Phan
Thanh Hung Duc, 20, lies immobile and silent, his midsection covered
haphazardly by a white shirt with an ornate Cambodian temple design. His
mouth is agape and his chest thrusts upward, his hands and feet locked
in gnarled deformity. He appears to be frozen in agony. He is one of the
thousands of Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange.
Pham
Thi Phuong Khanh, 21, is another such patient. She quietly pulls a
towel over her face as a visitor to the Peace Village ward in Tu Du
Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, starts to take a picture of her enlarged,
hydrocephalic head. Like Mr. Hung Duc, Ms. Khanh is believed to be a
victim of
Perhaps
Ms. Khanh does not want strangers to stare at her. Perhaps she feels
ashamed. But if she does feel shame, why is it that those who should do
not?
The
history of Agent Orange and its effects on the Vietnamese people, as
well as American soldiers, should shame Americans. Fifty years ago, in
1967, the United States sprayed 5.1 million gallons of herbicides with
the toxic chemical dioxin across Vietnam, a single-year record for the
decade-long campaign to defoliate the countryside. It was done without
regard to dioxin’s effect on human beings or its virulent and long
afterlife. Agent Orange was simply one of several herbicides used, but
it has become the most infamous.
Chemical
companies making Agent Orange opted for maximum return despite in-house
memos that a safer product could be made for a slight reduction in
profits. American soldiers were among the unintended victims of this
decision: Unwarned, they used the empty 55-gallon drums for makeshift
showers.
Over
the years, there have been both American and Vietnamese plaintiffs in
Agent Orange court cases in the United States. Possibly the only one
that could be considered a victory for the plaintiffs was an
out-of-court settlement of $180 million in the 1980s for about 50,000
American veterans. Many more never benefited from the case because their
illnesses did not show up for years.
These
American veterans have fought for decades to get medical treatment and
compensation for birth defects and ailments presumed to be Agent
Orange-related diseases. Records from Agent Orange lawsuits indicate
that both the military and the chemical companies involved were well
aware, early on, of the dangers of dioxin, so much so that our
government terminated the program three years before the war’s end.
Our
government has acknowledged some of its responsibility to its veterans.
In 2010, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki added three
Agent Orange-related diseases to the V.A.’s compensation list, and
Congress allocated $13.3 billion to cover the costs. An enterprising
Senate aide slipped in $12 million for Agent Orange relief in Vietnam,
only a small portion of which was for health. These disparities in
funding are unconscionable, as is the American government’s illogical
refusal to acknowledge that Agent Orange has caused the same damage to
the Vietnamese as it has to Americans.
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