Nature - 3rd prize
Marie Dorigny
REA
REA
01 January, 1990
September-October. During the Vietnam war, between 1961 and 1970, the US Army sprayed the vegetation of South Vietnam with massive amounts of defoliants in order to reveal the hiding places of their enemy, the Vietcong. The most devastating to both man and environment, was 'Agent Orange' containing dioxin. It left a bitter legacy for the survivors in the form of malignant tumors, grossly deformed children and various forms of cancer. Vietnamese doctors have spent 15 years collecting data to prove that dioxin is the main culprit.