As many as four Vietnamese Agent Orange victims have left Vietnam for the US to attend the first oral arguments for a lawsuit filed by Vietnamese AO victims before the US Court of Appeals scheduled on June 18.

These include Nguyen Thi Hong from southern Dong Nai province, Nguyen Van Quy from northern Haiphong city, and Vo Thanh Hai and Nguyen Muoi from central Thua Thien-Hue province.

Sixty-year-old Nguyen Thi Hong worked as a nurse at battle fields in the southeast of the country and is suffering from serious illnesses as a result of her exposure to toxic chemicals sprayed by the US armed forces during the Vietnam war. The dioxin has also had direct links to the health problems of her three children.

Nguyen Van Quy (52), a former solider operating along the Ho Chi Minh trail, which was heavily sprayed with AO between 1972-1975, is currently suffering from stomach cancer. His three children also suffered from deformities due to their father's exposure to the herbicide with one of them dying right after birth.

Vo Thanh Hai (47) was working in Nam Dong region in Hue province from 1978-1993, which was heavily sprayed with toxic chemicals during the war. He is now suffering from Hodgkin's and the lingering consequences of AO has caused the deaths of his two young children.

Nguyen Muoi (24), a son of a war veteran who was based in A Luoi valley in Thua Thien-Hue province, a hotbed of AO spraying during the Vietnam War, suffers from spina bifida as a result of his father's exposure to AO.

The delegation is expected to make stops in San Francisco, New York, Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles to give press conferences and show screenings of AO victims in order to provide US citizens with information on the lingering ramifications of the toxic chemicals on Vietnamese AO victims.

According to the VAVA, around 4.8 million Vietnamese people have been exposed to dioxin with over 3 million of them eventually becoming AO victims.

Agent Orange online petition collects over 700,000 signatures

Over 700,000 people over the world signed an online petition as of June 11 in support of Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange Dioxin against US Chemical companies who produced toxic chemicals sprayed onto Vietnam over 30 years ago.

The website http://www.petitiononline.com/AOVN/petition.html, designed by Len Aldis, is receiving strong support from people around the world who are posting their signatures before a hearing on the issue at the Court of Appeals starting in New York on Jun 18.

“The petition has clearly shown world-wide support for all victims affected by the use of chemicals in the Vietnam war, and in particular for the Vietnamese,” Mr Len Aldis said.

“By signing the petition, people from many countries, have demanded that the US Government and the chemical companies - that include Monsanto and Dow, must accept their responsibility for the damage they have caused in using Agent Orange,” he added.

Len Aldis expressed his thanks to all who have signed in support of the victims and to the many hundreds who have worked so hard to obtain the signatures. He also expressed his hopes to see more and more signatures on the petition before it goes to the Appeal Court.

“The people have demanded Justice for the victims. We appeal to the Judges at the New York Court of Appeal to hear our plea for the victims,” Len Aldis said.