Ten to fifteen percent of all Vietnamese with disabilities are probably Agent Orange victims…

Agent Orange is a humanitarian concern we are doing something about.

More than four decades after the Vietnam War, the United States and Vietnam are just beginning to address the negative consequences of Agent Orange, the dioxin-contaminated herbicide used during the war. In this groundbreaking book, two leading experts on Agent Orange and its aftermath explore current scientific understandings of the chemical and consider the promising solutions to addressing the consequences of its use.

Authors Dr. Le Ke Son and Dr. Charles R. Bailey outline the moral reasoning for a fuller American response and present further steps the United States and Vietnam can each take in a joint humanitarian initiative to resolve the legacy of Agent Orange/dioxin in Vietnam. They address the critical issues of whether dioxin pollution still exists in Vietnam, what needs to be done to finish the job of cleanup, how many victims of Agent Orange carry out their lives today, and the impact of Agent Orange on relations between the United States and Vietnam.

…From Enemies to Partners offers a way forward that acknowledges the past while looking to the future.

— Dr. Edwin A. Martini, author of Agent Orange: History, Science, and the Politics of Uncertainty

The post From Enemies to Partners: Vietnam, the U.S. and Agent Orange appeared first on VAORRC.

Published by Giao Điểm, PO Box 2188, Garden Grove, CA, 92842, USA. $15.00 US.

During the Vietnam war, between 1962 and 1971, the American military has sprayed 77 million litres of chemical defoliants in South Vietnam as part of a defoliant programme to deny cover for their Vietnamese opponents. One of the chemicals sprayed was Agent Orange, which contains 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (or dioxin). Dioxin is known to be the most deadly man-made toxin, because it can cause certain types of cancer and a host of other diseases.

Despite the war ended almost 30 years ago and despite the environmental and health effects of the chemical campaign are still visible, there has been virtually no systematic documentation of the consequences of the defoliant programme available to the Vietnamese public. A recently published book, Agent Orange and the Vietnam War, represents an attempt to fill that gap. The book is the first and probably the most comprehensive scientific review of the available evidence relating to potential health effects of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. It is written in Vietnamese and is aiming at the Vietnamese audience. The author, Dr. Tuan Nguyen, is a professor of epidemiology from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and University of New South Wales, Australia. Although his expertise is in the epidemiology of osteoporosis, he has spent several years to research and write on the consequences of dioxin in Vietnam, his native country.

In writing the book, the author makes use of extensive research data which have been published in peer-reviewed medical journals around the world. The data are put together in 14 chapters organized into three parts. The first parts is concerned with the history of military use of chemical agents and the magnitude of Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam. Part II provides details of the effects of Agent Orange exposure on human health such as birth defects, reproductive disorders, immunological disorders, diabetes, and cancer. It also includes a summary of the US-based Institute of Medicine’s findings on the effects of Agent Orange / dioxin. The association between birth defects and exposure to Agent Orange was examined in a meta-analysis of 20 research studies, in which the author notes that parents exposed to the chemical were associated with a.2-fold increased risk in fathering a birth defect child. In part III of the book, the author discusses various scientific issues in the interpretation of scientific data and evidence in relation to Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam, and then put forwards a number of practical suggestions for future research projects.

As a scientist and a writer, the author skillfully translate the complexity of scientific data into every-day language so that everyone can understand the core issue of the Agent Orange problem in Vietnam. The author also demonstrates an intellectual rigour in admitting that there are scientific uncertainties concerning the effects of Agent Orange exposure on some diseases, and proposes an explanation why it is so. In the last chapter, the author argues that the quantity of chemical defoliants sprayed during the war was the largest ever military exercise in human history, and that the use of Agent Orange directly contravened the Hague Convention and the Geneva Protocol of 1925. The book also argues that the US should take serious responsibility by providing reparations to victims of Agent Orange and by supporting public health programs aimed at cleaning up the environment of areas known to be affected during the chemical campaign.

The post Book in Vietnamese: Agent Orange and the War in Vietnam appeared first on VAORRC.

Available on Amazon

The post Book in French: Agent orange in Vietnam: Crime of yesterday, tragedy of today appeared first on VAORRC.

Booklet: Let’s Take Action to Alleviate Agent Orange Victim’s Suffering, Ho Chi Minh City Office of VAVA, Lang Hoa Binh II Benh vien Phu san, 284 Cong Quynh Street, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City. Tel. +1 84 4 848 5065. 30 pp.

Booklet: Nạn nhan chất doc da cam — Noi dau khong cua rieng ai. Ho Chi Minh City Office of VAVA, Lang Hoa Binh II Benh vien Phu san, 284 Cong Quynh Street, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City. Tel. +1 84 4 848 5065. 54 pp.

Video: Chất độc da cam/dioxin và quyền sống của con người (Agent Orange/Dioxin and the Right to Life) [Vietnamese], 32’45” realized by Nguyễn Hoài Nam, VAVA, October 2004.

Video: Nơi chiến tranh đã đi qua (The place where wars have gone through) [English], 20’20”, directed by Lệ Mỹ, from Vietnam National Documentary & Scientific Film Studio. Hanoi, Vietnam. 2005.

Video: The paths to justice, [English], 29’45”, a film by Lại Văn Sinh, from Vietnam National Documentary & Scientific Film Studio. Hanoi, Vietnam. 2005?.

Video: Tears in Playground [Vietnamese/English], 26’00”, directed by Vũ Chính about the international Friendship Village near Hanoi, Vietnam. 2003.

Video: The War has passed… The pain remains [English] 37’45”, directed by Quốc Anh, from the Vietname National Documentary & Scientific Film Studio. [year?].

Video: Chuyện từ góc công viên (Story from the corner of a park) [Vietnamese, English subtitled by Diane Fox], directed by Trần Văn Thuỷ & Hồ Trí Phổ. 1996.

DVD: Những mảnh đời bất hạnh [Miserable lives], Golden Fish Production. Script by Dr Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, directed by Le Kim Luc and Le Tri. Contact: 168 Xo Viet Nghe Tinh Street, Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City, tel. +84 8 899 6018, fax: +84 8 518 0979, email: goldenfish@hcm.vnn.vn.

The post Documents and VCDs from Viet Nam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA) appeared first on VAORRC.

Photography Book

Philip Jones Griffiths, for a record five years the President of Magnum Photos, created in Vietnam, Inc. a record of the war there of almost Biblical proportions. No one who has seen it will forget its haunting images. In Agent Orange he has added a postscript that is equally memorable. In 1960 the United States war machine concluded that an efficient deterrent to the enemy troops and civilians would be the devastation of the crops and forestry that afforded them both succour and cover for their operations. Initial descriptions of the scheme included “Food Denial Program”, later adapted to “depriving cover for enemy troops”. They gave the idea the name “Operation Hades”, but were advised that “Operation Ranch Hand” was a more suitable cognomen for PR purposes. The US had developed herbicides for the task. The most infamous became known as Agent Orange after the coloured stripe on the canisters used to distribute it. The planes that carried the canisters had ‘only we can prevent forests!’ as a logo on their fuselages. They were right. It was very effective. Unfortunately the herbicide also contained Dioxin, probably the world’s deadliest poison. In Agent Orange Philip Jones Griffiths has photographed the children and grandchildren of the farmers whose faces were lifted to the gentle rain of the poison cloud. Some maintain that the connection between the maimed subjects of Griffiths’ photographs and the exposure to Agent Orange is not scientifically established. However, the compensation payments made by the herbicide manufactures to those Americans sprayed in Viet Nam refute this assertion. Historians will find it sufficient to say that there will always be collateral damage, that useful PR phrase, in war and that Philip Jones Griffiths should understand the consequences of martial endeavours. He most certainly does. He has catalogued here a pitiless series of photographs, and there can be no doubt that they should and will be recognized.

The post Agent Orange: Collateral Damage in Vietnam appeared first on VAORRC.

Làm dịu “Nỗi đau Da cam”: Lương tri và hành động, Quỹ Bảo trợ Nạn nhân Chất độc Da cam, Hội Chữ thập đỏ Việt Nam. Hà Nội: Nhà xuất bản Lao Ðộng. 2003.

The post Books in Vietnamese, possibly no longer available appeared first on VAORRC.

This book is currently hard to find.

Dr. Le Cao Dai, Agent Orange Researcher, Activist

Obituary by the Veteran

Professor Le Cao Dai, M.D., one of Vietnam’s premier researchers on the effects of Agent Orange on human health and recently retired director of Vietnam’s Agent Orange Victims Fund, died on April 15, 2002 after a short illness. He was seventy-four.

Born in Hanoi, Dr. Dai studied medicine in the northern highlands of Vietnam during the Resistance War against the French. During the U.S. War, he directed North Vietnamese Army Field Hospital 211 in the western highlands of central Vietnam south of the demilitarized zone. His journal, “Tay Nguyen Ngay Ay” (“The Western Highlands During Those Days”), published by Hanoi’s Labour Publishing House in 1997, is a vivid portrayal of the war between 1965 and 1973.

Dr. Dai later served as director of the 108 Military Hospital, one of Hanoi’s most prestigious medical centers.

Dr. Dai personally observed the first effects of defoliant spraying during the Vietnam War. He was a founding member of the 1080 Committee, which studies the long-term consequences of defoliant spraying on human health. His research, conducted in partnership with U.S. scientists, was published in Chemosphere, the American Journal of Public Health and the Journal of Occupation and Environmental Medicine. Dr. Dai also presented his findings as a panelist at the 1999 annual conference of the American Public Health Association. He is the author of “Agent Orange in the Viet Nam War: History and Consequences,” translated by Diane Fox and published in 2000 by the Vietnam Red Cross. Dr. Dai also served on the steering committee for the conference, “Long-Term Environmental Consequences of the Vietnam War,” which was held in Stockholm at the end of July 2002.

Dr. Dai firmly believed that those who were victims of Agent Orange should receive assistance. He directed the Agent Orange Victims Fund under the auspices of the Vietnam Red Cross from the fund’s inception in 1998 until shortly before his death. The Agent Orange Victims Fund provides humanitarian assistance to victims and their families, including financial support, health care and vocational training. The Ford Foundation and the American Red Cross have been generous contributors, as have individuals and organizations from Denmark, Great Britain, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United States, and other countries.

Dr. Le Cao Dai is survived by his wife of nearly fifty years, the artist Vu Giang Huong.

The post Book: Agent Orange in the Vietnam War: History and Consequences appeared first on VAORRC.

Available on Amazon

How the Pentagon exposed our troops to dangers more deadly than war: agent orange and atomic radiation. GI Guinea Pigs paints a shocking picture of how the US military wantonly exposed thousands of its own men to toxic levels of radiation and herbicides. With a broad brush it outlines the social and political landscape, and highlights this with the fine detail of tragic personal stories from many GIs. Uhl and Ensign understand not only the struggles and suffering of the veterans of atomic bomb testing and Agent Orange, but also the historical background which enables us to place these stories in perspective.

The post GI Guinea Pigs: How the Pentagon Exposed Our Troops to Dangers Deadlier than War appeared first on VAORRC.