Agent Orange Still Killing After Three Decades

[Aidoneus]

WASHINGTON, Jul 9 (IPS) - More than 30 years after the spraying of Agent Orange in Vietnam by U.S. troops during the war, the health effects on U.S. veterans and their families as well as affected Vietnamese remain devastating, experts say.

Birth defects resulting from contamination with the chemical herbicide persist in today's third generation of grandchildren of the war and its victims -- with no end in sight. An estimated 650,000 victims are suffering from chronic illnesses in Vietnam alone, and another 500,000 have already died, researchers say.

”This is not a historical problem, but one with long-term consequences that have to be addressed,” said Dr. Wayne Dwernychuk, senior vice president of the Vancouver-based Hatfield Associates, an environmental impact consulting agency.

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Next week, Rep. Lane Evans, an Illinois Democrat, plans to introduce a new bill in the Congressional committee on veterans affairs that will focus on aiding the children of Vietnam veterans. A broader bill is supposed to follow next year.

While the U.S. government has only reluctantly taken responsibility for its own soldiers, it has shown even less interest in the affected Vietnamese population.

A conference at Yale University last April concluded that in Vietnam, the U.S. had conducted the ”largest chemical warfare campaign in history”. No compensation for civilian Vietnamese victims has ever been offered.

”It does not stretch current preoccupations to see Agent Orange/dioxin as a kind of weapon of mass destruction, finding its victims both among combatants and innocent civilians. The intended prey may have been forests and food supplies, but the ultimate price was and is paid by human beings,” said John McAuliff, executive director of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development, in a statement on Tuesday.

So far, the U.S. government has given no indication that it will aid Vietnamese victims and their families, who have been exposed to dioxin residues for the last 30 years.

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