
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 12, 1995                   TAG: 9502140068
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A15   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: HANOI, VIETNAM                                LENGTH: Medium

VETS TO HELP AGENT ORANGE VICTIMS

A group of U.S. veterans offered Saturday to help Vietnamese hospitals obtain used American medical equipment so they can treat and study victims of Agent Orange sprayed during the Vietnam War.

A study could clear up controversy over the effects on people of the defoliant, which many U.S. veterans have blamed for health problems.

``What happens here has a direct effect on Vietnam veterans,'' said George Claxton, chairman of the Agent Orange Committee for the Vietnam Veterans of America.

Claxton and other veterans met with Vietnamese doctors to exchange information on Agent Orange and discuss a joint study of the defoliant's effects on human beings and the environment.

U.S. forces sprayed the chemical over large areas of former South Vietnam to destroy foliage that helped hide Viet Cong guerrillas and North Vietnamese soldiers.

Agent Orange contained dioxin, a chemical thought to cause cancer, birth defects and other health problems. Vietnam provides the largest pool of potential dioxin victims, but few studies have been done.

``We can't even afford to do blood screening. We can't afford to test large numbers of people for dioxin,'' said R. Le Cao Dai, secretary general of the 10-80 Committee, founded in October 1980 to study the effects of chemicals used during the war.

Claxton, of Lansing, Mich., said the VVA will lobby Congress to fund a major study in Vietnam.

Vietnam's hospitals and laboratories also lack modern equipment, said Dai, pointing out an old Soviet incubator that had been repaired with a piece of boiler pipe.

Paul Sutton, superintendent of New Jersey's Division of Veterans Programs, said the group will try to provide surplus medical equipment.

``With VVA people spread across the country, we should be able to get a lot of equipment,'' said Sutton, a Vietnam veteran from Thorofare, N.J. ``We'll tell people: `Give us last year's model, and it can do some good here.'''

Another VVA delegation visited the family of a Vietnamese soldier missing in action since 1969.

Thomas Corey, of West Palm Beach, Fla., who is secretary of VVA's board of directors, said the group has been sharing information with the Vietnamese in return for information about the 2,200 American MIAs.

More than 300,000 Vietnamese soldiers are listed as missing in action during the war.

by CNB