The Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign, a non-governmental organisation in the United States , has called on Americans to aid Vietnamese AO victims and to contribute urgently needed funds for grass roots organising activities in the US in support of the victims.

In the call titled "Time to Act Now" released on August 10, the Agent Orange Day launched by the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/dioxin to raise fund for AO victims, the New York-based Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign also called on Americans to go to www.vn-agentorange.org and sign an orange card, which will be delivered to US congressmen, in support of comprehensive Agent Orange legislation.

Merle E. Ratner, Co-coordinator of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign, told US-based Vietnam News Agency's reporter that her organisation was working with communities across the US and with their representatives in Congress to develop legislation to comprehensively address the human needs of the victims in Vietnam and in the US .

She said the legislation, if approved, will address the need for health, rehabilitation and urgent care for Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange, cleanup of all the toxic hot spots in Vietnam , medical care for affected children and grandchildren of US veteran Agent Orange victims and health care for affected Vietnamese Americans.

The NGO's coordinator added that her organisation would continue to take part in an international corporate campaign to assure that Dow Chemical, Monsanto and 35 other corporations knowingly made Agent Orange for soldiers to spray on the Vietnamese people and land under the orders by the US government, pay to take care of the victims they have created.

According to the NGO, millions of AO victims in Vietnam are living with and dying from diseases and birth defects left behind from the US ’s spraying of Agent Orange and other chemicals during the Vietnam War. This legacy of the war, more than 35 years ago, also sickens and kills US veterans and their children and grandchildren./.