A hearing on Agent Orange (AO) in Vietnam will be held in Washington D.C. on July 15 by the US House of Representatives to examine how to meet the needs of Vietnam’s AO victims who have been exposed to the toxic dioxin contained in the Agent Orange used by the US during the Vietnam War.

The hearing, the third of its kind, was called by Congressman Eni Faleomavaega, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia , the Pacific and the Global Environment of the US House of Representatives' Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Faleomavaega also called and presided over the first US Congress hearing on AO in Vietnam in May 2008 and the second in June 2009.

The congressman on July 8 sent a notice to members of the Committee on Foreign Affairs informing that the open hearing will be held under the subject "Agent Orange in Vietnam : Recent Developments in Remediation".

This hearing will be attended by Matthew Palmer, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Department of State's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs; Ph.D. John Wilson, Director of the Office of Technical Support under US Agency for International Development's Bureaus for Asia and the Middle East; M.D. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, Director General of Ngoc Tam Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City and presently Member of the US-Vietnam Dialogue Group on AO/Dioxin; and Tran Thi Hoan, AO victim.

According to the July 10 press release of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign, Hoan, 24, from Duc Linh district of Binh Thuan province in Central Vietnam is a second generation victim of AO.

The press release said Dr. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong is Vietnam ’s leading medical expert and researcher on the affects of AO on the health of the Vietnamese people and is Vice President of VAVA, a Vietnamese NGO representing hundreds of thousands of AO victims.

The July 12-16 visit to the US by Hoan and Phuong will be sponsored by the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign, a group made up of US veterans, Vietnamese Americans, public health, environmental and legal experts, people of faith and peace activists.

According to the New York-based organisation, during the week, the two Vietnamese, accompanied by American veterans, will meet with other members of the US House of Representatives and the US Senate.

The team will call for justice and US government assistance for Vietnam ’s AO victims as well as medical care for the children of US veterans and Vietnamese Americans exposed to AO./.