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A Human Tragedy: Agent Orange

By Dennis Kroll

There were many times prior to leaving for Vietnam that I was worried as an American we would be badly received by the Vietnamese for the policies of the U.S. during the war. Time after time the Vietnamese people we met, young and old, made the fear dissipate.

However, the day we were to meet with the Chemical Warfare Committee in Hanoi the fear returned. Having worked closely with Vietnam veterans and their families for nine years, and seeing the frustrations, sorrow and anger of exposure to Agent Orange and the effects it had on children, I could only imagine what the Vietnames had endured through the years and how those working closely with the problem might feel towards us.

We were warmly received by Dr Hoang Dinh Cau, Vice-Minister of the Faculty of Medicine of Hanoi and his colleagues. "First, I would like to thank you, your organization, as well as the other American people, for your struggle for peace in the war in Vietnam. I thought the past war was a very dark place in history between our two people. It is our wish and your wish that we let bygones be bygones. We shall look to the future and join you in your actions in stooping chemical warfare."

In an informative presentation we were given details of the study the Vietnamese started in 1969.

The effects of defoliation on the environment is still evident. In some areas only virulent grass will grow. In other areas only pine trees take root. Initial replanting of forests failed in many areas: forests have now been replanted two or three times, but many areas still suffer from stunted growths and are still not suitable for commercial or agricultural production. Tens of thousands of hectares of damaged tidal mangroves are still wasteland. Equipment shortages hamper the recovery progress. Sampan and motorized canoe are the only forms of transportation into the mangrove forests and canals. It takes days to reach them and then most of the work is done manually.

Dr Arthur Westing, an authority on chemical warfare in Vietnam, predicts that it will take at least fifty years for some of the mangrove forests to recover.

Far worse is the human tragedy. Much research was done comparing samples with the Vietnamese who lived in the North and those living in similar geographical areas of the South. Of nine samples of body fat taken in the North, all were negative. Of 26 samples taken in the South, 23 contained high quantities of TCDD, one of the proven toxic components of Agent Orange. Samples were tested in Finland, Canada and the U.S.

The infant mortality rate is 6.44 times higher in the South than in the North. In mother's milk. six samples showed 3.8 ppt dioxin, 27,866 times the amount deemed acceptable by the U.S. Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. GA. The cancer rate is four times higher in the South than in the North. In Ho Chi Minh City, we met Steve Minken, author, international health consultant, and former chief of the UNICEF nutrition program in Bangladesh. He had visited Tu Du Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City where, he said, "I saw a room full of women, some two in a bed, all diagnosed with Hydathform Mole Chorio Carcinoma; according to Dr Nguyen Thi Ngoe Phuong there are continuous intakes of this type of cancer (627) cases and they are probably only a fraction of the cases in the country. One such case, several years ago in Bangladesh, rated articles in medical journals of its extreme rarity.

The most painful aspect of the presentation involved in Vietnamese children. Over 30 Siamese twins have been born in the South. Only a few slides of other monstrous deformities born to the Vietnamese were needed and no words needed to be spoken to explain the legacy of U.S. chemical warfare in Vietnam. Children born years after the last bombs fell and years after the last plane sprayed its deadly poison still suffer the effects of the war. Because of the embargo that the U.S. government has placed against shipments of medical supplies to Vietnam, there is pitiful little medicine to ease the sufferings of these children.

As a nation we must move towards normalization of relations between our government and the government of Vietnam. A joint scientific and medical program to deal with the tragedy of Agent Orange would be a humage place to start.

—Dennis Kroll, Madison VVAW