[CPEO-MEF] Agent Orange and the Vietnamese

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

In Vietnam, Old Foes Take Aim at War's Toxic Legacy

By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post
November 13, 2006

DA NANG, Vietnam -- For a stark reminder of the Vietnam War, people 
living near the airport in this central industrial city can still stroll 
along the old stone walls that once surrounded a U.S. military base. But 
Luu Thi Nguyen, a 31-year-old homemaker, needs only to look into the 
face of her young daughter.

Van, 5, spends her days at home, playing by herself on the concrete 
floor because local school officials say her appearance frightens other 
children. She has an oversize head and a severely deformed mouth, and 
her upper body is covered in a rash so severe her skin appears to have 
been boiled. According to Vietnamese medical authorities, she is part of 
a new generation of Agent Orange victims, forever scarred by the 
U.S.-made herbicide containing dioxin, one of the world's most toxic 
pollutants.

For decades, the United States and Vietnam have wrangled over the 
question of responsibility for the U.S. military's deployment of Agent 
Orange. But officials say they are now moving to jointly address at 
least one important aspect of the spraying's aftermath -- environmental 
damage at Vietnamese "hot spots" such as Nguyen's city, Da Nang -- that 
are still contaminated with dioxin 31 years after the fall of Saigon.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/12/AR2006111201065.html

--
Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org

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