Conference begins in Paris on effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam
PARIS - International experts and officials on Friday opened a two-day conference here to discuss the health effects of the use of Agent Orange by the US military during the Vietnam war.
Between 1961 and 1971, the US army spread more than 100,000 tons of toxic chemicals, "constituting the greatest chemical warfare ever known to mankind," the general secretary of the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange (VAVA), Tran Xuan Thu, said in an opening address.
Tran told the conference that a total of 80 million liters of 20 different chemicals were dropped. He put the number of people directly exposed at "between 2.1 and 4.8 million".
Explaining that Vietnamese authorities had analyzed more than 1,000 soil samples, Tran said the dioxin concentrations "reached the highest level in the world".
Dioxin levels have since dropped significantly, but Tran warned that its half-life was "up to more than 20 years" and that it could penetrate the ground to a depth of up to two meters (6.5 feet).
Participants were expected to hear a summary of epidemiological studies conducted on affected populations in Vietnam during the conference, which was taking place at the French Senate.
Agence France Presse - March 11, 2005.
Experts denounce continuing effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam
Agent Orange and other toxic chemicals sprayed by the US army during the Vietnam war three decades ago still pollute the soil and damage people's health, experts said Friday.
"A war of disease charts followed the war itself," said one participant in a two-day conference on the health effects of war-era chemicals with high dioxin levels dumped on Vietnam, which opened in Paris on Friday.
Between 1961 and 1971, the US army spread more than 100,000 tons of toxic chemicals, "constituting the greatest chemical warfare ever known to mankind," the general secretary and vice president of the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange (VAVA), Tran Xuan Thu, said in an opening address.
Tran told the conference, organized by the Association for Franco-Vietnamese Friendship, that 80 million liters of 20 different chemicals were dropped on a quarter of the total surface area of what was then South Vietnam.
He put the number of people directly exposed at "between 2.1 and 4.8 million".
The US army used Agent Orange in the 1954-1975 Vietnam war to clear the jungle and prevent enemy forces from being able to use the dense foliage for cover.
Explaining that Vietnamese authorities had analyzed more than 1,000 soil samples, Tran said the concentrations of dioxin -- one of the most dangerous poisons in existence -- "reached the highest level in the world".
Dioxin levels in Vietnam have since dropped significantly, but Tran warned that its half-life was "up to more than 20 years" and that it could penetrate the ground to a depth of up to two meters (6.5 feet).
Cancer, immune deficiency disorders, birth defects, miscarriages, nervous system disorders and chloracne -- an acne-like skin complaint -- are often cited as possible consequences of dioxin exposure.
But experts say Vietnamese studies do not get the attention they deserve due to a lack of publication in internationally recognized scientific journals.
Exposure to Agent Orange can result in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), the US National Institute of Medicine, which is linked to the National Academy of Sciences, said in a 2003 report.
The report, based on a reassessment of six studies of herbicide exposure, concluded there was "enough data to support an association of exposure to these chemicals and the development of CLL", a form of cancer of the blood.
Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, director of the Tu Du hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, said five common birth defects had been spotted in Vietnam's newborns, basing her assessment on research dating back to the 1980s.
Of 294 children exposed in the womb to Agent Orange, 5.4 percent suffered from malformations, against 0.4 percent of 6,690 children not exposed to the toxic chemical, the gynecologist said.
The death rate for fetuses exposed to Agent Orange was also substantially higher -- 0.34 percent against 0.02 percent for those not exposed, she said.
Another study of two groups of women from the same region in Vietnam showed that the risk of defects was 10 times greater for women born and nursed during the US campaign than for women born and nursed between 1938 and 1963.
Agence France Presse - March 11, 2005.
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