(NEW YORK) MintPress — Friday, Aug. 10 marks 51 years since the beginning of the American military’s spraying of Agent Orange in Vietnam, and it took the United States until Thursday, Aug. 9 to begin cleaning up.
The project aims to remove the dangerous chemical dioxin, which has been linked to cancer, birth defects, and other diseases, from the site of a former U.S. Army air base in Danang in Central Vietnam.
During the Vietnam War, the military sprayed nearly 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and other herbicides and defoliants on vegetation used as cover by guerrilla forces, decimating about 5 million acres of forest, roughly the size of Massachusetts.
Vietnam estimates 400,000 people were killed or maimed, and 500,000 children were born with major deformities as a result.
At the opening ceremony for the cleanup operation, U.S. Ambassador David Shear said, “The dioxin in the ground here is a legacy of the painful past we share, but the project we undertake here today hand in hand with the Vietnamese is, as Secretary Clinton said, a sign of the hopeful future we are building together.”
Danang is the most toxic of 28 dioxin “hot spots” in Vietnam. The $43 million project will excavate the soil and sediment at the 47-acre contaminated site.
“This process uses high temperatures to break down the dioxin in the contaminated soil and make it safe by Vietnamese and U.S. standards for the many men, women and children who live and work in this area,” stated Shear.
Too little too late
The cleanup comes after years of wrangling over the issue between Washington and Hanoi. The two sides normalized diplomatic relations in 1995.
Over the last several years, the U.S. has provided about $55 million for environmental restoration and social services in Vietnam, but it has not admitted any liability for health problems.
Several orphanages across the country care for children believed to be affected by the chemical. The director of the Thanh Xuan Peace Village near Hanoi said the U.S. needs to do more because the poison continues to affect people three generations after the end of the war and there are other areas of the country besides Danang that need to be cleaned.
So far, the Peace Village has received help from American war veterans, some of whom were themselves exposed to Agent Orange.
While in Vietnam, the veterans were told the chemical was harmless. After returning home, however, many began to suspect their ill health or the instances of their wives having miscarriages or children born with birth defects might be related to Agent Orange and the other toxic herbicides to which they were exposed.
Veterans began to file claims in 1977 to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for disability payments for health care for conditions they believed were associated with exposure to Agent Orange but their claims were denied unless they could prove the condition began when they were in the service or within one year of their discharge.
By April 1993, the VA had compensated only 486 victims, although it had received disability claims from 39,419 soldiers who had been exposed to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam.
Home base
Meanwhile, earlier this week, President Obama signed a bill promising health benefits for Marines and families who for decades were exposed to poisoned water at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
“I think all Americans feel we have a moral, sacred duty toward our men and women in uniform,” he said at a ceremony in the Oval Office before signing the Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act.
But it’s taken years for thousands of veterans and their families who were exposed to water containing benzene and other toxic chemicals from 1957 to 1987 to get that recognition.
As many as 1.1 million gallons of fuel leaked from underground storage tanks on the base, and documents show Marine leaders were slow to respond when tests in the early 1980s showed higher than normal levels of contaminants in the water.
Jerry Ensminger of Elizabethtown, N.C., was one of those affected and attended the ceremony. He led the fight for information about the water problems at the base after his daughter Jane died of a rare form of childhood leukemia at the age of 9 in 1985.
Other Marines, including Mike Partain, who suffered from a rare form of male breast cancer, joined the battle. Partain was also at the ceremony, where he said, “I’m still in shock. We’ve been fighting justice for so long. Fighting the juggernaut of the Marine Corps.”
“And sadly, this act alone will not bring back those we’ve lost, including Jane Ensminger, but it will honor their memory by making a real difference for those who are still suffering,” Obama said.
The law provides health care for 15 diseases, including several cancers, but federal scientists are still studying whether there are connections between the poisoned water and other illnesses, including multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease and Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Future fallout
The U.S. is still grappling with the health problems of a new generation of veterans who served in the Gulf War.
Approximately 250,000 of the 697,000 veterans who served in the 1991 Gulf War are afflicted with a chronic multi-symptom illness known as the Gulf War Syndrome.
Several causes have been investigated, including nerve gas antidote (NAPP) pills, military strength pesticides, chemical weapons and depleted uranium.
According to a 2010 U.S. VA-sponsored study conducted by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), part of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the illness continues to affect these veterans nearly 20 years after the war.
“Unfortunately, symptoms that cannot be easily quantified are sometimes incorrectly dismissed as insignificant and receive inadequate attention and funding by the medical and scientific establishment,” concluded the study.
“Veterans who continue to suffer from these symptoms deserve the very best that modern science and medicine can offer to speed the development of effective treatments, cures, and — we hope — prevention.”
Hopefully, history won’t repeat itself.