US abandons health study on Agent Orange

摘要

A programme to investigate the health and environmental damage caused by widespread use of the defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War has been cancelled before it even began. Scientists say that the collapse of the project is largely the result of cultural differences, a lack of communication, and a deep reservoir of suspicion between the Vietnamese and US governments. The United States used Agent Orange to reduce forest cover during the Vietnam War. But since the war's end in 1975, Vietnam has suffered a high number of birth defects—estimated to be 2-3 times the expected number in some areas — which it blames on the defoliant.