Study: Agent Orange Lingers in Vietnam Food

[sujan]

HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam War-era defoliant Agent Orange continues to contaminate livestock and fish eaten by Vietnamese decades after it was used, a study released on Monday showed.
A 2002 study in Bien Hoa city, about 20 miles north of Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, showed residents and food had high levels of dioxin, the August issue of The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine said.

The report said about 95 percent of blood samples taken from 43 people in Bien Hoa "were found to have elevated TCDD levels," referring to the most toxic of the dioxins.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=YDJAPNEDBNNXUCRBAE0CFEY?type=healthNews&storyID=3255674

[bif]

1. How long does it take to break down?

n/t

[twilight]

2. sprayed the area north of me with Agent Orange in 1988

I wonder what the ramifications of this are? They were spraying portions of the pacific northwest in California (about 50 miles north of where I am) in 1988 to defoliate the area so the timber mongers could clear-cut easier.

One woman I know living in the immediate area was pregnant at the time and the child was born with a cleft-palate and other abnormaties. She wasn't/isn't worried though because, "the timber company paid to fix his face and now he's jist fine" (redneck talk).

I wonder how far this stuff spreads after sprayed. I don't buy or eat food from there but this area has the largest cancer rate in the entire USA. My mother fell ill last year and died 3 mos. later of cancer and she had just moved here about 6 months prior to that time.

Scarey stuff isn't it? I'd like some answers!

:kick:

[wickerwoman]

7. Hasn't it been banned?

I know the VA now acknowledges the health risks and compensates veterans (my father has severe diabetes related to Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam.) For years they denied this, but I would have thought by 1988 that they knew the dangers.

[Exultant Democracy]

3. I'm so pissed off right now.

Oh I'm soooo pissed. G-d dammit, we are the WMD using monsters. I don't know how the damn nationalist don't choke to death on their own hypocrisy. If was can go after 80 WWII war criminals I think we should go after our own war criminals too, from the Nam, to Iraq.

[DeathvadeR]

4. Maybe this will help....

My Father died at 54..He experienced complications from agent orange expose in Vietnam. He tried for years, right before he died, paper work back and forth the governament trying to get someone to listen..He then passed away and mother had to battle with them for another year...Finally She then recieved an admission to expose and allocated my Mother a check in the amount of $30 and a letter stating that there was only so much money to go aound.

200,000 soldiers are seeking benefits from an illness our government refuses to acknowledge... Gulf War Syndrome...... From the 1st war.....why whould anyone go over to fight another?

[twilight]

5. yeah and the local communities in America!

How the hell do you think I feel? A dead mother and living in an area sprayed with Agent Orange?

We are the WMD! We are! Look no further than in the freakin' mirror! America is sick, sick with greed and hatred!

:kick:

[Nambe]

6. Dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=60774&mesg_id=60774

[VolcanoJen]

8. Dupe... locking

Please continue discussion by posting in the original, earliest thread on this topic, which can be found here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=60774&mesg_id=60774

Thanks!
VolcanoJen
DU Moderator