Agent Orange, a cancer-causing dioxin sprayed extensively throughout the jungles of Vietnam during the Vietnam War, lingers in the country. In some places, it reaches concentration levels that are 300 to 400 times higher than what has been deemed “safe.”
Agent Orange was manufactured by Dow and Monsanto but is now a banned product, as it is now known to cause leukemia, liver damage, skin problems, Parkinson’s disease, seizures, and perhaps birth defects, among other ailments. There has recently been some evidence to suggest that it is linked with Type 2 Diabetes.
However, it has also been noticed to have caused extensive environmental damage. Recent reports have claimed that food sources (particularly meats), have been contaminated. The study reporting these findings was conducted near Ho Chi Min City and was published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the flagship publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
That Agent Orange is correlated with birth defects is a widely-held belief. It was confirmed in a study of laboratory animals conducted by the National Institutes of Health. In Vietnam, 5 out of every 100 children are born with a physical or mental defect—a marked increase since the start of the Vietnam War. Many of these deformities are severe physical ones, which leave the children with a reduced life expectancy and other vulnerabilities. For instance, some children have been born with misshapen faces, heads, and skeletons—even with no eyes, legs, feet, or hands. Some have been born with organs protruding from their bodies.
Caring for these children can be immensely difficult for already poor families. Some even blame themselves for their children’s tragic condition. Without widespread access to health care, medications, ad physical therapy for these children, it is difficult to improve their health and well-being, despite the best effort of many.
Currently, there are many collaborative efforts are underway between governments, local charities and international philanthropic organizations, and environmentalists to speed up clean-up and improve the quality of life for families affected by Agent Orange. Some run homes and hospitals for the children, and others provide financial assistance to their families.