"The United States has begun a landmark project to clean up a dangerous chemical left from the defoliant Agent Orange - 50 years after it was first sprayed by American planes on Vietnam's jungles to destroy enemy cover. Work will now begin to remove Dioxin, which has been linked to cancer, birth defects and other disabilities, from the site of a former U.S. air base in Danang in central Vietnam. The US sprayed millions of gallons of Agent Orange over the course of a decade. Vietnam says several million people have been affected by the toxic defoliant, including more than 150,000 children who have since been born with severe birth defects. The landmark effort has been heralded as a long-overdue step toward removing a thorn in relations between the former enemies. It comes nearly four decades after the Vietnam War ended. The $43 million joint project with Vietnam is expected to be completed in four years on the 47-acre contaminated site, located near Danang's commercial airport and an active Vietnamese military base. A groundbreaking ceremony took place near the area where a rusty barbed wire fence marks the site's boundary. US Ambassador David Shear said: 'We are both moving earth and taking the first steps to bury the legacies of our past.' Washington has been slow to respond." Landmark US clean up of Vietnam Agent Orange fallout announced: Chemical linked to cancer and birth defects | Mail Online
Now if they would admit that Vets were also affected and need(ed) treatment I would feel even better about this story. At least the VA is starting to link more diseases to dioxin. Tragic Legacy of Agent Orange Continues: VA Seeing More Cases
I think there could be no worse hell for our veterans than to know they participated in the handling of these materials, not know exactly the types of effects they can have on a person's mind and body, as it has such imprecise symptoms that most veterans have been denied any help when the symptoms may appear.....when cancer hits, there is such a difficulty in explaining it in most cases. I am with Tex....take care of our own completely if we are going to spend elsewhere. Also minute concentrations bring on the symptoms and in most cases our troops handled the most dangerous concentrations. Most scientists think their exposure levels were very unacceptable for escaping the effects of the deadly agent.
