Margie Mason reported for the Associated Press that the U.S.-Vietnam working group has called for $300 million from the United States and other donors to clean up Agent Orange-related contamination in Vietnam.
Mason does a good job of outlining the war-related issues surrounding Agent Orange, but she mildly sums up the health dangers of its main pollutant - dioxin - in a single sentence. Mason comments that "dioxin has been linked to cancers, birth defects and other ailments," without explaining what she means by "birth defects and other ailments."
The term “dioxin” refers to a large group of related chemicals. TCDD is the dioxin in Agent Orange and is considered the most toxic man-made chemical in the world (Schecter et al. 2006). It causes harm at tiny doses and is a potent cancer-causing compound.
Because dioxins accumulate in the environment and in fat tissues of animals, they are pervasive in the food chain. For most people, exposure to dioxins comes from consuming animal foods like meat, fish and dairy products.
Dioxins cause many kinds of illnesses – some are obvious and immediate, others result from developmental exposure and manifest long after the exposure has ended.
Obvious outcomes of TCDD exposure can include nausea, vomiting, headache, loss of appetite, changes in blood testosterone levels, erectile dysfunction, and rashes, including a severe and disfiguring condition called chloracne.
Illnesses that develop over time following TCDD exposure include cancer, diabetes, high blood cholesterol and triglycerides, death from cardiovascular disease and heart disease, liver damage, gum and skin pigmentation, poor mineralization of molars in children, thyroid dysfunction and excessive growth of body hair.
Developing fetuses are especially vulnerable to developmental abnormalities, and TCDD exposure of fetuses to a few part per trillion (ppt, the high end of body burden in the general population) is linked to increased skin pigmentation and problems with respiratory infections, behavioral or cognitive difficulties, and altered breast or penile development at puberty.
The problem of TCDD exposure continues today in Vietnam, with TCDD levels up to 1,000,000 ppt found in soil or sediment. Elevated concentrations of TCDD have been measured in food and wildlife in Vietnam, showing that the chemical continues to contaminate the food chain, facilitating the exposure of a new generation of Vietnamese citizens.
Mason’s article presents important information justifying the huge need to clean up TCDD contamination caused by United States. forces during the Vietnam war. Additional details regarding health consequences and potential exposures of people in Vietnam would have been helpful in conveying the human cost of Agent Orange.
