Vietnam, U.S. sign MOU on Agent Orange

Vietnam, U.S. sign MOU on Agent Orange

VIETNAM: The United States and Vietnam signed a memorandum of
understanding on Sunday on a framework for research into the
effects of the Vietnam War defoliant Agent Orange and its toxic
component, dioxin.

A U.S. statement said the agreement was signed after a week of
meetings in Hanoi by Anne Sassaman of the U.S. National Institute
of Environmental Health Sciences and Nguyen Ngoc Sinh, director-
general of Vietnam's National Environmental Agency.

U.S. forces dumped millions of gallons of Agent Orange on
Vietnam during the war that ended in 1975 in order to deny
communist soldiers jungle cover and food. Spraying was halted in
1971 after it was found it contained the most dangerous form of
dioxin, TCDD, and caused cancer in rats.

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