In 2019, USAID and Vietnam’s Ministry of Defense signed a five-year memorandum that commits $65 million to assist people with disabilities in eight priority provinces. The State Department tasked the US Agency for International Development (USAID) with administering the earmarked funds. Since then, the United States has provided around $139 million to address the health effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam. Separate funds for health and disability programs were first appropriated in 2011, starting at $3 million but increasing over time. In 2007, the US Congress approved the first annual funding for dioxin remediation in Vietnam. Photo by Alexis DUCLOS (CC BY-SA 3.0 on Wikimedia commons)īreakthroughs finally occurred around 2006-2007, following activism and initiatives by state and non-state actors. Professor Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, at Tu Du Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital is pictured in 2004 with a group of handicapped children, most of them victims of Agent Orange. Washington denied causality between dioxin and birth defects and refused to take responsibility, while Hanoi insisted on the largest number of victims possible. Deadlocks and disagreements persisted well into the early 2000s.
Hundreds of thousands of American, South Korean, Australian, and New Zealand veterans and their children also experience health conditions linked to dioxin exposure.įor many years after the war ended, Agent Orange was a source of contention in US-Vietnam relations, even after the two former enemies normalized their ties in 1995. There are now up to four generations of victims in Vietnam, and for all we know, the inter-generational transmission of effects will continue. Vietnam claims 4.8 million victims, 3 million of whom are debilitated by the health effects of Agent Orange. Those directly exposure to dioxin might contract chronic ailments such as cancer and diabetes, while their descendants have a high chance of suffering from severe disabilities. Since Agent Orange was the most extensively sprayed herbicide (45.6 million liters), it has become associated with the legacy of US herbicidal warfare in Vietnam.ĭecades after the spraying stopped, Agent Orange continues to inflict pain on presumably millions of people. A total of six defoliants were deployed, and four of them-Agent Orange, Pink, Green, and Purple contained dioxin-the most toxic substance known to humanity. By the time the operation ended in 1971, approximately 75 million liters of herbicides had been sprayed over nearly 15% of Vietnam’s territory. In 1961, as part of the Vietnam War, the US launched a 10-year aerial campaign called Operation Ranch Hand that aimed to strategically deny North Vietnamese forces vegetation and forest cover. As Madam Ton Nu Thi Ninh, a veteran Vietnamese diplomat actively engaged in US-Vietnam reconciliation, once said, “On post-war matters, pain and justice must never be forgotten.” What Madam Ninh specifically alluded to was Agent Orange consequences, the most visible and obstinate legacy of the war between Vietnam and the United States. But leaving the past behind does not mean forgetting it. Most Vietnamese have put the Vietnam War behind them.
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