Vietnamese Still Exposed to Deadly Chemicals Decades After War
The United States ended its involvement in the Vietnam War 35 years ago, and established diplomatic relations with Hanoi 15 years ago. But a recent visit to Vietnam by members of the U.S.-Vietnam Dialogue Group on Agent Orange and Dioxin saw the lingering effects of highly toxic chemicals used by U.S. forces to remove dense vegetation in a bid to flush out enemy combatants. Agent Orange is the code name for one of the chemicals used by the U.S. Military during the Vietnam War, which raged between 1961 and 1971. Agent Orange was given its name from the color of the large orange-striped barrels in which it was shipped. An estimated 45 million liters of Agent Orange were sprayed over parts of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
The United States ended its involvement in the Vietnam War 35 years ago, and established diplomatic relations with Hanoi 15 years ago. But a recent visit to Vietnam by members of the U.S.-Vietnam Dialogue Group on Agent Orange and Dioxin saw the lingering effects of highly toxic chemicals used by U.S. forces to remove dense vegetation in a bid to flush out enemy combatants.
Agent Orange is the code name for one of the chemicals used by the U.S. Military during the Vietnam War. Agent Orange was given its name from the color of the large orange-striped barrels in which it was shipped. An estimated 45 million liters of Agent Orange were sprayed over parts of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
Among the U.S. inter-faith delegation which recently returned from Vietnam was Rabbi Steve Gutow, the president and CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. "The damage from Agent Orange (and) dioxin was difficult to look at, to feel," he said. "And to know that we in some way contributed to this was very hard to take away. As a person who thinks America is as great a country as we have in the world, it just really upset me."
The U.S. Congress appropriated $3 million for fiscal 2007 and again for fiscal 2009 and 2010 for Agent Orange/dioxin work in Vietnam. Financial support is also coming from the Ford and other U.S. foundations, UN agencies and other governments. Some $30 million has been mobilized so far.
But Reverend Caroll Baltimore Sr., president of the progressive National Baptist Convention Inc., said more needs to done. "The damage is long term. And the hot spots are overwhelming even to the point in Da Nang for example where the land is still bare and baron, where no vegetation grows."
Sister Maureen Fielder also found the situation to be surprisingly bad after more than three decades. "The most poignant place was Da Nang, the Air Force base in Da Nang where we had stored and spilled so much of this poison," she said. "And what amazed me was that after 35 years you could still smell the stuff. It was so strong and so toxic."
The Vietnamese government and an independent expert firm, Hatfield Consulting of North Vancouver, Canada, conducted a series of independent assessments of dioxin residues in the environment around the Da Nang airport and in the blood and breast milk of current area residents. The results provided a clearer understanding of the problem in Da Nang, where the feasibility of bio-remediation efforts is being tested.
Rabbi Gutow did not need a study to realize the scope of the issue. "There was nothing harsher than Da Nang airport. We had to buy those shoes. We tried to make a joke of it where you buy these shoes you had to throw away. Because when you walked there you knew what we had left there under this concrete slab still had the capacity to hurt people and kill people. And we as a country have not stepped up to the plate and taken care of it."
Findings in of follow-up studies in 2009 indicated that the 2007 interim mitigation measures had succeeded in reducing dioxin exposure of people in the area. But the damage was evident to members of the inter-faith delegation as they saw Vietnamese children coping with physical hardships and deformities.
"This is one of the truly insidious effects of Agent Orange and dioxin. It gets passed on in the genetics of reproduction. And we have no idea how many generations might be affected by this," said Sister Maureen Fielder.
"In no individual case can anyone definitively connect Agent Orange with a specific disability," she said "None the less the connection is there certainly by correlation. Because the children that are disabled are overwhelmingly in the areas sprayed by Agent Orange and dioxin."
The idea for a citizen-to-citizen dialogue on Agent Orange was first explored in 2006 by the Ford
Foundation. The dialogue, which is not an implementing agency or a fundraising organization, was formally established in February 2007 as an initiative of prominent private citizens, scientists and policy-makers on both sides, working on issues that the two countries' governments have found.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
Obama has approved US$12 million for Dioxon cleanup.
US President Barack Obama has approved US$12 million for an ongoing project aimed at cleaning up dioxin that has contaminated the soil and water in and around the Da Nang Airport. The announcement was made by congressman Eni Faleomavaega (D-American Samoa) on August 26, during a three-day visit to Vietnam. Faleomavaega's visit was aimed at discussing the two countries’ relationship, including cooperative efforts to mitigate Agent Orange contamination in Vietnam.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Another chemical cocktail toxic environmental nightmare.
Another dioxin dump with the same cancer coursing symptoms as Paritutu New Plymouth.
Dad fights to expose cancer coursing cluster in Maryland USA.
Two and a half years ago, Randy White's daughter Kristen was diagnosed with brain cancer. She went through chemo, radiation and three brain biopsies, but nothing worked. Just 30 years old, she died in his house, in his arms.
White, a preacher from Tampa, didn't have to look far. He had raised his children in Frederick, Md., where people have struggled with groundwater contamination for years. Also, some residents remembered nearby Fort Detrick had tested the chemical defoliant known as Agent Orange in the late 1960s and '70s.
Over the past two years, White has spent more than $250,000 of his own money through the Kristen Renee Foundation, named after his late daughter, researching toxic agents and epidemiological data in the area. He says the data are starting to paint a picture of toxic contamination and cancer flowing from the fort.
Dioxin, the active ingredient in Agent Orange, is a documented carcinogen, and TCE and PCE, two chemical solvents discovered in some wells in Frederick, have also been linked to cancer. White is trying to prove that those chemicals made it into the groundwater in and around Frederick, and that that's what caused not only his daughters' and ex-wife's cancers but also the cancers of 400 residents within two miles of White's former home in Frederick.
Last week, Frederick residents met with representatives of Fort Detrick to express their concerns. Fort Detrick has appointed a contractor to examine its own history of Agent Orange testing and is cooperating with the Frederick County Health Department's proceedings to test the possibility of a cancer cluster.
"They're concerned about the past, they're concerned about the present and they're concerned about the future, and whether some of the health conditions they're experiencing might be related to Fort Detrick," Dr. Barbara Brookmeyer, the county's health officer, told AOL News.
For a farmer in town who lost all of his livestock, or numerous others who have lost family members to unexpected cancers, these proceedings could cast light on years of tragedy.
"People are looking for answers," said Brookmeyer.
Fort Detrick spokesman Rob Sperling has said he was not aware of the Agent Orange testing before White brought it to his attention, but a recent Veterans Today article shows that the defoliant testing at the fort was well documented even within the public sphere, pointing to a series of Frederick News-Post articles from the 1970s. The question now becomes how well it was contained, and what particular carcinogenic components of Agent Orange could have leaked into the surrounding environment.
The Army only recently finished capping six old dump sites in Frederick.
White and the Kristen Renee Foundation have begun a class-action lawsuit against Fort Detrick. Cancer clusters are difficult to identify, and it's even more difficult to prove direct environmental causation. But according to Lemuel Srolovic of the law firm Weitz & Luxenberg, where cancer-cluster buster Erin Brockovich works, identifying a cluster is actually not that important when it comes to the courtroom.
"If you can prove exposure to a harmful agent and you can prove that one person, two people, three people have an illness that's caused by that exposure, then that's a successful lawsuit," he told AOL News.
He also warns, however, that many cancers are not uncommon in America, and that when people begin looking for trends they sometimes find what they think are abnormal numbers but actually turn out to be statistical averages.
Legal experts say the Kristen Renee Foundation and other plaintiffs against Fort Detrick will have some advantages. The source of contamination that they're examining seems pretty clear, and the carcinogenic effects of Agent Orange, PCE and TCE have received the attention of veterans' organizations for years.
For White's part, his own personal loss has translated into the rage to take this fight until the end.
"It is an environmental nightmare. It is catastrophic," he told AOL News. "There's a long, drawn-out, hard battle, but it's one that I'm willing to fight for and not just for my daughter but for all the people that don't have the finances and don't have the voice."
"She was never sick a day in her life" before the cancer, White told AOL News.
Just two months after he had buried Kristen, White's other daughter, Angie, was diagnosed with a highly abnormal stomach cancer, which doctors were able to successfully remove. But six weeks later, his ex-wife took a fall that revealed an advanced renal cell cancer. According to White, the doctors at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., told them that these cases didn't look genetic -- they were environmental.
Contributor Dave Their AOL News
Dad fights to expose cancer coursing cluster in Maryland USA.
Two and a half years ago, Randy White's daughter Kristen was diagnosed with brain cancer. She went through chemo, radiation and three brain biopsies, but nothing worked. Just 30 years old, she died in his house, in his arms.
White, a preacher from Tampa, didn't have to look far. He had raised his children in Frederick, Md., where people have struggled with groundwater contamination for years. Also, some residents remembered nearby Fort Detrick had tested the chemical defoliant known as Agent Orange in the late 1960s and '70s.
Over the past two years, White has spent more than $250,000 of his own money through the Kristen Renee Foundation, named after his late daughter, researching toxic agents and epidemiological data in the area. He says the data are starting to paint a picture of toxic contamination and cancer flowing from the fort.
Dioxin, the active ingredient in Agent Orange, is a documented carcinogen, and TCE and PCE, two chemical solvents discovered in some wells in Frederick, have also been linked to cancer. White is trying to prove that those chemicals made it into the groundwater in and around Frederick, and that that's what caused not only his daughters' and ex-wife's cancers but also the cancers of 400 residents within two miles of White's former home in Frederick.
Last week, Frederick residents met with representatives of Fort Detrick to express their concerns. Fort Detrick has appointed a contractor to examine its own history of Agent Orange testing and is cooperating with the Frederick County Health Department's proceedings to test the possibility of a cancer cluster.
"They're concerned about the past, they're concerned about the present and they're concerned about the future, and whether some of the health conditions they're experiencing might be related to Fort Detrick," Dr. Barbara Brookmeyer, the county's health officer, told AOL News.
For a farmer in town who lost all of his livestock, or numerous others who have lost family members to unexpected cancers, these proceedings could cast light on years of tragedy.
"People are looking for answers," said Brookmeyer.
Fort Detrick spokesman Rob Sperling has said he was not aware of the Agent Orange testing before White brought it to his attention, but a recent Veterans Today article shows that the defoliant testing at the fort was well documented even within the public sphere, pointing to a series of Frederick News-Post articles from the 1970s. The question now becomes how well it was contained, and what particular carcinogenic components of Agent Orange could have leaked into the surrounding environment.
The Army only recently finished capping six old dump sites in Frederick.
White and the Kristen Renee Foundation have begun a class-action lawsuit against Fort Detrick. Cancer clusters are difficult to identify, and it's even more difficult to prove direct environmental causation. But according to Lemuel Srolovic of the law firm Weitz & Luxenberg, where cancer-cluster buster Erin Brockovich works, identifying a cluster is actually not that important when it comes to the courtroom.
"If you can prove exposure to a harmful agent and you can prove that one person, two people, three people have an illness that's caused by that exposure, then that's a successful lawsuit," he told AOL News.
He also warns, however, that many cancers are not uncommon in America, and that when people begin looking for trends they sometimes find what they think are abnormal numbers but actually turn out to be statistical averages.
Legal experts say the Kristen Renee Foundation and other plaintiffs against Fort Detrick will have some advantages. The source of contamination that they're examining seems pretty clear, and the carcinogenic effects of Agent Orange, PCE and TCE have received the attention of veterans' organizations for years.
For White's part, his own personal loss has translated into the rage to take this fight until the end.
"It is an environmental nightmare. It is catastrophic," he told AOL News. "There's a long, drawn-out, hard battle, but it's one that I'm willing to fight for and not just for my daughter but for all the people that don't have the finances and don't have the voice."
"She was never sick a day in her life" before the cancer, White told AOL News.
Just two months after he had buried Kristen, White's other daughter, Angie, was diagnosed with a highly abnormal stomach cancer, which doctors were able to successfully remove. But six weeks later, his ex-wife took a fall that revealed an advanced renal cell cancer. According to White, the doctors at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., told them that these cases didn't look genetic -- they were environmental.
Contributor Dave Their AOL News
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Hillary vowed to increase cooperation .
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a visit to Vietnam Thursday, vowed to increase cooperation in dealing with the legacy of the wartime herbicide Agent Orange.US aircraft sprayed the chemicals during the Vietnam War to strip trees of foliage in order to deprive communist Viet Cong forces of cover and food.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Journalism to raise public awareness 35 years later.
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
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
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.
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