During the Summer of 2014, I had the opportunity to visit Vietnam to conduct field research and learn more about the efforts taking place to clean-up the chemical Agent Orange. One of my ongoing research interests is the health and wellness of military veterans and their families. Vietnam is not often mentioned in the news today, although the United States, at the time of my visit, was in its second year of a landmark project to cleanup a dangerous chemical that penetrated this country from the defoliants used during the war.
During my research, I was able to gain new insights for my WELL 175 course. I had been thinking about a new lesson for class that looked at the role US tobacco companies played in perpetuating lung cancer. I was able to compare the those tactics with the Dow Chemicals company, which had been stating in the public statements that a “very substantial body of human evidence on Agent Orange establishes that veterans’ illnesses are not caused by Agent Orange.”
It was during the mid-1990’s that the chief executives of 7 large tobacco companies perjured themselves before Congress as part of an conspiracy to create intentional confusion about smoking, and the diseases it caused which was later to become known as “Operation Berkshire.” Similarly, the Dow Chemical company continued to declare Agent Orange causes no harm to US veterans or to the Vietnamese people. It occurred to me that the science and studies demonstrated the harm, but the executives didn’t want to acknowledge it because just like those who served in Vietnam during the war, there are increased rates of cancer, nerve, digestive, skin, and respiratory disorders. While I was in Vietnam, I was able to monitor Agent Orange stories in the English newspapers and observe first hand the effects of war. I also learned how victims of this war are commemorated annually and interviewed journalists who report on these events.
