A war that ended 40 years ago continues to claim new victims – in the US as well as Vietnam. When the US military sprayed millions of gallons of Agent Orange herbicide over Vietnam – defoliating rural areas to deprive the Viet Cong of shelter – it wasn’t known that its major component, dioxin, is a cancer-causing toxin.
More recently it has become clear that the herbicide also mutates DNA sequences, causing devastating birth defects as well as cancers. But thousands of children of Vietnam veterans are being denied compensation by the US government, which refuses to recognize most of the defects that are passed through paternal lines.
