Member John sends me this link to a CNN site showing children even now suffering the ignominious effects of AO. Vets are being hornswoggled by VA into thinking this is a chemical that was rarely ingested and, if so, is not well enough documented to say it caused or is in any way responsible for any genetic defects.
As time marches forward, the ill effects continue to surface. In some respects, I suppose you could say these are the lucky few who actually survived this long. Spina Bifida is the least of their worries. I don’t see this subsiding soon. If anything , it will become more prevalent for the next fifty or so years until the dioxin and picloram leech out of the soil. Due to the extreme flatness of the geography and the induration of the soil in the delta, that will sadly be a long time in coming.
I’ve read that there are over 500,000 children in Vietnam with deformities from AO.
I don’t think CNN should give a “deformities” warning before the slideshow .Searching “Agent Orange” in Google image search shows how devastating this chemical was.