Word: vietnamize
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Beyond the unquestioned environmental damage lies the less easily proved, but more horrifying, damage to the people of Vietnam. Although long-term scientific studies of Agent Orange's effect on Vietnam's population are still underway, Vietnamese doctors have reported significant increases in liver tumors, miscarriages and deformed children--especially those born with cleft palates, a birth defect observed with lab animals. Professor Ton That Tung, director of the Viet Duc hospital in Hanoi, published papers documenting a high incidence of chromosome damage among people in sprayed areas...
...this case, however, the Vietnamese were not the only guinea pigs in the army's chemical warfare experiments. Agent Orange has affected the Vietnam veterans who sprayed or were stationed near sprayed areas. They have since suffered many of the same symptoms as the Vietnamese. Veterans describe eating in sprayed areas, and climbing through jungles dripping with the herbicide. Their children have the same birth defects as the Vietnamese children and the veterans themselves complained of recurring dizziness and nausea, weight loss and skin disease--other common symptoms of dioxin poisoning...
...veterans with symptoms paralleling lab results is increasing, the Army and the Veterans' Administration (VA refuse to accept responsibility for the health problems of the veterans and their children. The V.A., which has received over 500 dioxin inquiries, still maintains that no one has proved cancer originated in Vietnam or that a male veteran exposed to Agent Orange could transfer genetic abnormalities to his child...
...complaints of the Vietnam veterans have found a more receptive audience in Congress and the press. Several news articles and television documentaries have alerted other vets and some Congressmen. The heat is on the V.A. This April, the House Committee on Veterans Affairs viewed a television documentary produced in Chicago, where local veterans are particularly well-informed about Agent Orange. Fourteen Congressmen were sufficiently shocked to demand a report from the V.A. and the General Accounting Office. The Committee tentatively plans to hold hearings on Agent Orange this fall, but the V.A. still refuses even to hear the complaints...
...Like the Vietnam veterans, the people who live near the sprayed areas have begun to experience the ill-effects of the dioxin. Crop-dusters try to confine spraying to forested areas with sparse populations, but the herbicide wafts toward more populated areas. Studies conducted by the Forestry Service document the phenomenon of "spray drift": the herbicide spreads to outlying areas coating them in a fine mist of chemicals. The Service found that dioxin floats into streams, where it harms fish. The same study documented a loss of vegetation adversely affecting the fishfood supply...