Though 3 Million Vietnamese Suffer From Agent Orange Poisoning, Little Recognition, No Compensation

[hatrack]

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Dioxin interferes with reproduction, so Mr. Vinh's nightmare swept up his children and grandchildren as well. One son is blind and mentally handicapped. Another is deaf. A third has spinal problems. One daughter is partly paralyzed, another mentally handicapped, the third chronically weak with children born blind. Vietnam estimates 400,000 people were killed or maimed by the defoliants, 500,000 children have been born with defects from retardation to spina bifida and a further two million people have suffered cancers or other illnesses. Yet they have received no compensation from those who produced the chemicals and those who made them a weapon of war.

Mr. Vinh survives on a $60 monthly pension - far from enough to cover his medical expenses, let alone those of his children. "We hope the U.S. will provide help for us," he says quietly. So far, that seems unlikely. In February, a U.S. court rejected the latest appeal by Vietnamese victims who were suing the manufacturers of Agent Orange for billions in compensation. As an act of charity, Washington has offered a paltry $3-million not only to help treat the victims of America's biggest experiment with chemical-warfare tactics but to clean up the contamination that keeps adding to the toll.

The Vietnamese have suffered the most and received the least help, but they aren't the only victims. Agent Orange tainted everyone it touched, and so binds Vietnam not only to the United States, whose fighters also paid a price for the misery they created, but to Canada as well.

More than two decades after ailing U.S. veterans were awarded $180-million in compensation (in addition to the billions spent on their medical care), Ottawa is offering $20,000 each to an estimated 4,500 Canadian soldiers and civilians exposed when Agent Orange was secretly tested on a New Brunswick military base. And just as Vietnam continues to press a stubborn U.S. government to help clean up the damage Agent Orange caused, a sleepy Ontario farming town is still struggling 40 years after the fact to rid itself of the fallout from a local chemical plant that brewed up millions of litres of the stuff for the U.S war effort.

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080712.COVER12//TPStory/Environment

[ret5hd]

1. In what color family would we place the Vietnamese?

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. When is chemical warfare NOT chemical warfare?

When the United States gov't engages in it.

Repellent, ugly stuff.