HDNET Report on Agent Orange
From: Susan Hammond
Date: 2009/2/26
I am forwarding a press release from Kira Kay the producer of the
HDNET report on Agent Orange that will air on March 3rd in the US.
According to Kira:
HDNET is a premium high definition cable channel, so only people with
the HD package from their local carrier will be able to see it.
However, a few days after the broadcast, a download will be available
for purchase for $1.99 from iTunes, link here:
http://hdnet-store.stores.yahoo.net/worldreport.html
Susan
Contact: Colette Carey, HDNet, (303) 542-5576 ccarey@hd.net
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
HDNET WORLD REPORT INVESTIGATES THE DEVASTATING EFFECTS OF AGENT
ORANGE 30 YEARS AFTER THE VIETNAM WAR
“Vietnam's Lingering Ghost: Facing the Legacy of Agent Orange” airs on
HDNet Tuesday, March 3 at 9:00 p.m. ET
DALLAS (February 24, 2009) – HDNet World Report, HDNet’s
award-winning weekly news program, presents a dramatic report exposing
the ghost that the United States left behind when our troops left
Vietnam – Agent Orange. The program reveals important new
developments, including the fact that the American government may
finally be accepting some responsibility for the devastation.
Agent Orange was an herbicide sprayed during the Vietnam War, named
for the color-coded barrels in which it was stored. American aircraft
dropped more than twenty million gallons of herbicides, mostly Agent
Orange, over large portions of the country’s jungles, in
concentrations up to fifty times what the manufacturers suggested to
kill plants.
However, it wasn’t just bad for the trees. That’s because a byproduct
of Agent Orange is dioxin, one of the world’s most toxic chemicals.
Many Vietnamese people breathed it, others drank from water sources
contaminated by it.
The issue, and the challenge for the U.S. and Vietnam, is that it
might still be contaminating people in Vietnam to this day.
HDNet World Report Correspondent Greg Dobbs traveled to Vietnam for a
report that reveals hundreds of people – especially children born
years after the War - who suffer from grotesque, debilitating
deformities, mental retardation and cancer.
Many Vietnamese people believe that these devastating disabilities are
a direct result of the U.S. use of Agent Orange.
Dr. Nguyen Trong Nhan, a former Minister of Health in Vietnam, tells
Dobbs, “…for the people that have committed that crime, of course,
it’s very difficult to accept something that’s your fault.”
However, not everyone is convinced that Agent Orange (or dioxin) is
the only cause of this devastation in Vietnam.
“We still don’t have accurate scientific data about exactly what the
health effects are of dioxin and how it affects things and what the
causes are,” says Michael Michalak, the U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam.
But the United States appears to be slowly owning up to its
responsibility to clean up what it left behind. It has provided over
three million dollars in humanitarian aid to Vietnam to help clean up
Agent Orange hot spots; however, many Vietnamese people believe that
this is not nearly enough. They believe that a true clean-up of the
chemical left behind would cost nearly sixty million dollars.
Vietnam is becoming an important economic and strategic partner to the
United States. The question is, should the U.S. be doing more to help
the children who are still suffering from the legacy of the Vietnam
War?
“HDNet World Report – Vietnam's Lingering Ghost: Facing the Legacy of
Agent Orange” premieres on HDNet, Tuesday, March 3 at 9:00 p.m. ET
with a re-air midnight ET to accommodate West Coast Prime Time.
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