12 November 1998 Edition
Agent Orange results falsified
By Robert Allen
A toxic time bomb has exploded in the faces of the US government following relevations that a health study - carried out by the US Air Force - into Agent Orange, the dioxin-contaminated defoliant sprayed on Vietnam during the sixties, has been tampered with.
For years the US government has played down the toxic effects of Agent Orange and its lethal contaminant dioxin, a byproduct of chemical industry processes which use chlorine.
Vietnam veterans and their families were told their illnesses were not associated with Agent Orange. It is believed that up to 4.2 million US soldiers were affected by the defoliant. The Vietnamese believe more than half a million have died or suffered illnesses as a result of its use.
In 1979 veterans came together to take a class action against seven US manufacturers of Agent Orange, including Dow and Monsanto. The action came to court four years later but in 1984 the judge forced a $180m settlement. Veterans groups argued that it was inadequate. A subsequent action in 1991 was also resolved unsatisfactorily, according to the groups.
The US military began spraying in January 1962, using six chemical herbicide mixtures. They were given codenames and used to defoliate mangrove and jungle areas, and to destroy the staple crops of Vietnam - beans, manioc, corn, bananas, tomato and rice.
Agent Orange comprised almost two-thirds of the herbicides sprayed. The spraying was done from the air by C-123 planes fitted with 1000 gallon tanks in what became known as Operation Ranch Hand. Approximately 20,000 missions were flown. A small quantity was hand sprayed around camps, waterways and paths. Between July 1965 and June 1970 11.25 million gallons were sprayed in Indochina. At least 1.5 million hectares were affected.
It has been estimated that 25,000 children in south Vietnam contracted hereditary defects as a consequence of their parents' exposure to Agent Orange. But when Vietnamese scientists tried to make sense of the impact on the health of their population they were met with obfuscation from western governments and scientists.
Now, nearly 30 years later, Vietnamese people are still coming in contact with dioxin which has contaminated their food chain, according to a report by Canadian consultants, the Hatfield Group.
``Persistent dioxin contamination is present, and is suspected to be related to medical problems being experienced by some Vietnamese born after the war,'' Hatfield state in their report.
In the Aluoi Valley in central Vietnam, Hatfield discovered ``a noted incidence of human deformities''. The consultants concluded that ``dioxin concentrations in Agent Orange were in the range of a billion times more than that found in some Canadian industrial effluent''.
The US government has maintained that proof did not exist of links between Agent Orange exposure and various illnesses, including cancer, among vets and birth defects in their children. Now that has been challenged.
Last week the San Diego Union-Tribune announced that a $200 million US Air Force study on the effects of Agent Orange on exposed military had been tampered with.
The health study, which began in 1979 to monitor the health of 1,000 vets who participated in Operation Ranch Hand, is set to finish in 2006. According to the newspaper, in 1984 - during the time of the first court action - scientists, who drafted two reports, withheld information on high rates of birth defects and infant deaths among children of vets in the first report and altered the second report to give the impression that vets' cancers were not unusual. The newspaper revealed that the data from the first report was finally released in 1992.
Richard Albanese, a scientist who designed the original study but was later taken off the project, called it ``a medical crime''. The changes distorted the report, he said, because Ranch Hand vets had double the cancers of a normal population.
Robert Allen's book, The Dioxin Wars, will be published next year.
A toxic time bomb has exploded in the faces of the US government following relevations that a health study - carried out by the US Air Force - into Agent Orange, the dioxin-contaminated defoliant sprayed on Vietnam during the sixties, has been tampered with.
For years the US government has played down the toxic effects of Agent Orange and its lethal contaminant dioxin, a byproduct of chemical industry processes which use chlorine.
Vietnam veterans and their families were told their illnesses were not associated with Agent Orange. It is believed that up to 4.2 million US soldiers were affected by the defoliant. The Vietnamese believe more than half a million have died or suffered illnesses as a result of its use.
In 1979 veterans came together to take a class action against seven US manufacturers of Agent Orange, including Dow and Monsanto. The action came to court four years later but in 1984 the judge forced a $180m settlement. Veterans groups argued that it was inadequate. A subsequent action in 1991 was also resolved unsatisfactorily, according to the groups.
The US military began spraying in January 1962, using six chemical herbicide mixtures. They were given codenames and used to defoliate mangrove and jungle areas, and to destroy the staple crops of Vietnam - beans, manioc, corn, bananas, tomato and rice.
Agent Orange comprised almost two-thirds of the herbicides sprayed. The spraying was done from the air by C-123 planes fitted with 1000 gallon tanks in what became known as Operation Ranch Hand. Approximately 20,000 missions were flown. A small quantity was hand sprayed around camps, waterways and paths. Between July 1965 and June 1970 11.25 million gallons were sprayed in Indochina. At least 1.5 million hectares were affected.
It has been estimated that 25,000 children in south Vietnam contracted hereditary defects as a consequence of their parents' exposure to Agent Orange. But when Vietnamese scientists tried to make sense of the impact on the health of their population they were met with obfuscation from western governments and scientists.
Now, nearly 30 years later, Vietnamese people are still coming in contact with dioxin which has contaminated their food chain, according to a report by Canadian consultants, the Hatfield Group.
``Persistent dioxin contamination is present, and is suspected to be related to medical problems being experienced by some Vietnamese born after the war,'' Hatfield state in their report.
In the Aluoi Valley in central Vietnam, Hatfield discovered ``a noted incidence of human deformities''. The consultants concluded that ``dioxin concentrations in Agent Orange were in the range of a billion times more than that found in some Canadian industrial effluent''.
The US government has maintained that proof did not exist of links between Agent Orange exposure and various illnesses, including cancer, among vets and birth defects in their children. Now that has been challenged.
Last week the San Diego Union-Tribune announced that a $200 million US Air Force study on the effects of Agent Orange on exposed military had been tampered with.
The health study, which began in 1979 to monitor the health of 1,000 vets who participated in Operation Ranch Hand, is set to finish in 2006. According to the newspaper, in 1984 - during the time of the first court action - scientists, who drafted two reports, withheld information on high rates of birth defects and infant deaths among children of vets in the first report and altered the second report to give the impression that vets' cancers were not unusual. The newspaper revealed that the data from the first report was finally released in 1992.
Richard Albanese, a scientist who designed the original study but was later taken off the project, called it ``a medical crime''. The changes distorted the report, he said, because Ranch Hand vets had double the cancers of a normal population.
Robert Allen's book, The Dioxin Wars, will be published next year.