Agent Orange suspected as cause of “cancer village”
One out of every ten households in a village in Quang Nam province has someone die from cancer, while cause can be traced back to the Agent Orange dropped here during the war.
With its death rates from cancer, village Number 3 of Tien An Commune in Quang Nam Province has been widely known as “the cancer village.”
Statistics show Village 3 with 207 households has had a total of 22 cancer deaths and still has many living victims who have not received adequate diagnosis and care.
Village 3 is just one among other villages and hamlets in Tien An Commune where the proportion of people contracting the deadly disease is higher than any other place in Vietnam.
Out of almost 4,000 permanent households in Tien An Commune, 120 patients have died from cancer, said Mr. Nguyen Thanh Long, Tien An Commune Vice-president.
Some families have up to three or four close relatives who contracted the deadly disease and died.
Mr. Long said Tien An Commune was sprayed with Agent Orange in 1968 and 1969 by U.S. military planes. The poison turned into a dense layer of frost covering the whole area from the top to halfway down the hill in the area now known as Tien An Commune of Quang Nam Province.
Fourteen babies born in the area suffered from terrible deformities caused by the poisonous defoliant.
Receiving appropriate care for cancer seems impossible where 33% of the households in the locality are very poor with a much lower average income than the rest of the country. Some twenty thousand people in the commune are so poor that they have to accept living with the disease and leave themselves to their destiny.
Although the consequences decades later have not yet been scientifically studied, the actual suffering of the local people in the commune is overwhelming and unimaginable to people who haven’t witnessed it.
Local people hope the environment in the Agent Orange-affected area will be further researched for future generations who will live and grow up there.
Story from Thanh Nien News
Published: 07 September, 2004, 23:33:07 (GMT+7)
Copyright Thanh Nien News
