, and bronchus), and Soft Tissue Sarcoma.
Veterans’ children born with Spina bifida “may be eligible for compensation, vocational training and rehabilitation and health care benefits.” For the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) concluded in its 1996 update to its report on Veterans and Agent Orange – Health Effects of Herbicides Used in Vietnam that there is “limited/suggestive evidence of an association between exposure to herbicides used in Vietnam and spina bifida in children of Vietnam veterans.”
A time line, briefly
September 10, 2004: an amended class action complaint was submitted to the U.S. District Court, Eastern District; Constantine P. Kokkoris, represented the victims.
March 10, 2005: in Brooklyn, Judge Weinstein dismissed victims’ claims.
September 30, 2005: a Brief was submitted to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York against 36 U.S. chemical companies. The summary by Jonathan Moore states:
The lawsuit…seeks to hold accountable the chemical companies who manufactured and supplied Agent Orange to the government. Contrary to government specifications, the product supplied to the government contained an excessive and avoidable amount of poison…[D]ioxin…was present in the herbicides supplied to the government only because these chemical companies deliberately and consciously chose to ignore then existing industry standards and produce a herbicide that contained excessive and avoidable amounts of dioxin. The presence of the poison dioxin had no military necessity…chemical companies…knew that the more herbicide they produced the more money they would make and the faster they produced it the more they could sell to the government….[T]hey ignored industry standards….
That lawsuit was unsuccessful.
Another try
This year VAVA, Veterans for Peace, and the Vietnamese will begin to apply pressure on Congress to pay the bills for damage done in that country. These groups are drafting legislation that they expect will become a bill that, eventually, addresses this legacy. It consist of four parts:
1) clean up the environment and do no further harm.
2) address the problems of millions ill …that now extends to three generations.
3) create regional medical centers specifically for victims’ children and grandchildren born with the physical deformities and mental illness associated with dioxin.
4) conduct a public health study on the Vietnamese American population in the U.S. to learn if, and if so, how they have been affected by AO sprayed in their homeland. (The assumption is that this population could have a similar exposure to deployed American military personnel).
Personal stories: new every time
If the news about dioxin – and the political and economic wrangling that accompanies it – is depressingly familiar, what is always fresh are the hopeful voices and enthusiastic faces of the VAVA delegates. All suffer grievous disease or deformities yet their spirits and generosity are astonishingly strong.
This year, 33-year old Pham The Minh accompanied the small group. He is the son of a Vietnamese fighter contaminated by Agent Orange in Quang Tri Province where the spraying was most intensive. Minh and and his sister were born after the war with birth defects that signal dioxin contamination.
His is no story of victimization. The man’s voice is vibrantly honest and alive as he says, “I grew up with pain in my spirit and in my body…I graduated from university and I am happy to teach English to victims of Agent Orange.”
In Minh’s city of Hai Phong alone there are more than 17,000 victims with birth defects, most of whom live difficult lives and require constant support from hard-pressed families.
Last year, the delegation was headed by Dang Hong Nhut who suffers from cancer and has experienced multiple miscarriages. Twenty-one year old Tran Thi Hoan accompanied Nhut. Tran was born with one hand and no legs due to her mother’s exposure. Despite Tran and her mother both being diagnosed with life threatening and disabling conditions that create severe and life-long hardship, the young woman attends college and is determined to work for a just solution for other Vietnamese families.
The 2007 delegates shared compelling stories too.
Vo Thanh Hai was 19 years old in 1978 when he was employed replanting trees around Nam Dong that had been defoliated by the U.S. Army’s spraying operations.
In 1986, Mr. Hai’s wife miscarried. In 1987, their son, Vo Thanh Tuan Anh was born. In 2001, he began episodes of fatigue and dizziness that was diagnosed as osteosarcoma for which he was treated with surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
Their doctor also advised Mr. Hai to have a lump on his own neck examined. Tests disclosed Hodgkins Disease.
Both father and son have difficulty performing routine activities. Mrs. Hoa provides their daily care…which means the family has little regular income.
Nguyen Van Quy served in the Vietnam People’s Army from 1972 through 1975. He ate manioc, wild herbs and plants and drank water from streams in areas that had been spayed with Agent Orange. He experienced periodic headaches and exhaustion and itchy skin and rashes.
In 2003, Mr. Quy was diagnosed with stomach cancer, liver damage and with fluid in his lung. His son, Nguyen Quang Trung, was born with spinal, limb and developmental disabilities, enlarged and deformed feet, and a congenital spine defect; he cannot stand, walk, or use his hands.
Mr. Quy’s daughter, Nguyen Thi Thuy Nga, was born deaf and dumb and developmentally disabled. Neither child can attend school or work and neither is self-sufficient.
In her presentation in San Francisco, shortly before leaving the U.S. to return home, another 2007 delegate, Mrs. Hong, said how happy she was to have had a chance to visit this country and talk to people she found “very welcoming.”
Mrs. Hong had served in the Eastern Combat Zone of South Vietnam as a clerk tailor and medical care worker. In 1964, she was sprayed with Agent Orange while washing rice in a stream. She tried to dive into the water to wash away the chemicals that stuck to her body. Moreover, she consumed contaminated food, wild grasses, and water every day after that.
In 1975 she was diagnosed with cirrhosis and required long term hospital treatment. In 1999 she was found to have an enlarged spleen and hemopoesis disorder. Several tests later uncovered cancer of the left breast as well as shortness of breath, high blood pressure, cerebral edema, breast cancer with bone metastasis, stomach aches, cirrhosis, gall-stones and bladder-stones, varicose limbs, limb-skin ulcer, weak legs and limited range of movement.
Both Mr.Quy and Mrs Hong died shortly after they returned to Vietnam.
Tragedy of such magnitude easily can overwhelm those unprepared to hear it. Yet listening deeply to these personal stories presented in the even-handed, non-blaming manner of the VAVA delegates creates an opening that may allow We, the People to apply pressure on Congress to co-create legislation to alleviate our nation’s moral stigma from our actions in Vietnam.
Perhaps the courage of the women in Lan Teh Nidah’s poem, Night Harvest can give hope to Americans of peace and reconciliation. These courageous Vietnamese women harvested rice at night to avoid detection by American forces.
…
The golds of rice and cluster bombs blend together.
even delayed fuse bombs bring no fear:
Our spirits have known many years of war.
Come, sisters, let us gather the harvest.
…
We are the harvesters of my village,
…
We are not frightened by bombs and bullets in the air –
Only by dew, wetting our lime-scented hair.
One day, perhaps, we in the United States will acknowledge our responsibilities in Vietnam. For we, too, have known many years of war. Those of us who struggle for peace are harvesters too. Let us accept our history, sew the seeds of peace, and highlight the futile lose/lose proposition that is war.
By Susan Galleymore
It is not news that American troops fighting for the U.S. military in Vietnam were told by their commanders that the defoliants and herbicides sprayed by the U.S. Air Force were “perfectly safe…[they] just kill plants.”
The statistics, while heartbreaking, are, likewise, not news for anyone who pays attention to recent history. From 1961 to 1970 more than 20,000 missions that composed Operations “Trail Dust” and “Ranch Hand” dispersed about 13 million gallons of chemicals over five million acres of Vietnam’s forests and agricultural lands; southern Laos and Cambodia were sprayed too.
To the military mind, defoliating was a practical solution that disallowed cover to the enemy. To the corporate mind – Dow, Monsanto, Hercules, Uniroyal, Diamond Shamrock, Syntex Agribusiness, and more than two dozen others – manufacturing chemicals provided good ROI: one gallon of liquid cost $7 back then. Moreover, corporations sped up the 2,4,5T manufacturing process so they could produce more, faster. They ignored the partially catalyzed molecule, dioxin, that was a byproduct of the faster process; it remained in Agent Orange (AO).
Vietnam’s dense southern uplands’ forests were sprayed with a range of chemicals signified by color-coded barrels: Agents Blue, Orange, White, Pink, Purple and so on. Areas that the C-123 “Provider” airplanes didn’t reach – equal to the size of Rhode Island — were bulldozed with Rome Plows.
Paul Cox was a US Marine fighting along the DMZ for months. Today, he is a civil engineer, a Veteran for Peace member, and a board member of Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign (VAORRC). In a recent presentation in San Francisco, he described the area he fought in at the time as “almost totally denuded from high explosives and multiple spraying sorties; aside from some invasive grass, hardly anything lived, no animals, no bugs, no nothin’. We could operate in the area for days in a row and see no living trees.”
Since 1994, the Canadian company Hatfield Consultants has conducted contamination and mitigation work in Vietnam in close collaboration with Vietnamese Government agencies. More than nine projects in twenty provinces have determined levels of Agent Orange/dioxin in soils, food items, human blood, and breast milk. Hatfield also studies the effects of loss of timber that leads to reduced sustainability of ecosystems, decreases in the biodiversity of plants and animals, poorer soil quality, increased water contamination, heavier flooding and erosion, increased leaching of nutrients and reductions in their availability, invasions of less desirable plant species (primarily woody and herbaceous grasses), and possible alterations of Vietnam’s macro- and micro-climates.
In short, there is no let up to the devastation wreaked by war’s practicality and profit three decades ago.
Consistent determination
Despite VAVA delegates representing three million people when they travel to the U.S., to date U.S. courts have not acknowledged the chemicals’ effects on Vietnam or the Vietnamese.
Yet, under U.S. law, veterans who served in Vietnam between 1962 and 1975 (including those who visited Vietnam even briefly), and who have a disease that the Veterans Administration (VA) recognizes as being associated with Agent Orange, are presumed to have been exposed to Agent Orange and are eligible for service-connected compensation based on their service.
The VA’s list of “Diseases associated with exposure to certain herbicide agents” are Acute and Subacute Peripheral Neuropathy,AL Amyloidosis, Chloracne (or Similar Acneform Disease), Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (now expanded to B Cell Leukemias), Diabetes Mellitus (Type 2), Hodgkin’s Disease, Ischemic Heart Disease, Multiple Myeloma, Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, Parkinson’s Disease, Porphyria Cutanea Tarda, Prostate Cancer, Respiratory Cancers (of the lung, larynx, trachea, and bronchus), and Soft Tissue Sarcoma.
Veterans’ children born with Spina bifida “may be eligible for compensation, vocational training and rehabilitation and health care benefits.” For the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) concluded in its 1996 update to its report on Veterans and Agent Orange – Health Effects of Herbicides Used in Vietnam that there is “limited/suggestive evidence of an association between exposure to herbicides used in Vietnam and spina bifida in children of Vietnam veterans.”
A time line, briefly
September 10, 2004: an amended class action complaint was submitted to the U.S. District Court, Eastern District; Constantine P. Kokkoris, represented the victims.
March 10, 2005: in Brooklyn, Judge Weinstein dismissed victims’ claims.
September 30, 2005: a Brief was submitted to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York against 36 U.S. chemical companies. The summary by Jonathan Moore states:
The lawsuit…seeks to hold accountable the chemical companies who manufactured and supplied Agent Orange to the government. Contrary to government specifications, the product supplied to the government contained an excessive and avoidable amount of poison…[D]ioxin…was present in the herbicides supplied to the government only because these chemical companies deliberately and consciously chose to ignore then existing industry standards and produce a herbicide that contained excessive and avoidable amounts of dioxin. The presence of the poison dioxin had no military necessity…chemical companies…knew that the more herbicide they produced the more money they would make and the faster they produced it the more they could sell to the government….[T]hey ignored industry standards….
That lawsuit was unsuccessful.
Another try
This year VAVA, Veterans for Peace, and the Vietnamese will begin to apply pressure on Congress to pay the bills for damage done in that country. These groups are drafting legislation that they expect will become a bill that, eventually, addresses this legacy. It consist of four parts:
1) clean up the environment and do no further harm.
2) address the problems of millions ill …that now extends to three generations.
3) create regional medical centers specifically for victims’ children and grandchildren born with the physical deformities and mental illness associated with dioxin.
4) conduct a public health study on the Vietnamese American population in the U.S. to learn if, and if so, how they have been affected by AO sprayed in their homeland. (The assumption is that this population could have a similar exposure to deployed American military personnel).
Personal stories: new every time
If the news about dioxin – and the political and economic wrangling that accompanies it – is depressingly familiar, what is always fresh are the hopeful voices and enthusiastic faces of the VAVA delegates. All suffer grievous disease or deformities yet their spirits and generosity are astonishingly strong.
This year, 33-year old Pham The Minh accompanied the small group. He is the son of a Vietnamese fighter contaminated by Agent Orange in Quang Tri Province where the spraying was most intensive. Minh and and his sister were born after the war with birth defects that signal dioxin contamination.
His is no story of victimization. The man’s voice is vibrantly honest and alive as he says, “I grew up with pain in my spirit and in my body…I graduated from university and I am happy to teach English to victims of Agent Orange.”
In Minh’s city of Hai Phong alone there are more than 17,000 victims with birth defects, most of whom live difficult lives and require constant support from hard-pressed families.
Last year, the delegation was headed by Dang Hong Nhut who suffers from cancer and has experienced multiple miscarriages. Twenty-one year old Tran Thi Hoan accompanied Nhut. Tran was born with one hand and no legs due to her mother’s exposure. Despite Tran and her mother both being diagnosed with life threatening and disabling conditions that create severe and life-long hardship, the young woman attends college and is determined to work for a just solution for other Vietnamese families.
The 2007 delegates shared compelling stories too.
Vo Thanh Hai was 19 years old in 1978 when he was employed replanting trees around Nam Dong that had been defoliated by the U.S. Army’s spraying operations.
In 1986, Mr. Hai’s wife miscarried. In 1987, their son, Vo Thanh Tuan Anh was born. In 2001, he began episodes of fatigue and dizziness that was diagnosed as osteosarcoma for which he was treated with surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
Their doctor also advised Mr. Hai to have a lump on his own neck examined. Tests disclosed Hodgkins Disease.
Both father and son have difficulty performing routine activities. Mrs. Hoa provides their daily care…which means the family has little regular income.
Nguyen Van Quy served in the Vietnam People’s Army from 1972 through 1975. He ate manioc, wild herbs and plants and drank water from streams in areas that had been spayed with Agent Orange. He experienced periodic headaches and exhaustion and itchy skin and rashes.
In 2003, Mr. Quy was diagnosed with stomach cancer, liver damage and with fluid in his lung. His son, Nguyen Quang Trung, was born with spinal, limb and developmental disabilities, enlarged and deformed feet, and a congenital spine defect; he cannot stand, walk, or use his hands.
Mr. Quy’s daughter, Nguyen Thi Thuy Nga, was born deaf and dumb and developmentally disabled. Neither child can attend school or work and neither is self-sufficient.
In her presentation in San Francisco, shortly before leaving the U.S. to return home, another 2007 delegate, Mrs. Hong, said how happy she was to have had a chance to visit this country and talk to people she found “very welcoming.”
Mrs. Hong had served in the Eastern Combat Zone of South Vietnam as a clerk tailor and medical care worker. In 1964, she was sprayed with Agent Orange while washing rice in a stream. She tried to dive into the water to wash away the chemicals that stuck to her body. Moreover, she consumed contaminated food, wild grasses, and water every day after that.
In 1975 she was diagnosed with cirrhosis and required long term hospital treatment. In 1999 she was found to have an enlarged spleen and hemopoesis disorder. Several tests later uncovered cancer of the left breast as well as shortness of breath, high blood pressure, cerebral edema, breast cancer with bone metastasis, stomach aches, cirrhosis, gall-stones and bladder-stones, varicose limbs, limb-skin ulcer, weak legs and limited range of movement.
Both Mr.Quy and Mrs Hong died shortly after they returned to Vietnam.
Tragedy of such magnitude easily can overwhelm those unprepared to hear it. Yet listening deeply to these personal stories presented in the even-handed, non-blaming manner of the VAVA delegates creates an opening that may allow We, the People to apply pressure on Congress to co-create legislation to alleviate our nation’s moral stigma from our actions in Vietnam.
Perhaps the courage of the women in Lan Teh Nidah’s poem, Night Harvest can give hope to Americans of peace and reconciliation. These courageous Vietnamese women harvested rice at night to avoid detection by American forces.
…
The golds of rice and cluster bombs blend together.
even delayed fuse bombs bring no fear:
Our spirits have known many years of war.
Come, sisters, let us gather the harvest.
…
We are the harvesters of my village,
…
We are not frightened by bombs and bullets in the air –
Only by dew, wetting our lime-scented hair.
One day, perhaps, we in the United States will acknowledge our responsibilities in Vietnam. For we, too, have known many years of war. Those of us who struggle for peace are harvesters too. Let us accept our history, sew the seeds of peace, and highlight the futile lose/lose proposition that is war.
By Susan Galleymore
Friday, May 28, 2010
Dioxin Study Rejected by Scientists
The most recent criticism of the research has been rejected by the lead author of a study of dioxin contagion of people residing near a New Plymouth chemical plant.
In 2005, a Government study was conducted which gauged a surprisingly high level of dioxin in a woman’s blood who said she moved near the Ivon Watkins-Dow factory at Paritutu in 1978.
It was recommended by critics that the woman’s minutiae required to be checked, but that was not done.
According to a dioxin campaigner, Andrew Gibbs, documents now provide evidence that the woman also lived close by from 1961 to 1963.
It has been said by the dioxin campaigner that papers disclose that the woman also resided close by from 1961 to 1963.
It was also said that now there is no proof that people who shifted to Paritutu after 1969, were at threat.
But according to lead investigator Jeff Fowles, other aspects point to a soon after threat of infectivity.
In 2005, a Government study was conducted which gauged a surprisingly high level of dioxin in a woman’s blood who said she moved near the Ivon Watkins-Dow factory at Paritutu in 1978.
It was recommended by critics that the woman’s minutiae required to be checked, but that was not done.
According to a dioxin campaigner, Andrew Gibbs, documents now provide evidence that the woman also lived close by from 1961 to 1963.
It has been said by the dioxin campaigner that papers disclose that the woman also resided close by from 1961 to 1963.
It was also said that now there is no proof that people who shifted to Paritutu after 1969, were at threat.
But according to lead investigator Jeff Fowles, other aspects point to a soon after threat of infectivity.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Ministry of Health's 2005 dioxin serum study provided scientists with incorrect information.
Paritutu residents may have been misled about the amount of dioxin they were exposed to from the Ivon Watkins-Dow plant during the 1970s.
Evidence has been uncovered showing at least one participant from the Ministry of Health's 2005 dioxin serum study provided scientists with incorrect information.
Dioxin campaigners say this casts further doubts on the study and its conclusions.
Most importantly, they say, it could mean that those who lived in Paritutu in the 1970s were exposed to lower levels of the cancer-causing chemical than previously thought.
However, the ESR scientist who led the study is adamant the new findings do not change any of his original conclusions.
Jeff Fowles' team found evidence of exposure to dioxins for people who lived close to the agrochemical plant between 1962 and 1987.
On average, residents had four times more dioxin in their blood than other New Zealanders, and in some case up to seven times as much.
The latest information shows, however, it may only be those living in Paritutu during the 1960s who had such elevated levels.
The findings come from New Plymouth dioxin campaigner Andrew Gibbs, who was approached by a participant's family with concerns about the study.
They show one of the study's 52 participants had lived in Paritutu for three years during the early 1960s – not just in the 1970s and 80s as listed previously.
Although Mr Gibbs and another independent reviewer, John Leonard, raised concerns about this particular participant before, there has been no proof until now of their allegations.
Mr Gibbs says the new evidence – in the form of legal documents such as title certificates– shows the participant was placed in the wrong residency group and the findings for that post-1969 group of participants is skewed by that inclusion.
The error needed to be corrected, Mr Gibbs said, because that participant had the only significant levels of dioxin exposure of any of the post-1969 participants. "By including that participant in the post-1969 group, the average level of dioxin for those participants was elevated by 40 per cent," Mr Gibbs said. "This proves what we've always said – the main period of exposure was in the 1960s. By skewing this exposure data they have steered away from that critical time," he said. "No one ever checked out this error, even though we pointed it out at least three times before."
Ad Feedback But Dr Fowles says the participant in question had long been known as an anomaly in the results and that had been investigated. "This was taken into account in all analyses we have done since the 2005 report. In fact, we have done all our time-period calculations, and based conclusions with and without [that participant] included," he said.
"This assures that this participant did not critically influence the overall conclusions."
Dr Fowles said any revisions made by participants to their stated residency periods were beyond the research team's control, and were most unfortunate. "I cannot speak for ESR, but I have not seen conclusive evidence of this 1961-1963 residency period, but even if true, it would amount to at most, a minor adjustment to the findings."
He said the participant in question was not the only reason to consider 1970s exposure to be significant. Others living in Paritutu showed some evidence of exposure.
An ESR spokeswoman said the organisation stood by its report because it was accurate based on the content at the time.
The study has already been peer-reviewed twice and minor changes made.
Taranaki Daily News 27/05/2010
Evidence has been uncovered showing at least one participant from the Ministry of Health's 2005 dioxin serum study provided scientists with incorrect information.
Dioxin campaigners say this casts further doubts on the study and its conclusions.
Most importantly, they say, it could mean that those who lived in Paritutu in the 1970s were exposed to lower levels of the cancer-causing chemical than previously thought.
However, the ESR scientist who led the study is adamant the new findings do not change any of his original conclusions.
Jeff Fowles' team found evidence of exposure to dioxins for people who lived close to the agrochemical plant between 1962 and 1987.
On average, residents had four times more dioxin in their blood than other New Zealanders, and in some case up to seven times as much.
The latest information shows, however, it may only be those living in Paritutu during the 1960s who had such elevated levels.
The findings come from New Plymouth dioxin campaigner Andrew Gibbs, who was approached by a participant's family with concerns about the study.
They show one of the study's 52 participants had lived in Paritutu for three years during the early 1960s – not just in the 1970s and 80s as listed previously.
Although Mr Gibbs and another independent reviewer, John Leonard, raised concerns about this particular participant before, there has been no proof until now of their allegations.
Mr Gibbs says the new evidence – in the form of legal documents such as title certificates– shows the participant was placed in the wrong residency group and the findings for that post-1969 group of participants is skewed by that inclusion.
The error needed to be corrected, Mr Gibbs said, because that participant had the only significant levels of dioxin exposure of any of the post-1969 participants. "By including that participant in the post-1969 group, the average level of dioxin for those participants was elevated by 40 per cent," Mr Gibbs said. "This proves what we've always said – the main period of exposure was in the 1960s. By skewing this exposure data they have steered away from that critical time," he said. "No one ever checked out this error, even though we pointed it out at least three times before."
Ad Feedback But Dr Fowles says the participant in question had long been known as an anomaly in the results and that had been investigated. "This was taken into account in all analyses we have done since the 2005 report. In fact, we have done all our time-period calculations, and based conclusions with and without [that participant] included," he said.
"This assures that this participant did not critically influence the overall conclusions."
Dr Fowles said any revisions made by participants to their stated residency periods were beyond the research team's control, and were most unfortunate. "I cannot speak for ESR, but I have not seen conclusive evidence of this 1961-1963 residency period, but even if true, it would amount to at most, a minor adjustment to the findings."
He said the participant in question was not the only reason to consider 1970s exposure to be significant. Others living in Paritutu showed some evidence of exposure.
An ESR spokeswoman said the organisation stood by its report because it was accurate based on the content at the time.
The study has already been peer-reviewed twice and minor changes made.
Taranaki Daily News 27/05/2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)