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U.S. Military Environmental Poisons Still Effective In Vietnam
Clinton Last Chance For Vietnamese Victims Agent Orange/Dioxin Still
Contaminates Vietnam Villagers
By Barry Mason
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/jul2000/bse-j12.shtml
7-12-00
HANOI, Vietnam (Reuters) - Villagers living close to a
former U.S. air base where there was a big spill of the
defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War show
elevated levels of dioxin contamination, a leading
researcher says.
Arnold Schecter, a professor of environmental sciences at
the University of Texas, told Reuters the findings and
previous Canadian research showed dioxin had found its
way back into the food chain in at least two Agent
Orange ``hot spots'' in Vietnam.
Schecter said he and Vietnamese scientists had taken
blood samples last year from 20 villagers living close to
the former U.S. air base of Bien Hoa, where thousands
of gallons of Agent Orange had been spilled in the late
1960s.
Analysis of the samples obtained this year showed 19 of
the 20 had elevated levels of dioxin.
``Nineteen out of 20 really surprised us,'' Schecter said in
an interview in Hanoi. ``One woman had the highest level
seen in Vietnam since the last samples were taken during
the war.
``That's a 135 percent increase above the level for
non-exposed Hanoi residents. It startled us, it startled my
group -- it's striking.''
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
recently issued a reassessment of dioxin, concluding that
it is a known carcinogen that causes cancer and deaths
from cancer in humans.
However, there was the possibility of the EPA findings
being contested by industry, including Agent Orange
manufacturers, worried about potentially large damages
settlements.
Litigation by industry had meant similar conclusions by
the U.S. Public Health Service's National Toxicology
Program had not been released, Schecter said.
Spraying of Agent Orange, used by the United States to
deny communist guerrillas jungle cover, ended in
Vietnam in 1971.
Schecter said if researchers were better funded they
could map out other hot spots like Bien Hoa and see if
they could be cleaned up and what could be done for
people affected.
``I hope and expect from what I hear in Washington they
will try to get U.S. government funding for Agent Orange
research in Vietnam started this year.
``It Must Be Done Now''
``This year is the last year of the Clinton administration
and we have no idea what the next administration will
want to do. It must be done now, or it may never be
done.''
During a visit to Vietnam earlier this year, Defense
Secretary William Cohen called for cooperation in
research into the harmful effects of Agent Orange.
Schecter, a member of the U.S. Army Medical Corps in
the Vietnam War who has been researching Agent
Orange in Vietnam since 1984, said implications of such
research extended beyond Vietnam and U.S. veterans
seeking compensation for the effects of contamination, to
cases like the recent Belgian food scare.
``It will tell us how dioxin moves through the
environment. he said. ``Most people thought the dioxin
from Agent Orange had just moved away, been washed
away. Clearly, 30 years after the spraying ended, it's not
doing that and it is being remobilized in certain hot spots
and getting into people.''
It could also show what levels of dioxins caused which
health effects, Schecter said.
``Vietnam has the biggest dioxin contamination in the
world and probably the most men women and children
contaminated with dioxin. Unfortunately for Vietnam, it
is probably the best laboratory in the world to study the
effects of dioxin.''
Schecter said that of those villagers contaminated near
Bien Hoa, some were old enough to have been exposed
to spraying during the war but others were born long
after the spraying ended.
The highest levels of contamination were among heavy
fish consumers, specifically in a family that ate a lot of
fish from a stream on their property downstream from
the air base.
``The spillage of Agent Orange at Bien Hoa air base
probably got into a waterway that goes nearby, probably
contaminated silt that probably contaminated fish,''
Schecter said.
``We know now that Agent Orange is a human
carcinogen, we know it causes endocrine disruption and
we know it causes certain types of damage to children if
the mother has high enough exposure,'' Schecter said.
sightings.com
(7/17/2000)
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