Vietnam Might Sue for Agent Orange Damage

by Sergei Blagov

Yet sooner or later, the U.S. military could face huge compensation claims from the Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange, the wartime defoliant it sprayed in that Indochinese nation decades ago.

A national investigation into the effects of Agent Orange is underway in Vietnam, whose prime minister Phan Van Khai ordered it in April 1998.

A survey of Vietnamese combatants and civilians exposed to chemicals used by the U.S. military -- carried out by Vietnam's ministry of labor, war invalids and social affairs -- has sparked speculation Hanoi was preparing to lodge an eventual compensation claim.

Just this month, U.S. military researchers insisted again that exposure to high levels of dioxins, the toxic compounds found in Agent Orange, did not raise long-term cancer risks.

No "significant increase" in cancer risk among veterans exposed to dioxin was found, concluded Dr Joel Michalek and the team at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas.

In their study, published in the April issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology, the researchers examined cancer rates of more than 2,000 veterans exposed to dioxin during the Vietnam War 30 years ago.

But Vietnamese and some Russian researchers disagree.

"Anybody living for a decade in those areas in Vietnam, where Agent Orange was sprayed, is destined to lose some 18 months of one's lifetime due to variety of diseases," according to Vladimir Rumak, director of the Tropical Research Center.

In fact, he says the lifespans of affected people are likely to be some ten years shorter than average -- because the consequences of Agent Orange spraying can be associated with many diseases and reproductive abnormalities.

The Russo-Vietnamese Tropical Research Centre, based in Hanoi, has studied the long-term effects of Agent Orange spraying in Vietnam since 1988.

In 1961, President Kennedy ordered the use of defoliants to deny Communist forces food supplies and routes into South Vietnam. For the next ten years, herbicides were massively sprayed throughout the countryside below the 17th parallel.

Under 'Ranch Hand operation,' the U.S. Army sprayed some 72 million liters of herbicides to clear campsites and defoliate forests to deny cover to the enemy.

Agent Orange was the herbicide used in greatest volume. An estimated 170 kilograms of dioxin were sprayed over 10 percent of South Vietnam's territory. More than two million hectares of inland mangrove forest and agricultural land were affected by the spraying, Vietnamese experts indicate.

But it was only in October 1980 that Vietnam created the National Committee for investigation of the consequences of the chemicals used during the Vietnam War.

Hoang Dinh Cau, head of what is commonly called the "10-80 Committee," has said Vietnam will need at least a century to overcome the consequences of Agent Orange spraying.

Its studies have shown high rates of reproductive abnormalities, such as miscarriages, premature and still births, in the sprayed areas.

An extended health-conditions survey among war veterans in Hanoi discovered a variety of dioxin-related diseases, including cancer, Le Thai Hang of the 10-80 Committee has reported.

Researchers have also reported increased rates of liver cancer and soft tissue sarcoma in those exposed to toxic chemicals during wartime, both Vietnamese and Russian experts say.

Yuri Prischepo, deputy head of Moscow-based Tropical Committee of Russian Academy of Sciences, says his group studies human mutations and birth defects due to dioxin, "somewhat overlooking cancer risks." But the Tropical Research Centre has found significant health risks among Vietnamese exposed to dioxin, he adds.

In 1990, a panel of independent American scientists working with veterans' groups released research results concluding that Agent Orange can be associated with at least eight disease categories, including soft tissue cancer.

Originally, the U.S. Congress tended to accept uncritically the military's claims that no harm was done by herbicide exposure. But as the toll of dying veterans mounted, most members of Congress have become more skeptical of such claims.

Vietnam says as many as two million people were exposed to the toxic chemicals. It claims up to 50,000 deformed children have been born to parents exposed to the chemicals.

Hanoi has never formally requested compensation from the U.S. but the issue of reparations was discussed between then Communist Party general secretary Do Muoi and visiting Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in June 1997.

Likewise, the question of compensation to civilian victims in Vietnam has yet to be raised, mostly due to the enormous scale of the problem. But for Vietnamese officials, an accounting of the legacy of the wartime spraying is needed.

If it ever comes to pass, the compensation and related health- care expenditures may amount to billions of dollars, but for now formal negotiations -- let alone the solution -- are a long way off.