The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

66 the world according to monsantoOne of these scientists was Professor Hoang Trong Quynh, a formercolonel in the Vietnamese army who participated in “the two wars of liberation,first against France, and then against the United States,” he explainedto me in impeccable French. For thirty years, the two researchers combedthe Vietnamese countryside collecting blood samples and fatty tissue frompeople and animals in order to analyze dioxin levels. Their work has led tomany publications, the latest concerning forty-three residents of the SouthVietnamese city Bien Hoa, located near a former air base used for Agent Orangespraying missions. 41 The tests showed high blood levels of dioxin, over5 parts per trillion (ppt), with peaks as high as 413 ppt, even in young children.*In addition, some soil and sediment samples taken in the Bien Hoaregion, particularly near Bien Hung Lake, showed extremely high levels ofTCDD, over 1 million ppt.“In Vietnam,” Schechter explained, “the urgent task is to decontaminatewhat we call hot spots, places with high dioxin levels, like the former BienHoa air base, because while dioxin does not accumulate in plants, it doespenetrate the soil, where its half-life can be as long as one hundred years.Leached by rain, it gets into the water table, lakes, and rivers. There it staysattached to sediments, contaminating phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish,birds, and humans through the food chain. Once it’s in the blood, it is distributedto the cells, where it attaches to fatty tissue. Its half-life averagesseven years in the human body. It can be eliminated only by weight loss orin breast milk. The problem is that it then contaminates the infant.”On this December day in 2006, the two octogenarians were traveling toBinh Duong Province, about one hundred miles from Ho Chi Minh City,which was one of the regions most heavily sprayed with Agent Orange. Theywere to meet with a family whose three children in their twenties were mentallyhandicapped. The father had lived in Bien Hoa from 1962 to 1975. Themother had never left Binh Duong Province.“Did you see Agent Orange being sprayed?” Schechter asked.“Yes,” said the father. “It smelled like ripe guava.”“In this family,” Schechter commented, “if the parents’ dioxin levelsturned out to be high, one could say that there is a strong probability that thechildren’s handicaps are linked to Agent Orange. If not, we don’t know. No*Unlike other toxic substances, dioxin is usually measured in parts per trillion. In Western countries,the average level of dioxin in humans is 2 ppt.