Photographing Agent Orange in Vietnam

A few months back I went on assignment with the International Herald Tribune to Danang to cover part of a story on the US finally addressing its possible link to Agent Orange contamination in Vietnam. I say possible. It’s confusing. Liability and compensation and other political matters probably play a huge part. But so does the fact that these days, Agent Orange has become a kind of blanket catch all for physical and mental birth defects within the country. It’s obviously there, the connection. But finding really concrete and dense evidence between the dioxin and malformations is more difficult.

So that’s why I was there, with the writer finding a family with concrete and dense evidence of the link between Agent Orange used during the American War and birth defects that are still happening today, some 40 years later. I’d write more, but you’re way better off reading the much more interesting and properly researched article here in The New York Times.