[CPEO-MEF] Vietnam's Agent Orange legacy

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Chemical's legacy of suffering
MANY SAY U.S. SHOULD HELP VICTIMS OF WARTIME POISON

By K. Oanh Ha
San Jose Mercury News (CA)
November 21, 2006

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam - Dang Hong Nhut smiles broadly when she 
speaks about her firstborn, a son she describes as tall and handsome, 
born before American combat in Vietnam intensified. Her face wrinkles up 
in revulsion when conversation turns to her other child, who died years 
ago in her womb three months before full term.

"The body was very deformed," the 70-year-old said in a hushed voice. "I 
was scared to look at it. It was not natural."

Dang and medical authorities here say she and the stillborn child, 
stored in a jar of formaldehyde at a local hospital, are the victims of 
Agent Orange, the toxic herbicide American troops sprayed during the 
Vietnam War to defoliate jungles and root out communist Viet Cong fighters.

Thirty-one years after the end of the war in Vietnam, the chemical 
warfare unleashed by the United States still maims. It's one of the last 
remaining legacies of the war that President Bush was pressed to address 
during his recent visit to Vietnam. In a broad joint statement of the 
two countries issued over the weekend, the presidents agreed that 
combined efforts by both countries to deal with environmental 
contamination at former U.S. military bases where the toxin was stored 
would help to deepen the relationship.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/16065189.htm

--


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
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org


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