A Chance to Put the Vietnam War Behind Us

Nguyen Thi Hoang Lang, or "Be Ba," is 10 years old and already a survivor of cancer. I first met her in 1992 in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), when she was 2 years old and had bright shinning eyes. When I saw her again in 1994, she had lost her right eye to cancer at the age of 3. Since then, cerebral palsy has warped and deformed her limbs. It is questionable whether the dioxin in Agent Orange is responsible for her cerebral palsy, but it is highly probable that the tumor that took her right eye was caused by the residual of the defoliant sprayed over areas of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Be Ba and other Vietnamese children--and the offspring of affected U.S. veterans--are the most innocent of the innocent of a war that still affects us.

Fortunately, there are developments that may ease the suffering of future generations. The American Red Cross is exploring the possibility of a partnership with the Vietnam Red Cross to support a program providing assistance to disabled Vietnamese, including cases that may have resulted from exposure to Agent Orange. Similarly, the U.S. government is engaged in talks with Vietnam to start a joint research project on the health and ecological effects of dioxins.

Between 1962 and 1971, the United States sprayed some 19 million gallons of herbicide, more than 10 million of which was Agent Orange, over much of South Vietnam, often in multiple sprayings. It ceased spraying the defoliant when reports from the sprayed areas indicated a dramatic increase in miscarriages, cancer and birth defects among the inhabitants, and public pressure mounted. Chemicals found in Agent Orange--2,4-D and 2,4,5-T compounds--were already banned in the United States, except for carefully controlled use on non-cropland.

It had been believed that the chemicals in the soil and food chain would deteriorate over time, but Dr. Arnold Schecter of the University of Texas, who has been studying the problem since 1981, has concluded, along with the Hatfield Consultants Ltd. of Canada, that Agent Orange has contaminated the soil and food chain in the sprayed areas of South Vietnam. (In June of this year, the Environmental Protection Agency declared for the first time that dioxin is a carcinogen).

From 1968 to 1970, I traveled more than 20,000 miles through South Vietnam's war zones. I visited every major U.S. military evacuation, field and surgical hospital, as well as Vietnamese provincial hospitals and orphanages, sometimes twice, documenting the efforts of the American Red Cross to alleviate human suffering. I occasionally saw birth malformations in children and cancer in older Vietnamese.