Scientists find Agent Orange use underestimated.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2003/04/18/835088.htm


Scientists find Agent Orange use underestimated

Posted Fri Apr 18, 2003 2:02am AEST
Updated Fri Apr 18, 2003 4:12am AEST

The United States military used more Agent Orange and other dioxin-containing herbicide sprays during the Vietnam War than previously thought, scientists say.

Researchers at Columbia University in New York, who reanalysed military records, said the amount of Agent Orange was underestimated by seven million litres, while twice as much of the carcinogen dioxin was released.

"The estimates of how much chemical we sprayed are greater by about 10 percent than previous estimates," Steven Stellman, an author of the study published in the Science journal Nature, told Reuters.

Vietnam estimates more than a million of its people were exposed to the defoliant, which it blames on tens of thousands of birth defects and other diseases.

Agent Orange, which got its name because of the coloured stripes on the containers, was sprayed over a wide area of Vietnam by US forces during the war that ended in 1975.

It was used to deprive communist fighters of food and forest cover.

The use of Agent Orange was stopped in 1971 after it was discovered to contain dioxin.

Last year the United States and Vietnam agreed to investigate the effects of Agent Orange.

Exposure to the chemical has been linked to a higher risk of leukaemia and other types of cancer.

"Areas sprayed during the early years and in the various test sites around the world may be of particular interest for follow-up ecological and epidemiological studies," Mr Stellman and his colleagues said in the report. Tweet