US to help Vietnam overcome Agent Orange effects
The US Congress will cooperate with the Vietnamese government to help Vietnam overcome long-lasting toxic effects of the defoliants, notably Agent Orange, sprayed by the US army in the past war.
“[Congress] hopes to act [on dealing with Agent Orange consequences] this year,” Vietnam Television (VTV) quoted Tim Rieser, aide to Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, as saying at a press briefing held by the US Embassy in Hanoi Sunday.
Rieser said the US Congress was responsible for helping Vietnamese people overcome the consequences of “some things the US did” during the war, which included the use of chemicals which contained carcinogenic dioxin.
Congress would work with the Vietnamese government and several other organizations to assist programs that dealt with the issue, he added.
The programs would center on decontamination of dioxin-polluted “hotbeds” and aids to those affected people, Rieser also said.
The state-owned TV channel commented that if such assistance was delivered, it would be the first time the US administration officially admitted their responsibility and contributed to resolving the problem.
Poisonous dioxin
The US army sprayed an estimated 11 million gallons of Agent Orange on South Vietnam in Operation Ranch Hand between 1961 and 1971.
Agent Orange was a cocktail of chemicals that were stored in drums marked with an orange band. It was contaminated with TCDD, or poisonous dioxin, known to cause cancer and other diseases.
Dioxins accumulate in the body to cause cancers. Anyone eating or drinking in contaminated areas then receives an even higher dose.
Vietnam blames the US dioxin-contained defoliants for widespread health problems and birth defects, a claim backed by physicians and military veterans' groups from several countries including the US.
However, the US says there is no proof. And yet, in the US, Vietnam veterans who handled Agent Orange can claim compensation for a whole range of other diseases recognized as being associated with dioxin.
They range from skin diseases such as Chloracne, through to conditions that affect the nerves and lymphatic glands as well as a range of cancers - of the lung, larynx and prostate.
The New Zealand government early this month agreed upon one-time payments of US$24,100 for Vietnam War veterans who suffered conditions as a result of exposure to Agent Orange.
In April visiting US Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Nicholson was pressed by Vietnamese journalists on why the US compensated its own veterans for health defects linked to the chemical, but not Vietnam's.
Lawsuits
Since the 1980s, several lawsuits have been filed against the companies who produced Agent Orange, among them being Dow Chemical and Monsanto.
In 1984, the chemical companies paid $180 million into a fund for United States veterans following a lawsuit. They did not, however, admit any wrongdoing.
Australian, Canadian and New Zealand veterans also obtained compensation in an out-of-court settlements the same year.
In 1999, 20,000 South Koreans filed a lawsuit in Korea; in January 2006, the Korean Appeal Court ordered Monsanto and Dow to pay $62 million in compensation to about 6,800 people.
However, no Vietnamese have obtained compensation, and on March 10, 2005 Judge Jack Weinstein of Brooklyn Federal Court dismissed the lawsuit filed by the Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange against the chemical companies that produced the defoliants/herbicides. |
