IT’S the city more and more Australians are desperate to visit.

It’s cheap to get to, and relatively cheap to exist in. But while Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City — informally known by its former name of Saigon — should be rising back to its feet, the crippling effects of the war continues to impact on locals.

Agent Orange — a chemical sprayed during combat by United States. troops between 1961 and 1971 — continues to have a shocking impact on hundreds of thousands of local children in Vietnam, more than 40 years after the war ended.

The chemical was a powerful herbicide used by US military forces during the Vietnam War to eliminate forest and crops used as cover by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops.

The US program sprayed more than 75 million litres of various herbicides over Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos from 1961 to 1971. Agent Orange, which contained the deadly chemical dioxin, was the most commonly used herbicide, is now regarded as one of the most toxic chemicals known to man.

It was later proven to cause serious health issues — including cancer, birth defects, rashes and severe psychological and neurological problems, and remains in Vietnam’s ecosystem, in the soil and in the fish people eat from rivers.

Nearly 4.8 million Vietnamese people have been exposed, causing 400,000 deaths; the associated illnesses include cancers, birth defects, skin disorders, auto-immune diseases, liver disorders, psychosocial effects, neurological defects and gastrointestinal diseases.

According to the Red Cross of Vietnam, up to one million people are currently disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange, 150,000 of which are children.

Speaking to Dateline, which will air on SBS Tuesday at 9.30pm, Vietnam War Veteran Nguyen Thanh Son explained how planes sprayed chemicals on residents below, and how the it’s had a horrific impact on children of today.

“From the sky the planes sprayed the chemicals on us,” he told British television presenter Ade Adepitan. “The soldiers in the battlefield inhaled the poison [and] when they inhaled it in, their ears bled.

“When they sprayed the poison, you had to pour water on the cloth and cover your nose. Just one day after spraying, the trees shed their leaves. The branches were left bare and revealing our military positions.

“I directly inhaled these chemicals. They got into the ground and the water. When we cooked and drank we consumed those chemicals.”

Mr Son’s daughter, who is 41 years old and is considered a victim of Agent Orange because of her severe disability. His other child, who is 31, has gradually gone blind because of the chemical.

According to the investigation, birth defects in Agent Orange sprayed areas in Vietnam were three or more times higher than other places.

About 60 per cent of the children who live at the Hoa Binh Peace Village in Ho Chi Minh City — where the documentary was filmed — have parents directly exposed to the Agent Orange either during or after the war.

While some of the children at the hospital were abandoned at birth, others use the facility as a lifelong home.

Named Agent Orange after the coloured stripe on the barrels it was stored in, the US Army, supporting the South Vietnamese, spent a decade from 1961, spraying approximately 80 million litres over 30,000 square miles of southern Vietnam. The aim was to “smoke out” and weaken the Viet Cong enemy of the north, by decreasing their food supplies.

Studies have shown that dioxin still remains at alarmingly high concentrations in soil, food, human blood and breast milk in people who live near former US military bases.

According to the investigation, only a wire fence stops people from venturing in to the contaminated area.

In an interview with news.com.au, Dr Wayne Dwernychuk, a retired senior scientist and Agent Orange specialist, previously warned that “countless more generations could be affected in the future”. Research suggests that another six to 12 generations will have to pass before dioxin stops affecting the genetic code.

Some doctors in Vietnam are concerned the parents affected by Agent Orange are passing on the defected genes to their children, especially because parts of the country still have a contamination level that’s 350 times higher than the international safety standard.

The US government has donated millions to try and clean up “hot spot” sites, but despite some of the levels, a single wire fence is all that separates residents and visitors from some contaminated sites.

Mr Adepitan wrote in a blog post that while filming the documentary, he witnessed “gut wrenching” scenes at The Peace Village.

“My experience in Vietnam was very powerful and even though it’s been almost two years since I made this film I still feel affected by what I saw,” he wrote.

“What I saw was gut wrenching and very sad.”



Dateline’s The Children of Agent Orange will air on SBS on Tuesday at 8.30pm.