Agent Orange Still Poisoning Vietnamese Children

by Tran Dinh Thanh Lam

The boy has an abnormally big head for his slender body, and spends most of his time in bed.

Living in a small, remote village here in Ben Cau district, Tay Ninh province in southwest Vietnam, he is one of the many victims of the destructive legacy of the herbicide Agent Orange, sprayed by U.S. planes during the Vietnam War.

Tay Ninh shares a 240-km border with Cambodia, where fierce battles took place during the war and thousands of tons of chemicals were dropped to destroy vegetation in the jungles to flush out communist fighters.

Doan Ngoc Thanh and his wife Nguyen Thi Lanh were both former guerrillas at Ben Cau. Lanh's blood was found to have high dioxin levels, while Thanh's skin is pockmarked with scabs and scars. He too has high levels of dioxin.

But it is their son Thang (which means victory in Vietnamese), born on the 15th anniversary of North Vietnam's triumph, who bears the most severe impact of Agent Orange.

Dioxin, known to cause birth defects like malformed limbs and mental retardation, is said to affect a million victims in Vietnam today.

Vietnamese officials also blame the chemical for causing cancer, immune-deficiency diseases and drug-resistant malaria.

Like many parents of children affected by Agent Orange, Thanh is tired of official delegations coming to "investigate" their conditions. "They come and ask lots of question, take lots of photos, make lots of promises," he says.

In the last 10 years, Thanh's family has met more than a dozen "very important delegations," including some foreigners.

"They gave us nothing but promises," a disappointed Thanh complains. "I'd rather work on my plot of land to earn something than play host to all these guests who come only for political purposes."

Official figures say some 72 million liters of chemicals were dispersed over Vietnamese soil between 1961 and 1975. More than 40 million liters of these were deadly dioxin.

As a result, more than 50,000 children have been born with serious deformities. A two-year examination of 41,153 children under the age of 15 at Ben Cau district alone found 242 cases of birth deformities.

The Vietnamese government, which has never officially asked for war reparations, in late 1998 began to sound out Washington about "cooperation to overcome the effects of the war."

Meanwhile, Vietnam's Red Cross has set up a fund for Agent Orange victims and put up "peace villages" for them. Some Agent Orange-affected children get treatment and rehabilitation there, but those in isolated and rural areas, like Thang, have yet to receive help.

At Cam Lo district, in central Quang Tri province, war veteran Tran Kien, whose two children live with the effects of Agent Orange, is also tired of waiting. He does not want to hear of delegations and the press any more.

Quang Tri lies just 30 km north of the "McNamara Line" and 60 km to the west of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the most heavily bombed area in the war.

The McNamara Line, named after the former Secretary of Defense, refers to a border line that the American armed forces set up at the 17th parallel separating North and South Vietnam. The line was armed with electronic devices controlling the infiltration of communist soldiers to the South.

Today, more than 15,000 victims of Agent Orange live in this province that separated north and south during the war.

A survey concluded in July showed that 2,000 people from Quang Tri have died from causes related to the chemical defoliant, and 5,240 children whose parents were exposed in some way to the chemical have been born with deformities.

"This makes us something of a showcase of the notorious 'chat doc mau da cam' (toxic product with orange color) victims," veteran Kien says sarcastically.

Kien's family needs help for his children, but is too proud to ask for public assistance.

It was only when Dr. Nguyen Thien Nhan, an expert in neurosurgery at the Hue Medical School, told him the purpose of his visit -- to grant the family a small loan and to offer a wheelchair to his daughter -- that Kien agreed to let the doctor and his companions meet his children.

Kien's daughter, Tran Minh Nguyet, sits immobile, her stunted legs hidden by a long shirt. Her young brother is lost in his own world, oblivious of what is going on around him.

Dr. Nhan, who has performed surgery on many children affected by Agent Orange, says he would try to do something for the boy.

With funds from foreign donations, his Department of Genetics and Handicapped Children at the Hue Medical School offers loans of one million dong (around $70) to families of disabled children.

The no-interest loans are paid back after three months, and in turn gven to other needy families.

"I wish my daughter could lead a normal life," muses Le Thi Hoa, who also lives at Cam Lo. Her daughter Truong Thi Kieu Loan looks like a child despite her 20 years. Her deformed limbs and stunted growth set her apart from people her own age.

Hoa suffered several miscarriages and then had breast cancer. Her first child died after a series of epileptic seizures, and her second had the effects of Agent Orange.

Three decades after the war, her blood dioxin levels are still 10 times the average. "I felt guilty before my daughter. If only she could lead a normal life," Hoa says.

At a "peace village" in Hue, there are now around 300 Agent Orange-affected children from different parts of the country.

Here, children accompanied by a family member go through a three-month course that teaches them to adapt to the world despite their difficulties. The family member will continue the rehabilitation process when the child goes home.

"I will write a letter to my father," 12-year-old Nguyen Thi Be says. She has crippled hands, but social workers at the village have taught her how to write with her foot.

The effects of Agent Orange have been around for some time, but only recently did the press and the government begin a real campaign to support victims of the chemical.

On Feb. 23, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai decided that victims of Agent Orange and their children would receive monthly social welfare payments of between $3.40 and $6.

In his visit to the capital Hanoi in August, the first by a U.S. defense secretary since the war's end, Secretary William Cohen offered help for Agent Orange victims. The EPA has affirmed that Agent Orange is a known carcinogen.