Agent Orange no mystery for some Vietnam children

By David Brunnstrom


FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE, Vietnam, March 5 (Reuters) - Dinh Thi Hanh is no
scientist, but the shy 17-year-old can tell you exactly why she thinks she
has so little hair.

Her friend Trung Thi Thanh Binh, 14, also knows why she is less than a metre
(three feet) tall.

Agent Orange.

None of the children at a centre for the handicapped near Hanoi are
authorities on Agent Orange -- a toxic defoliant sprayed by U.S. forces in
the Vietnam War -- but those able to think and speak say they know it's what
made them sick.

"It's why my hair won't grow," said Hanh with a shy smile. "I'm very said
about that."

"My parents told me it's the reason I'm so short," said her friend Binh.

Hanh and Binh are two of the luckier children at Friendship Village, a haven
for those thought to be suffering from the inherited effects of Agent Orange.


Nguyen Thi Bien, 18-years-old but with a mental age of only the same number
of months, can't even say her name.

Next to her, 15-year-old Nga sat twitching from a nerve disorder as she
concentrated on a wooden jigsaw designed for a three-year-old. It took her
half an hour to complete.

And two desks along sat Nguyen Van Luong, 10, his head swollen to almost
twice normal size by hydrocephelus, known sometimes as water on the brain.

The director of Friendship Village, Nguyen Khai Hung, said all the 70
children currently admitted are sons and daughters of communist veterans
exposed to Agent Orange during the war and living proof of the damage it can
do in terms of birth defects.

"The soldiers all fought in the south in areas heavily sprayed by Agent
Orange," he said.

U.S. forces dumped millions of gallons of defoliants on Vietnam from 1962
until 1971, only stopping when it was discovered that Agent Orange contained
the most dangerous form of highly toxic dioxin, TCDD, and caused cancer in
rats.

"TENS OF THOUSANDS OF BIRTH DEFECTS"

Vietnam estimates more than a million of its people were exposed to the
spraying, which it blames for tens of thousands of birth defects.

But three decades after Washington halted the spraying, U.S. government
scientists still do not accept it was responsible for the numerous maladies
Hanoi claims, saying confirming such linkages would take many more years of
research.

The issue is the subject of a landmark conference in Hanoi on Agent Orange
this week involving U.S. and Vietnamese government scientists and
international experts aimed at assessing current research and charting future
priorities.

Hung said Vietnam did not have the money to spend on expensive science to
help prove its point -- one blood test for dioxin currently costs around
$1,000, and implanting a tube to tap fluid from Nguyen Van Luong's swollen
skull $800.

But he said there was plenty of circumstantial evidence, especially the high
incidence of handicap among families of veterans who served in southern
Vietnam, some of who had as many as five handicapped children.

"In one district in this province we have 17 cases of mental or physical
handicap, all are children of veterans who fought in the south. That's the
common factor, that's the evidence."

Hung said U.S. veterans, who helped found Peace Village, had suffered similar
birth defects in their children and had convinced Washington to pay them
compensation for diseases associated with Agent Orange. He said the United
States should now show some responsibility to Vietnamese victims.

"They have a humanantarian responsibility," he said. "They should cooperate
with Vietnam to overcome the consequences of the war. These children should
not be suffering."

Hung said he wanted to avoid the word "compensation" and its negative wartime
connotations, but said the United States could assist by providing health
care equipment and facilities.

Senior members of Vietnam Veterans of America, which has fought for years for
compensation for U.S. veterans, told Reuters on Monday they felt Washington,
and Agent Orange manufacturers Dow Chemical Co and Monsanto Co, had a moral
duty to compensate Vietnamese who have suffered from exposure.

The United States said on Sunday that demands for wartime compensation and
reparations were dropped by Hanoi when diplomatic ties were normalised in
1995.

03:57 03-05-02

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