Decades Later, Vietnam War Toxin Still Torments

Decades Later, Vietnam War Toxin Still Torments

(EXCERPT) Mon February 16, 2004 08:07 AM ET (Page 1 of 3), By Thomas
White

QUANG TRI PROVINCE, Vietnam (Reuters) - Do Duc Duyen was born with two
heads and is blind, deaf and utterly helpless.

The seven-year-old lies on a bamboo mattress at a hospital outside
central Quang Tri province, crying constantly.

Although he was born over two decades since the Vietnam War ended,
Duyen is nevertheless a victim of that tragic conflict. Doctors say he
is a victim of Agent Orange.

The Vietnamese government says there are three million victims of
Agent Orange in Vietnam, and that the number is growing as the jungle
defoliant continues to contaminate livestock and fish eaten, By
Vietnamese decades after it was used by the U.S. military. "Two-thirds
of the children I care for come from the areas where Agent Orange was
used during the war," says Dr. Nguyen Thi Phuong Tan, the head of Tu
Du hospital's Peace Village where Duyen is one of 60 patients.

Abandoned by their parents and totally dependent on Tan and her staff
of 30, the children of Agent Orange have little hope of a normal life.

Vietnam has been pressing the United States for years for compensation
f...

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Otis Willie
Associate Librarian
The American War Library
http://www.americanwarlibrary.com