Effects on current Vietnamese citizens

Rigorous studies have consequently been conducted to instead measure the levels of dioxin still present in the blood samples of the citizens of both North and South Vietnam. These studies indicate that though most Agent Orange studies have had myopic analyses of American veterans, Vietnamese citizens have had far greater exposure to breadth and scope of the target. The pervasion of dioxin as described by Schechter et al. (made clear in very high TCDD or 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin levels in human milk, adipose tissue, and blood as measured by gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy) in the Vietnamese people living in Vietnam is substantially greater than that of other populations (Schechter et al., 1995).^[7] Dioxin levels were corroborated in subsequent studies, most notably those conducted in areas geographically near bombing sites and spray missions during the course of Operation Ranch Hand, approximately between 1962 and 1970. A 2002 sample study of the dioxin levels in the city of Bien Hoa, a populous city in southern Vietnam located in the proximity of an air base used for spray missions, indicated noticeably elevated blood dioxin levels despite a 20-year period of peace, with Agent Orange specifically being found in the blood samples.^[8] Emigrants to the city and even children born after the end of the Agent Orange spraying operations had blood samples indicating a presence of dioxin (Schecter et al., 2001).^[8] Meta-studies have affirmed the dioxin pathway of genetic inheritance, e.g. a statistically significant correlation between paternal exposure to Agent Orange and spina bifida over three case-control studies from 1966 to 2008 (Ngo et al., 2009).^[9]

According to the Vietnamese, the US program resulted in 400,000 deaths caused due to a range of cancers and other ailments, and that approximately 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange according to census data.^[10][11]

Effects on Vietnamese refugees

Following the end of the Vietnam War, two million refugees from Vietnam as well as Laos and Cambodia fled to other countries. By 1992, upwards of 1 million refugees had settled in the United States, 750,000 in other North American and European countries, and many others remained in refugee camps from Thai-Cambodian border to Hong Kong, unable to obtain the visas and immigration documents necessary to permanently immigrate.^[12]

Scientific reports have concluded that refugees who had reported being exposed to chemical sprays while in South Vietnam continued to experience pain in the eyes and skin as well as gastrointestinal upsets. In one study, ninety-two percent of participants suffered incessant fatigue; others reported abortions and monstrous births.^[13] Meta-analyses of the most current studies on the association between Agent Orange and birth defects have concluded that there is a statistically significant correlation such that having a parent who was exposed to Agent Orange at any point in their life will increase one's likelihood of either possessing or acting as a genetic carrier of birth defects. Vietnamese studies specifically indicated an even greater correlation between parental exposure and birth defects, with scholars concluding that the rate of association varied situationally as degree of exposure and intensity were factors also considered.^[14]

• 
  Severe arm deformity most likely related to Agent Orange exposure when he was in gestation and his pregnant mother was exposed to the defoliating chemical, dioxin.
• 
  Handicapped children, most of them victims of Agent Orange

Deforestation

Official US military records have listed figures including the destruction of 20% of the jungles of South Vietnam and 20-36% (with other figures reporting 20-50%) of the mangrove forests.^[17] An overall reduction in biomass, i.e. plant and animal populations, has been noted along with loss of soil nutrients and ecosystem productivity in terms of growth yields.^[18] Forests that have been sprayed multiple times (estimates point to about a quantity of land equaling 500,000 ha (1,200,000 acres)) have extensively exacerbated ecological disadvantages; recovery times are dubious and "the plant and animal communities have been totally disrupted" due to "total annihilation of the vegetative cover".^[18] The long-term effect of this deforestation continues to result in less aged foliage and mangroves being unable to grow from even a single spraying, with many patches of economically unviable grass colloquially referred to as "American grass".^[17] Farm land that was destroyed in the process of militarization and the creation of battlefields produced an agricultural wasteland, forcing Vietnamese farmers to work with contaminated soil for more than 40 years.^[19] The environmental destruction caused by this defoliation has been described by Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, lawyers, historians and other academics as an ecocide.^{[20][21][22][23][24]}

Ecological refugees

The use of Agent Orange is considered a "notorious example" of the expropriation of human environment for warfare, forcing many rural Vietnamese to move to cities as ecological refugees to survive because their crops and livelihood had been destroyed.^[25] Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington noted that during the Vietnam War the urban population doubled or tripled as people moved from rural areas to escape war.^[26] Jim Glassman argued that ecological destruction and crop destruction, including from Agent Orange, produced rural refugees to cities and helped as part of counterinsurgency efforts to control rural areas and isolate the population from the Viet Cong. He further wrote that the millions of war refugees "cannot be seen narrowly as the result of one or another form of warfare".^[27]

Legal responses

Government responses

Questions of governmental accountability have been raised towards who should be responsible for allowing the use of the chemical dioxin despite knowing the risks. Those who said that the use (at the time of the Vietnam War) of Agent Orange was merely a means of defeating the Viet Cong did not believe that the defoliant violated the Geneva Protocol.^[17] During the war, resolutions were introduced to the United Nations charging that the U.S. was violating the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which regulated the use of chemical and biological weapons, however the resolutions were defeated.^[34] The extensive environmental damage that resulted from usage of the herbicide prompted the United Nations to pass Resolution 31/72 and ratify the Environmental Modification Convention in 1976. Many states do not regard this as a complete ban on the use of herbicides and defoliants in warfare.^[35]

There is reason to believe that sociopolitical context constrains the ability of government bodies to reveal the truth regarding food-behavior research as well as the scientific studies crafted by these bodies; governments may have an incentive to disrupt or obstruct investigations into the matter.^[36]

Additional remediative policies have been proposed by concerned groups of citizens due to a lack of governmental accountability. The US-Vietnam Dialogue Group on Agent Orange/Dioxin of the Aspen Institute established a 10-year Plan of Action on June 16, 2010, to call for governmental participation in addressing herbicide effect in Vietnam. This plan calls for the United States and the Vietnamese government to work with other governments and NGOs to invest 30 million dollars over ten years to clean and purify harmed ecosystems and expand services to families who have been affected medically and physically by Agent Orange.^[37]

Scientific objections

The current scientific consensus on the effects of Agent Orange concludes that scientists at the time made erroneous judgments on how devastating the chemical could be. Scientific reviews ex post facto have indicated that many of these supposedly objective studies that conclude a beneficial use of Agent Orange were based on access to still classified documents and little else.^[38] According to Koppes's study, scientists repeatedly minimized the harmful effects of the chemical and ignored empirical evidence.^[38]