Predictors for dioxin accumulation in residents living in Da Nang and Bien Hoa, Vietnam, many years after Agent Orange use

Highlights

• Blood dioxin levels were measured from residents in Bien Hoa and Da Nang, Vietnam.

• Blood dioxin levels were related to individual and environmental risk factors.

• Fish farming was associated with higher blood dioxin levels at both locations.

• Blood dioxin levels were positively correlated with living on flooded property.

• Da Nang dioxin sites are being cleaned up so exposure should decrease.

Abstract

Agent Orange (AO) was the main defoliant used by the US in Vietnam from 1961 to 1971; AO was contaminated with dioxin (2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, or TCDD). Three major dioxin “hot spots” remain from previous AO storage and use at former US bases at Bien Hoa, Da Nang, and Phu Cat, posing potential health risks for Vietnamese living on or near these hot spots. We evaluated potential risk factors contributing to serum TCDD levels in Vietnamese residents at and near contaminated sites in Da Nang and Bien Hoa, Vietnam. We used multiple linear regression to analyze possible associations of blood dioxin concentrations with demographic, socioeconomic, lifestyle, and dietary risk factors for residents living on or near these hot spots. For the Da Nang study, fish farming on the site, living on property flooded from monsoon rains, and age were among the factors showing significant positive associations with serum TCDD concentrations. For the Bien Hoa study, fish farmers working at this site and their immediate family members had significantly higher serum TCDD concentrations. Our results suggest that water-related activities, especially fish-farming, at the hot spots increased the risk of exposure to dioxin.

Agent Orange Zone: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653514011400

Vietnamese French woman files dioxin lawsuit against 35 US companies

A French woman of Vietnamese origin, Tran To Nga, has stood as the sole plaintiff in the Agent Orange/Dioxin lawsuit against 35 chemical companies based in the U.S. for producing the toxic substances sprayed in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s.

Her 31-page complaint was sent to the Superior Court (tribunal de grande instance) based in Evry in the southern suburb of Paris, France. In May, the court sent notifications to the 35 defendants in the U.S. about the case.

Continue Learning>>>http://tuoitrenews.vn/features/21219/vietnamese-french-woman-files-dioxin-lawsuit-against-35-us-companies

Agent Orange Day 10 August 2014

DAY – Aspiring theatre professionals come meet actor Kate Mulvaney & be inspired by her story. Kate will be delivering x3 45minute acting workshops. Limited sessions. Bookings essential rosakwan@live.com.au
9am, 10am & 11am – At the StirrUP Gallery

NIGHT – Live music, poetry & comedy to raise awareness about the effects of Agent Orange & it’s link to Monsanto
From 6pm – At Hut 9 – Food & Drink

Agent Orange is a chemical the U.S military used during the Vietnam War to deny the Vietnamese and Viet Cong food and cover by spraying the herbicide on vegetation across huge areas of the country. This had horrific health effects on Vietnamese people and on Australian veterans and their families. Agent Orange remains in the soil and water and damages the genetic make up that replicates for generations. A hundred years from now children will be born with horrific birth defects because a villager drinks contaminated water today.

This event ties in to International Agent Orange Day

Continue Learning>>>http://agentorangejustice.org.au/2014/06/29/agent-orange-day-10-august-2014/

In Vietnam, Agent Orange still makes its deadly presence felt

There’s an air of torment about Cong Nguyen. The 16-year-old is among four siblings, two of whom suffer the same regular attacks of heat that mean they can never stray far from a water tank. To make matters worse, he has never been able to grow teeth or a full crop of hair; instead, clusters of wispy, thin strands sit above sunken eyes.  “Some kids avoid me and laugh at me,” he says from the home he shares with his brothers and parents in Bien Hoa, just outside Ho Chi Minh City.

His mother thinks she knows the cause of his problems. As a teenager in the mid-1970s she would collect wood in a field with her father in southern Vietnam. The two would spend all day among the foliage, cutting down small trees, scavenging in thickets for branches that they would then carry back to their village in the evening.

Continue Learning:  http://www.ucanews.com/news/in-vietnam-agent-orange-still-makes-its-deadly-presence-felt/70511