Agence France-Presse/VOA News: USAID Launches Latest Cleanup of Agent Orange Site
“The U.S. launched on Saturday a $183 million cleanup at a former Vietnam storage site for Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant used in the nations’ bitter war, which years later is still blamed for severe birth defects, cancers, and disabilities. … Hanoi says up to 3 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, and that 1 million suffer grave health repercussions today — including at least 150,000 children with birth defects. … While U.S. officials have never admitted direct links between Agent Orange and birth defects, USAID on Saturday also issued a ‘memorandum of intent’ to work with government agencies to improve the lives of people with disabilities in seven Vietnamese provinces” (4/20).