Dr. Le Ke Son, director of the Office of National Steering Committee 33, in the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment, stands before tanks being used to test dioxin remediation measures.
History
From 1961 to 1971, U.S. forces sprayed more than 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and other herbicides on forests and crops in southern and central Vietnam. The immediate effect was to defoliate and destroy vegetation over wide areas. The delayed effect came from dioxins in Agent Orange, which are highly toxic to humans.
More than 35 years later, dioxin continues to pose significant health and safety issues. It is associated with disease and disability of people who were in the sprayed areas and their descendants and of people who now live near the former U.S. air bases where the planes carrying the spray were based.
For decades dioxin remained an unresolved issue between the United States and Vietnam. The United States sought to avoid what appeared to be an open-ended liability; the Vietnamese were concerned that pushing too hard might jeopardize their export-led growth strategy and entry into the World Trade Organization.
Today, the environmental and health legacy of Agent Orange/dioxin is still a problem in Vietnam, and it also continues to be an issue of great concern for U.S. veterans of the Vietnam War.
Promising Developments
Boys who have been affected by their parents' exposure to Agent Orange play at Tu Du Hospital's Peace Village, a rehabilitation center for disabled children.
Initiatives and efforts from diverse constituencies on both sides have fostered a new environment of cooperation between the United States and Vietnam on this issue. In 2006, President Bush and President Nguyen Minh Triet issued a joint statement that, for the first time, acknowledged dioxin contamination as a war legacy that would benefit from joint action. They agreed to collaborate and clean up dioxin hot spots at former U.S. military air bases and to increase humanitarian assistance to Vietnamese with disabilities.
The American embassy in Hanoi secured $400,000 in State Department and Environmental Protection Agency funding for technical studies, which are leading to the containment of dioxin at the Danang airport, one of the dioxin hot spots. And in May 2007, in an unprecedented action, Congress appropriated $3 million for environmental remediation of dioxin hot spots and for health needs in surrounding communities.