Bien Hoa airbase has high level of dioxin contamination (Photo: VNA) Berlin (VNA) – Fifty years agothe US stopped spraying Agent Orange (AO) through Vietnam, however, peoplestill suffer from severe hereditary defects to this day, wrote a recent articlepublished by German daily newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau (FR).
On January 7, 1971, a US Air Force aircrafttook off for the last time to spray the chemical warfare agent over Vietnamesefields and forests. "Agent Orange" was the most harmful and the mostwidely used, the article said.
The toxic chemicals were provided by DowChemical, Monsanto (through Mobay, a joint subsidiary with the Federal Republicof Germany Bayer AG), and a handful of others. Dow Chemical also suppliednapalm to the US armed forces until 1969.
It went on to say that by January 7, 1971,the US Air Force had flown 6,542 flights to spray more than 20 million barrelsof the chemicals over Vietnam’s southern region.
More than 20 percent of the forests of inthe region were "defoliated" at least once and ten million hectaresof agricultural land were destroyed.
The actions were secret until the end of1965, the article added.
It was only when inquiries were made in theUS Congress that the government declared that it was by no means a chemicalwarfare, but that herbicides were used to destroy the crops of Vietnamesefarmers in the south.
The author cited estimates of theVietnamese Government that four million Vietnamese were exposed to AO/dioxins,with severe damage that extends to the present day.
The poisonous chemicals penetrated the soiland groundwater, while it is believed that the former US bases where the chemicalbarrels were stored are also contaminated.
After long disputes, started in the 1990s, someof the US soldiers who suffered severe damage due to contact with dioxinreceived compensation. The Vietnamese victims, however, have not received any.
Although the governments of US President GeorgeW. Bush and Barack Obama had presented Vietnam close to 100 million USD for anecological cleaning programme, in 2016, the cost of cleaning a stretch of thedioxin-contaminated Passaic River in New Jersey was estimated at 1.4 billionUSD, the article pointed out./.
