Word: agente
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...waving her crippled limbs. Unable to sit up by herself, Trang is one of dozens of malformed babies born in Bien Hoa, where birth defects occur three to four times more often than in other parts of the country, according to a leading Vietnamese researcher. The prime suspect is Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant sprayed for nine years by U.S. warplanes over southern Vietnam. Nicknamed for the orange stripes on its storage barrels, Agent Orange contains dioxin, now linked to cancer and a host of other ailments, including birth defects. "The doctors told me my daughter's condition is because...
...There's no doubt in Ngoc's mind that his daughter's deformity was caused by Agent Orange. Scientists are less certain. A groundbreaking conference this week could help change that and may open the door for billions of dollars in aid for Vietnamese victims. Dozens of researchers and medical experts gathering in Hanoi will work together to study Agent Orange's aftermath, seeking hard evidence of a connection between the chemical and illness among Vietnamese citizens...
...official collaboration between the U.S. and Vietnam is a first. Until now, the debate has been defined more by politics than by science. Vietnam estimates Agent Orange is to blame for more than 150,000 cases of birth defects and about 1 million cases of other maladies. Washington flatly denies there's any conclusive link between the herbicide and illness; officials have accused Hanoi of inflating the statistics...
...dioxin in their blood, even among those born years after the spraying stopped. Dr. Arnold Schechter of the University of Texas estimates that southern Vietnam has up to 30 dioxin "hot spots" like Bien Hoa, the site of a major U.S. air base where some 7,000 gallons of Agent Orange may have been spread and spilled. Vietnamese officials say Schechter's study adds to the proof that the U.S. caused a massive environmental disaster and owes compensation to victims. "I think the figure should be very, very big," says Nguyen Trong Nhan, president of the Vietnam Red Cross...
...scientific community, however, remains divided over how much damage Agent Orange has done?and Hanoi may be to blame for the absence of persuasive evidence. Crippled infants make compelling anecdotes, but the communist regime in the past has blocked scientific studies by outside researchers. The government routinely says birth-defect rates are high in sprayed areas, yet it refuses to release verifiable statistics. "You can't just say, 'There's a bunch of malformed babies, it must be Agent Orange,'" Schechter says. "There's a lot of hard scientific work to be done...