Agent Orange: Will we ever know its long-term effects on human health?
More than fifty years after the last drops of ultra-toxic herbicides over Vietnam, questions remain about their effects on the health of the population, particularly for those born well after the war.
Science magazine usually has very colorful front pages. Not this week's. It features a black-and-white photo of three U.S. military planes dropping tons of herbicide over Vietnam, headlined "Agent Orange's Dark Legacy."
As April 30, 2025 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the fall of Saigon, now known as “Ho Chi Minh City,” and the end of the Vietnam War, the American magazine looks back at the consequences on human health of the 74 million liters of various herbicides, including Agent Orange, spread by the US Air Force between 1961 and 1971 in South Vietnam, as well as on the borders with Laos and Cambodia.
During that decade, an estimated 2.2 million hectares of forest and agricultural land were affected, Science recalls in a lengthy article . “The goal was to eliminate mangrove vegetation and foliage from the dense forests where North Vietnamese troops and the Viet Cong [Communist National Liberation Front of South Vietnam] were hiding, and to destroy the crops that provided their livelihood,” Science reports.
This defoliant contained dioxin, an organic pollutant
Courrier International
