THANK GOD IRAQ IS NO RAINFOREST JUNGLE!!!
Clue:
PHOTOGRAPHY
Agent Provocateur
The images of Philip Jones Griffiths chronicle the awful price that Vietnam continues to pay for the United States' wartime use of Agent Orange
By Colin Pantall/LONDON
Issue cover-dated February 05, 2004
Agent Orange: Collateral Damage in Vietnam, by Philip Jones Griffiths, is published by Trolley ($39.95)
PHOTOGRAPHER Philip Jones Griffiths first heard about the dangers of Agent Orange in Saigon in 1967. "During the war there were these rumours that babies were being born without eyes and it became a quest to find them," says Griffiths. "I visited as many Catholic orphanages as I could, but I was barred entry from most of them and I became convinced that the Americans had put the word out--don't let any press in."
The British photographer, now aged 67, worked as a freelance during the Vietnam War, but though an associate member of the well-respected Magnum photo agency, he enjoyed little financial success. It was only with the publication in 1971 of Vietnam Inc., Griffiths' book on the failings of the American war machine, that his work reached a wider audience.
Griffiths returned to Vietnam in 1980, when he had his first encounters with victims of Agent Orange, a devastating defoliant widely used by United States forces during the Vietnam War. In the years since, Griffiths has photographed a number of Vietnam's estimated 1 million victims. Those images have now been published in Agent Orange, a harsh and uncompromising examination of the legacy left by the chemical spraying of Vietnam.
Griffiths' first encounter with Agent Orange victims happened almost by chance. "We were travelling by road from Hanoi to Saigon and we started talking about Agent Orange. The driver said, well there's this family with two blind daughters--we'll probably see them tomorrow." The father of the family had been a driver on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, transporting supplies to the Vietcong, and he was proud of his role in the war. "There was a strange ambivalence between the pride of the family and this disaster that had struck them. Those two blind girls were the first ones I ever saw."
Agent Orange was one of a series of herbicides used in Vietnam mainly to deny enemy forces jungle and forest cover. As the intensity of spraying increased during the 1960s, indications of the toxicity of Agent Orange and its deadly component, dioxin, became evident. A byproduct of chlorine production, dioxin is widely believed to cause disastrous changes at a hormonal and genetic level in humans--resulting in conditions ranging from Hodgkin's disease to leukaemia.
"The connection between Agent Orange exposure and associated diseases is accepted by the majority of scientists who work in the field," states Dr. Arnold Schechter, a professor at the University of Texas who is researching the health effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam. Yet, as he explains, some still question the link: "There is resistance to connecting Agent Orange to some diseases when litigation is involved," he says. "Industry groups will try to minimize the health damage."
Not just industry: "The U.S. federal government has resisted for years," says Dr. Steven Stellman of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. "It has been very difficult to get studies going and very little research has been funded."
Griffiths began documenting the full horrors of the genetic effects of Agent Orange at Tu Du Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). "I went in and it was this dark room filled with all these deformed foetuses," he says. He photographed conjoined twins, collapsed skulls and twisted spines, yet somehow he shows these dead babies with tenderness. "I tried to give them some humanity," he says. "Some are hugging or embracing. I didn't want to turn it into a freak show."
As Griffiths continued to photograph, the full scale of Vietnam's tragedy became apparent to him. In 1998 he visited Cam Nghia, a village where 10% of children were born with serious deformities. "Cam Nghia had the highest number of abnormalities in Vietnam, but what you're not told is that in the majority of cases, the foetus doesn't even develop."
In 1971, the use of Agent Orange officially ceased in Vietnam, but it's still claiming victims today. Dioxin is stored both in the human body--where breast-feeding mothers can pass it on to their babies--and in nature. "They're finding concentrations of dioxin in the sediment of this fishpond where the levels are the highest they have recorded in the world," says Griffiths. "And yet the people are still eating the fish from there."
Griffiths believes Vietnam presents a unique opportunity to study what happens to victims of dioxin. "You've got people who are culturally and ethnically identical living around Vietnam. Only the south was sprayed--the north wasn't sprayed, so you've got your control group there and it gives a wonderful opportunity. But almost the only company doing major research is Hatfield Consultants of Canada," which is researching linkages between dioxin residues in the environment and birth defects.
Dioxin isn't just an issue for Vietnam. In January, a study found increased incidences of melanomas among U.S. veterans who flew Agent Orange missions. For years, veterans have been seeking additional compensation to the 1984 settlement of $180 million (with no admission of liability) that they won from chemical companies that produced Agent Orange.
But they've still received more support than Vietnam's victims. Washington may question the link between exposure to Agent Orange and birth defects, says Dr. Wayne Dwernychuk of Hatfield, but "the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs provides financial compensation to U.S. Vietnam veterans for certain diseases if they can show they were exposed to Agent Orange during their tours of duty." He adds: "Spina bifida, a birth defect in children of U.S. Vietnam veterans, is covered by Veterans Affairs . . . but not for victims in Vietnam."
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When America was "liberating" Vietnam --the pictures:
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