[CPEO-MEF] Study: Agent Orange Still in Vietnam

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

Note: The study referred to in the article below can be viewed online at
the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine website at:
http://ipsapp003.lwwonline.com/journals/joim/texts/schecterarticleedited.pdf

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Vietnam
YAHOO! NEWS
Study: Agent Orange Still in Vietnam
Mon Aug 11, 6:30 PM ET
By Tini Tran, Associated Press Writer

HANOI, Vietnam - Decades after the wartime defoliant Agent Orange was
sprayed over Vietnam, toxic chemicals continue to contaminate Vietnamese
people and the food they eat, according to a new study released Monday.

The finding, published in the August issue of the Journal of
Occupational and Environmental Medicine, found that six out of 16 food
samples taken last year from around the southern city of Bien Hoa, a
former U.S. air base, had levels of dioxin approaching those found
during the Vietnam War.

Dioxin was found in ducks, chickens, a bottom-dwelling fish and a toad.
Samples of pork and beef showed negligible levels.

"This study is one of many that shows Agent Orange is not history.
Dioxin contamination is still found in high levels in some Vietnamese,
as high as when spraying was going on," said lead researcher Dr. Arnold
Schecter, of the University of Texas School of Public Health in Dallas.

During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military sprayed an estimated 21
million gallons of herbicides over central and southern Vietnam to
destroy jungles communist forces used as cover. About 55 percent of that
was Agent Orange, which contains the highly toxic dioxin.

Bien Hoa was the site of a 5,000-gallon underground spill of Agent
Orange about three decades ago.

Earlier studies have shown high dioxin levels in the bloodstream of
residents of Bien Hoa, located 20 miles northeast of Ho Chi Minh City,
including children born decades after the spraying and people who
recently moved there.

Though there has never been a direct scientific connection established
between the herbicide and birth defects, exposure to Agent Orange has
been linked to a variety of illnesses, including cancer, diabetes and
spina bifida.

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