Veterans shown ‘war horrors’

Press, 17 June 1982, Page 27

Veterans shown ‘war horrors’

Ho Chi Minh City A group of American war veterans on a recent return visit to Vietnam were shown blind children, deformed infants, and a basinfull of grotesquely shaped human foetuses preserved in formaldehyde. The Vietnamese said these horrors were products of Agent Orange, but admitted they had been unable to establish scientifically a link to the defoliant used' by the United States forces during the Vietnam war.

Dr Ton Due Lang, a researcher on Agent Orange, said the Vietnamese had established only a hypothesis relating exposure to dioxin — a toxic component of the defoliant — to what he said was a very high increase in birth defects in children in Communist veterans of the war.

The Vietnamese said the American veterans saw or were taken to alleged victims at hospitals in Hanoi. Tay Ninh. and in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). They had either been exposed to the defoliant or were children of fathers or mothers who had been exposed to it.

The Vietnamese said there lack of qualified researchers and equipment, with the problem of exploring something that occurred more than a decade ago. made the inquiry extremely difficult.

they did provide a few statistics. At Hanoi’s VietDuc Hospital, doctors said a group of 956 veterans exposed to Agent Orange had been studied and 3.14 per cent of their children suffered congenital deformities. In another group of 593 North Vietnamese who had never been to South Vietnam, where the .defoliant was used, only 0.21 per cent of the children had such birth defects.

Increasing numbers of miscarriages and birth deformities were recorded at Hoi Chi Minh City’s Tu Du Hospital during and after the defoliant's use. but the statistics. according to the Vietanese, are incomplete. The delegation from the Vietnam Veterans of America (V.V.A.) presented a proposal which would allow the United States and other foreign scientists to do impartial research in Vietnam. Vietnam officials from a Government agency investigating the consequences of

chemical warfare in Vietnam said they would respond to the proposal through Hanoi's delegation to the United Nations. In the meantime, the Vietnamese said they welcomed tests in the United States on soil and blood samples taken in Vietnam. The V.V.A. and other veterans groups in the United States hgave focused on Agent Orange since 1978. when the veterans administration began getting complaints from Vietnam veterans of cancer, liver ailments. neurological disorders. loss of sexual potency, skin lesions, and birth defects. Some veterans linked these problems to exposure to Agent Orange, and manv lawsuits have been filed.