@coldjoint,
Cj: The truth is not a smear. ... I would not expect you to know the truth even if it bit you.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2009-12-08/health/chi-agent-orange3-dec08_1_defoliants-vietnam-war-agent-orange
AGENT ORANGE: PART 3 OF 5
Agent Orange: Birth defects plague Vietnam; U.S. slow to help
U.S., Vietnam split over whether defoliants used in war are to blame
...
These are the same paddies Kieu tended as a teenager during the Vietnam War, and she still remembers the planes that came in the mornings to spray Agent Orange and other defoliants while she worked.
"I was about 16 when I saw the planes flying overhead, and I saw the spraying until I was married," said Kieu, 58. "It smelled like ripe guava. No trees could survive. It made my clothes wet."
Her vivid memories are supported by data from spraying missions analyzed by the Tribune, which show at least seven sorties that dispensed nearly 13,000 gallons of defoliants passed over Kieu's fields.
Since then, the story of Kieu's life can be told with simple, heartbreaking math. She had eight children. Seven of them were born with severe deformities. Of those, five died before age 8. She also lost her husband, who served in the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese army, to cancers associated with herbicide exposure.
Decades after the Vietnam War ended, the most contentious question surrounding the use of defoliants by the U.S. military is the impact on the health of untold numbers of Vietnamese.
At the heart of the controversy is the suspected link between the herbicides and birth defects in Vietnam, where more than 5 out of every 100 children are born with some form of physical or mental abnormality, a fourfold increase since the start of the war, according to Vietnamese scientists.
The U.S. government spent $13.7 billion last year on disability payments for more than 1 million Vietnam veterans, many of whom were exposed to herbicides. Millions more have been spent compensating veterans' families whose children were born with birth defects. But U.S. officials bristle at acknowledging connections between the defoliants and illnesses in Vietnam.
