Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T19:00:10.972Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Representations and Reproductive Hazards of Agent Orange

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Leslie J. Reagan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

United States Air Force planes fly across mountains of green forest; behind them, fine white streams of chemical spray fill the sky. The planes fly alone or in formation covering wide swaths of the entire landscape. These images of the herbicide spraying during the United States-Vietnam War are ubiquitous in media material about Agent Orange, the most heavily used of the fifteen herbicides sprayed during the war. This representation of the war does not include guns, grenades, tanks, bombs, or dead bodies. Instead, contemporary documentary filmmakers offer images of airplanes and chemical barrels to provide evidence of another weapon of war, pan dead and leafless forests in an otherwise lush landscape of green, and zero in on children’s deformed bodies to show the lasting environmental and health effects of Agent Orange. In this essay I share preliminary thoughts from my new project on Agent Orange and film in the United States and Vietnam. The bulk of social science writing on Agent Orange has focused on American veterans and their fight to secure benefits, while film scholars have analyzed the Vietnam War in Hollywood movies and television. I investigate documentary film, the transnational activism that generates these films, and the representations of gender, disabilities, bodies, history and culture within them. Here I offer a close reading of two turn-of-the-twenty-first-century documentaries about Agent Orange in Vietnam.

Type
Symposium
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , Spring 2011 , pp. 54 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Scott, W. J., Vietnam Veterans Since the War: The Politics of PTSD, Agent Orange, and the National Memorial (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004); Schuck, P. H., Agent Orange on Trial: Mass Toxic Disasters in the Courts (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988); Wilcox, F. A., Waiting for an Army to Die: The Tragedy of Agent Orange (New York: Random House, 1983); Daniels, C. R., Exposing Men: The Science and Politics of Male Reproduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006): Chapter 5; Anderegg, M., Inventing Vietnam: The War in Film and Television (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991).Google Scholar
I have identified over thirty films. I am interested in film as a social practice; future research will analyze film production, distribution, transnational activist networks, and audience reception. For an excellent introduction to film studies, see Turner, G., Film as Social Practice, 4th ed. (New York and London: Routledge, 2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garland Thomson, R., “Seeing the Disabled: Visual Rhetorics of Disability in Popular Photography,” in Longmore, P. K. and Umansky, L., The New Disability History: American Perspectives (New York: New York University Press, 2001): 335–375; Grossberg, M., “A Protected Childhood: The Emergence of Child Protection in America,” in American Public Life and the Historical Imagination, edited by Gamber, W., Grossberg, M., and Hartog, H. (Notre Dame, Indiana: Notre Dame Press, 2003). Some of these “children” are infants or school-age, others 18 years or more. Until quite recently, U.S. institutions and observers also referred to everyone with intellectual impairments as “children.” This usage, of course, renders them more dependent and powerless while perhaps also more appealing to governments and organizations.Google Scholar
Scott Laderman argues that the U.S. is rewriting its own history of war and empire through tourism in Vietnam in Laderman, S., Tours of Vietnam: War, Travel Guides, an Memory (Duke University Press, 2009): ix (For a quick overview of the war(s) in Vietnam and terminology). On veteran tours and interest in Vietnam, see for examples Mydan, S., “Cu Chi Journal; Visit the Vietcong's World: Americans Welcome,” New York Times, July 7, 1999, A4; Gluckman, R., “The War Goes On. And On.,” available at <http://www.gluckman.com/vietwar.htm> (last visited December 10, 2010). Muller, B., “VFA's Programs in Vietnam,” Veterans for America, October 11, 2007, available at <http://www.veteransforamerica.org/our-programs/post-conflict-rehabilitation/vfa-in-vietnam/> (last visited December 10, 2010). The disability rights movements in the United States disavows the term victim and the attitude that regards people with disabilities are pitiful. These social movements have created new and still-evolving language going from disabled to people with disabilities to describing those who are considered normal as temporarily able-bodied. Old terms, such as crippled, handicapped, abnormal, retarded, defective, and deformed, have almost entirely disappeared. On the disability rights movement and an introduction to disabilities history in the U.S., see Shapiro, J. P., No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement (New York: Random House, 1994); Longmore, P. K. and Umansky, L., The New Disability History: American Perspectives (New York: New York University Press, 2001).Google Scholar
Peace Accords were signed in 1973, but Americans remained in South Vietnam until Saigon fell on May 1, 1975. See Her-Ring's entry, G. C., “Vietnam War,” The Oxford Companion to United States History, edited by Boyer, P. S. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001): 806–09; Young, M. B. and Buzzanco, R., editors, A Companion to the Vietnam War (Maiden, MA: Blackwell, 2002). On Agent Orange's effects, see Harris, R. and Paxman, J., A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret Story of Chemical and Biological Warfare (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982): 190–94; Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Westing, A. H., ed., Herbicides in War: The Long-term Ecological and Human Consequences (London and Philadelphia: Taylor and Francis, 1984): 133–149; Whiteside, T., Defoliation, foreword by Wald, G. (New York: Ballantine/Friends of the Earth Book, 1970); Steingraber, S., Having Faith: An Ecologist's Journey to Motherhood (Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus, 2001). On the difficulties of obtaining funding for research on fetal harm caused by male exposure to toxins and on Agent Orange specifically, see Daniels, , supra note 1, at 109–118, 130–134.Google Scholar
Dioxin is a byproduct of the herbicide 2,4,5-T, which was one of the two chemical components that made up Agent Orange. The U.S. military and chemical companies long claimed that the herbicide would not harm people and that the dioxin content was minute. See Harris, and Paxman, , supra note 5, at 191–193. This article is not about the science on 2,4,5-T or dioxin. Whether Agent Orange or dioxin cause malformations has been a subject of debate with Dow Chemical Company and parts of the military denying any correlation. Nonetheless U.S. courts, Congress, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) have accepted an association. See Daniels, , supra note 5, at chapter 5. For a list of the birth defects that the VA accepts as connected to Agent Orange exposure by male and female veterans, see The WA Self-Help Guide to Service Connected Disability Compensation for Exposure to Agent Orange (Silver Spring, MD: WA 2010): 5, available at <http://www.vva.org/brochures.html> (last visited December 13, 2010.)Google Scholar
Dreyfuss, R, “Apocalypse Still,” Mother Jones 25, no. 1 (2000): 42–51, available at <http://motherjones.com/politics/2000/01/apocalypse-still> (last visited December 13, 2010); Trussoni, D., “End Vietnam's Air War,” New York Times, June 18, 2007, A19; Schreinemacher, E., “U.S. Vets Join Vietnamese Agent Orange Victims,” IPS-Inter Press News Agency, available at <http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31485> (last visited December 13, 2010).Google Scholar
See Anderegg, , supra note 1. Documentary filmmaking is relatively understudied as film scholarship focused first on film as art, then increasingly on Hollywood film. On documentaries, see Barnouw, E., Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film 2nd revised edition (New York: Oxford University Press: 1993); Aufderheide, P., Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007); and Rotha, P. in collaboration with Road, S. and Griffith, R., Documentary Film (London: Faber and Faber, Ltd., 1952). Audiences also draw upon their own knowledge of other movies, popular media, and the conventions of scientific representations to understand movies. Turner, , supra note 2; Sturken, M. and Cartwright, L., Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), passim, on science specifically, see chapter 8. On the commitment of health and medical films to accuracy, even in “entertainment” television and movies, see the introduction to Medicine's Moving Pictures: Medicine, Health, and Bodies in American Film and Television, edited by Reagan, L. J., Tomes, N., and Treichler, P. A. (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2007): 1–16.Google Scholar
Sakata, M., Agent Orange: A Personal Requiem (2007) [film]; Where War Has Passed (1998) [film], written by D. L. Nguyen, directed by M. L. Vu. I also refer to a third film about the war and the women of Vietnam that has a section on Agent Orange. As the Mirror Burns (1990) [film] Di Bretherton, writer/narrator/co-director and Cristina Pozzan, producer/director. All three are available at the Undergraduate Library, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and all quotations are from these prints. On the films' production and prizes, see Hirano, K., “Widow's Film Delves into impact of Agent Orange,” The Japan Times, December 27, 2008, available at <http://search.japantimes.co.jp> (last visited December 13, 2010); “Film Details: AFSC Video and Film Lending Library”, available at http://tools.afsc.org/bigcat/tpc.php?TID=183> (last visited December 13, 2010). (last visited December 13, 2010); “Film Details: AFSC Video and Film Lending Library”, available at http://tools.afsc.org/bigcat/tpc.php?TID=183> (last visited December 13, 2010).' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Sakata,+M.,+Agent+Orange:+A+Personal+Requiem+(2007)+[film];+Where+War+Has+Passed+(1998)+[film],+written+by+D.+L.+Nguyen,+directed+by+M.+L.+Vu.+I+also+refer+to+a+third+film+about+the+war+and+the+women+of+Vietnam+that+has+a+section+on+Agent+Orange.+As+the+Mirror+Burns+(1990)+[film]+Di+Bretherton,+writer/narrator/co-director+and+Cristina+Pozzan,+producer/director.+All+three+are+available+at+the+Undergraduate+Library,+University+of+Illinois,+Urbana-Champaign+and+all+quotations+are+from+these+prints.+On+the+films'+production+and+prizes,+see+Hirano,+K.,+“Widow's+Film+Delves+into+impact+of+Agent+Orange,”+The+Japan+Times,+December+27,+2008,+available+at++(last+visited+December+13,+2010);+“Film+Details:+AFSC+Video+and+Film+Lending+Library”,+available+at+http://tools.afsc.org/bigcat/tpc.php?TID=183>+(last+visited+December+13,+2010).>Google Scholar
Adams, R., Sideshow U.S.A.: Freaks and the American Cultural Imagination (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001); Garland Thomson, R., “Seeing the Disabled: Visual Rhetorics of Disability in Popular Photography,” in Longmore, P. K. and Umansky, L., The New Disability History: American Perspectives (New York: New York University Press, 2001): 335–375. On the sentimental use of photographs of children with disabilities to provoke emotions and promote specific behavior, see 346–356; also, Reagan, L. J., Dangerous Pregnancies: Mothers, Disabilities, and Abortion in Modern America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010).Google Scholar
Quotation from Perry, T. O., “Letter to Editor: Vietnam: Truths of Defoliation,” Science new series 160, no. 3828 (1968): 601. At the Washington Conference, the American advisory committee suggested banning chemical warfare; the conference adopted this position and Congress ratified the treaty in 1922. However, if one country failed to ratify the treaty, which France did, it was invalidated. Again, in 1925 at the Geneva Convention Americans added language to ban chemical warfare. Again, the resolution passed and the delegates for the United States signed it, but the treaty was not ratified in the Senate following an eighteen month campaign by gas proponents. Langer, E., “Chemical and Biological Warfare (I): The Research Program,” Science new series 155, no. 3759 (1967): 174–79; Langer, E., “CBW, Vietnam Evoke Scientist's Concern,” Science 155, no. 3760 (1967): 302; Romero, R. and Leitenberg, M., “Chemical and Biological Warfare: History of International Control and U.S. Policy,” Science and Citizen 9, no. 4 (1967): 134–35, and 137 Whether or not the U.S. was bound by the Geneva Convention and Presidential statements has been a matter of debate and interpretation, but neither Congress nor the Courts have yet agreed that it is. Edmund Russell details the efforts to ban chemical weapons and the work by the chemical industry and some politicians and military men to identify them with peace. Russell, E., War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001): 60–61, 66–72Google Scholar
Scientists were particularly concerned about the destruction of mangrove forests. The articles first published in The New Yorker on February 7 and March 14, 1970 and were reprinted in Whiteside, T., Defoliation, foreword by Wald, G. (New York: Ballantine/Friends of the Earth Book, 1970): 10–16.Google Scholar
On the environmental struggle, see Van Strum, C., A Bitter Fog: Herbicides and Human Rights (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1983); Reagan, L. J., “Spraying Forests, Farms, and Mothers: Reproductive Hazards, Lay Epidemiology and the EPA,” manuscript in author's possession. See the Department of Veterans Affairs website for details about coverage, available at <http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange> (last visited December 13, 2010). On veterans’ long and ongoing battle to have the health effects of Agent Orange recognized, see Daniels, , supra note 5, at chapter 5; Doyle, J., Trespass Against Us: Dow Chemical and the Toxic Century (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 2004): Chapter 3.Google Scholar
Lindee, M. S., Suffering Made Real: American Science and the Survivors at Hiroshima (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994); Radio, CBC, “The Hiroshima Maidens,” August 8, 1957, available at CBC Digital Archives Website, Canadian Broad-casting Corporation <http://archives.cbc.ca/war_conflict/second_world_war/clips/12162/> (last visited January 7 2011).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
These are young women, with an average age of 24. The hospital has so few resources that it cannot provide chemotherapy for all of them. Bangkok is mentioned as a counter example–there, they see fifty cases each year. As the Mirror Burns, supra note 9.Google Scholar
Nguyen This Ngoc Phuong in As the Mirror Burns, supra note 9.Google Scholar
Agent Orange: A Personal Requiem, supra note 9.Google Scholar
I do not know how common it was or is to keep new mothers ignorant of birth defects, but it happened in Vietnam, Germany, and the United States. These cultures shared similar views: That malformations and retardation were inherited from the parents, were punishment for illicit or other misbehavior, and that birth defects were a family shame. Spencer, S. M., “The Untold Story of the Thalidomide Babies,” Saturday Evening Post 235 (1962): 25; Sjostrom, H. and Nilsson, R., Thalidomide and the Power of the Drug Companies (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1972); Insight Team of The Sunday Times of London, Suffer the Children: The Story of Thalidomide (New York: Viking Press, 1979); see Reagan, , supra note 10; Beaton, M. J., The Road to Autonomy (Enumclaw, Wash.: Pleasant Word, a division of Winepress Publishing, 2003). In the 1950s and 1960s, American doctors routinely advised institutionalizing children born with malformations or intellectual impairment, particularly those born with Down Syndrome. Kugel, R. B. et al., “An Analysis of Reasons for Institutionalizing Children with Mongolism,” Journal of Pediatrics 64, no. 1 (1964): 68–74; Beruhe, M., Life as We Know It: A Father, a Family, and an Exceptional Child (New York: Vintage Books, a division of Random House, 1998): 27–30.Google Scholar
Eugene Smith, W. and Smith, Aileen M., Minamata/Words and Photos (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1975); Hughes, J., “Tomoko Uemura, RI.R,” Camera Arts (2000): Reprinted in The Digital Journalist (2007), available at <http:///www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0007/hughes.htm> (last visited December 13, 2010). Since Tomoko Uemura's death in 1997, her parents have asked that this photograph no longer be circulated and it does not appear in recent books. Hughes remembers Smith and his photography and discusses the ethical issues involved in removing or viewing this photograph. He finds he cannot agree with acceding to the parents’ request. See also the Wikipedia entry, Eugene Smith, W. available at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W_Eugene_Smith> (last visited December 21, 2010).Google Scholar
This is not to say that all parents accepted their “deformed” children or resisted institutionalization. Many parents institutionalized them if they could; others abandoned them to hospitals or orphanages. In Vietnam, too, children born with congenital deformities are left in hospitals, tended to, and educated there, as shown in Agent Orange: A Personal Requiem, supra note 9.Google Scholar
Sjostrom, and Nilsson, , supra note 18; Insight Team, supra note 18. On the comparative and inadequate financial supporter for thalidomiders worldwide, see “‘Thalidomiders’: Still Fighting For Justice,” The (London) Independent, May 20, 2009, available at <http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/thalidomiders-still-fighting-for-justice-1690598.html> (last visited December 13, 2010). However, as adult thalidomiders now report, prosthetic devices and surgeries were not all beneficial or welcome. See the Thalidomide Victims Association of Canada, available at <http://www.thalidomide.ca/tvac-mission> (last visited December 13, 2010); and Marquardt, E., “Thalidomide Children 30 Years Later,” available at <http://www.acpoc.org/library/1992_01_003.asp> (last visited December 13, 2010). On rubella, see Reagan, , supra note 18, at chapters 2 and 4.+(last+visited+December+13,+2010).+However,+as+adult+thalidomiders+now+report,+prosthetic+devices+and+surgeries+were+not+all+beneficial+or+welcome.+See+the+Thalidomide+Victims+Association+of+Canada,+available+at++(last+visited+December+13,+2010);+and+Marquardt,+E.,+“Thalidomide+Children+30+Years+Later,”+available+at++(last+visited+December+13,+2010).+On+rubella,+see+Reagan,+,+supra+note+18,+at+chapters+2+and+4.>Google Scholar
On the poverty of people with disabilities as a class worldwide, see Charlton, J. I., Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Oppression and Empowerment (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000): Chapter 3. The film was originally produced to pressure the government of Vietnam, see “Vietnamese-Produced Films and Documentaries,” available at <http://www.voiceseducation.org/node/439> (last vivited December 13, 2010).Google Scholar
I have seen this reaction with students in other classes when they watched a documentary that had a clear point of view. Perhaps they expect a PBS American Experience type of documentary that, although it has a perspective, appears to be objective and dispassionate.Google Scholar
Agent Orange: A Personal Requiem, supra note 9.Google Scholar
Quotations from informants in Agent Orange: A Personal Requiem, supra note 9.Google Scholar
As the Mirror Burns, supra note 9. “Mother-work” is Molly Ladd-Taylor's phrase, Ladd-Taylor, M., Mother-Work: Women, Child Welfare, and the State, 1890–1930 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994).Google Scholar