Yale Bulletin and Calendar

September 27, 2002|Volume 31, Number 4

Looking at the Woolsey Hall memorial to Yale affiliates who died in Vietnam are School of Nursing research scientist Linda Schwartz, Dr. Vo Quy , founder of the Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies at Vietnam National University, and Dr. Nguyen TienDung, director of the Vietnam government's interagency committee to study Agent Orange.

Event advances knowledge of Vietnam's toxic legacy

Three decades after the Vietnam War ended, scientists from the United States and Vietnam gathered at Yale to share information about the continuing ecological and health effects from herbicides used by American forces during the conflict.

Titled "Yale Vietnam Conference 2002: The Ecological and Health Effects of the Vietnam War," the event was held Sept. 13-15 at the Law School. The conference was sponsored by the Yale School of Nursing (YSN), in association with the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) and the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (FES), with a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Science (NIEHS).

In her welcoming address, YSN Dean Catherine Gilliss explained that the school's sponsorship of the Yale Vietnam Conference is very much mission-driven. "YSN's mission is 'Better Health for All People,'" said Gilliss. "YSN remains very interested in the problems of the health of the people of Vietnam. We are proud to play a role in bringing the international scientific community to Yale with the purpose of advancing the science that will help improve the health of the people of Vietnam and the health of the veterans who served there."

An estimated 20 million gallons of Agent Orange were used in Vietnam to clear dense vegetation to better track North Vietnamese troops, as well as destroy their crops, noted Arthur Galston, the Eaton Professor Emeritus of Botany, and professor emeritus at FES. "The use of Agent Orange as a defoliant and herbicide in Vietnam was the largest chemical warfare operation in history, producing considerable ecological as well as public health damage," he said.

Today, Galston noted, there are an estimated one million Vietnamese suffering from cancers or born deformed, allegedly as a result of exposure to Agent Orange/Dioxin, as well as other U.S. defoliants and chemicals.

Scientists from Vietnam and the United States realize that in order to help the people of Vietnam and the veterans who served there, collaboration between the two countries must continue, said Do Van Minh, first secretary of the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington, D.C. "Vietnam is not a war. It is a country," asserted Minh. "Veterans and scientists have an important role in getting these two countries together."

While the focus of most of the conference was on Agent Orange, the participants also looked at other toxic legacies of the Vietnam War, including the long-term health consequences of chronic stress among veterans, and the problems of cancer, HIV, hepatitis C and auto-immune diseases associated with exposures to chemicals in Vietnam. Links between environmental damage and human health were also discussed.

Participants also noted that the problems resulting from the Vietnam conflict have particular resonance today. "The timing of this conference is particularly important as we stand on the precipice of a new war with Iraq," said Steve Robinson, a 20-year U.S. Army veteran who served in the U.S. Special Forces, and now heads the National Gulf War Resource Center, a veterans' advocacy group. "Veterans of the war in Vietnam are still trying to understand the impact of the war almost 30 years later. This demonstrates that no war should be entered into lightly."

"Although peace has come to Vietnam, the taint of battle remains," said the conference's project director, Linda Schwartz, a research scientist at YSN, as well as a Vietnam veteran and chair of VVA's Health Care Task Force. "The Yale Vietnam Conference has provided a forum for the exchange of knowledge and for planning of mutual efforts to address the unsolved questions which linger from a war now three decades in the past."

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