The terrible legacy of Agent Orange
The terrible legacy of Agent Orange
Forty years after war ended, Washington begins decontamination of worst-affected areas in Vietnam
Will Robinson
Sunday 12 August 2012
Tran Thi Hoan, 26, studied medicine only to be told that she couldn't become a doctor because of a war fought 20 years before she was born. The ostensible reason was that she had no legs or left hand, but the main reason, and the cause of so much misery blighting the lives of millions of other Vietnamese, is the 20 million gallons of Agent Orange sprayed in her country by US forces in the Sixties.
She is one of three million Vietnamese affected by the dioxin in Agent Orange – a poison that has caused untold cancers and an estimated 150,000 birth defects – which continue down the generations to this day.
Last week, 40 years after the war ended, the US began a programme to try to decontaminate the worst-affected parts of the country, but even if the belated action grows into something far larger, it can never deal with the dreadful legacy of Agent Orange.
In a museum in the suburbs of Saigon, there is an exhibit where hundreds of photos of deformed adults, children and babies hang next to a copy of a letter which Tran Thi Hoan wrote to Barack Obama in 2009. After describing how doctors discouraged her from starting a family, fearing her children would be born with similar defects, she asked if the President would "spare a little time to resolve this forgotten problem", after decades of quibbling over the issue in Washington.
More:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-terrible-legacy-of-agent-orange-8034869.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
