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Progressive Magazine, Feb 18, 2002 - Web Exclusive
The Pentagon Mindset: Poison Them! Deep inside the sixth of eight glowing articles in its series "10 Days in September" about what wonderful crisis managers George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice are, The Washington Post on February 1 buried the following bit of information: The Pentagon was considering poisoning Afghanistan's food supply. http://www.progressive.org/webex/wx021 802.html === Vietnam blood dioxin levels "startling" - US
expert
< http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory .cfm/newsid/14842/story.htm> Story by David Brunnstrom REUTERS NEWS SERVICE VIETNAM: March 4, 2002 HANOI - A leading expert on the Vietnam War defoliant Agent Orange said last week new tests on people living in a heavily sprayed part of Vietnam had found "startlingly high" levels of cancer-causing dioxin. However, speaking ahead of a key conference on the effects of Agent Orange beginning in Hanoi on Sunday, Arnold Schecter said tests on Vietnamese food exports to the United States had shown generally lower dioxin levels than in U.S. products, despite claims to the contrary from opponents of Vietnamese imports. Schecter, a professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Texas, told Reuters blood tests from 43 people living around the former U.S. airbase of Bien Hoa, near Ho Chi Minh City, had found dioxin levels up to 206 times higher than average. He said one person tested, who was born in 1973, two years after U.S. forces stopped spraying Agent Orange in Vietnam, had 413 parts per trillion of TCDD, the dioxin characteristic of Agent Orange. This compared with two parts per trillion on average in Vietnam. The Bien Hoa tests showed an average of 67 parts per trillion - still 33 times higher than average, Schecter said. "This means 30-40 years after Agent Orange was sprayed, people are still being contaminated," he said. "This shows Agent Orange is not just a historic event, but something that is still with us in hotspots like Bien Hoa." "It means dioxin can persist a very long time in the environment and in certain cases contaminate people and in others substantially contaminate people." MILLIONS OF GALLONS SPRAYED The United States sprayed millions of gallons of Agent Orange and other defoliants on Vietnam from 1962 to 1971 to deny communist fighters jungle cover. The chemicals included TCDD, the most dangerous form of dioxin, a known carcinogen. It is also blamed for causing immune deficiency, birth defects, reproductive problems, diabetes and nervous system disorders. Schecter said the most likely form of contamination of those at Bien Hoa was river fish. He said some opponents of Vietnamese seafood exports to the United States had used the Agent Orange issue to try to scare off American consumers from the products. However, tests for the University of Texas on 20 samples of Vietnamese fish bought in Texas and California found dioxin levels that were generally lower than U.S. food products. For example, he said, one Vietnamese catfish sample showed just 0.01 parts per trillion. "These are very low levels." Schecter said the tests suggested Hanoi's fear that allowing food samples to be taken for testing abroad could damage key exports was misplaced, given that only five percent of the country was ever sprayed with Agent Orange. "That means that most food is not contaminated with dioxin," he said, while adding that there were an unknown number of Agent Orange "hotspots" like Bien Hoa in Vietnam. After Agent Orange was found to cause cancer in laboratory rats, the U.S. military suspended its use in 1970 and halted all herbicide spraying in Vietnam the following year. Vietnam's government blames defoliants for causing tens of thousands of birth defects and says the United States should pay compensation. The United States has long argued there is no scientific evidence linking Agent Orange to the birth defects. Sunday's conference, co- organised by the United States and Vietnam, will review current research on the impact of dioxin on human health and on the environment and discuss research plans. |
