Vietnam-US to conduct joint research on Agent Orange


Ha Noi, July 4 (VNA) -- Viet Nam and the United States have agreed to conduct two research projects on Agent Orange/Dioxin.

The agreement was reached by the two countries' scientists, who have been in Ha Noi from July 2-6 to discuss measures to implement a long-term cooperation strategy in this domain between Viet Nam and the U.S.

The first project is an international symposium on effects of Agent Orange/dioxin on human health and environment. Participants in the conference will exchange information and results of Agent Orange/dioxin-related research conducted by the two countries as well as other countries after the 1993 international seminar on long-term effects of defoliant sprayed by the U.S. troops during the war in Viet Nam.

Under the second project, scientists of the two countries will join efforts in raising capacity to examine dioxin content in human and sediments in Viet Nam and they will experimentally implement measures to overcome dioxin effects. The outcome of the study will be used as basis for devising projects to address dioxin hot spots.

The Ha Noi on-going meeting is the furtherance of the talks on effects of Agent Orange/dioxin on human health and environment and measures thereto between the two countries held in Singapore last December.

The Vietnamese delegation to the talks was led by Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Sinh, Director of the National Environment Agency, and the U.S. delegation headed by Dr Christopher Portier, Deputy Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

According to unofficial reports, between 1961 and 1971, U.S. aircraft sprayed 72 million litres of toxic chemicals, including 44 million litres of Agent Orange, containing 170kg of dioxin, to Viet Nam. Dioxin is an extremely poisonous chemical that causes cancer, immune system deficiency and inborn defects.

When the U.S. war ended in 1975, three million Vietnamese had been killed, 4.4 million wounded and two million affected by toxic chemicals, mainly Agent Orange. In the first decade after the war, about 50,000 children were born with deformities or paralysis to parent affected by toxic chemicals.--VNA