Former North Vietnamese platoon commander Nguyen Van Quy points at the Kontum area of central Vietnam showing in red where US wartime forces sprayed the toxic defoliant Agent Orange.

The fourth annual meeting of the Vietnam-US joint advisory committee (JAC) on Agent Orange/dioxin closed Thursday with both sides saying they’d forged closer ties on the issue.

They pointed to the establishment of a health task force comprising scientists from both sides as one of the successes of this year’s meeting.

The scientists will examine health issues related to Agent Orange/dioxin and aid the disabled in identified hotspots.

Since 2006, the US Congress has allocated about $6 million to address the lasting effects of Agent Orange, an amount many experts and those in the international community criticize as being too little compared to what’s actually needed.

It is estimated that at least $60 million would be needed to clean up AO contaminated sites at Da Nang Airport, Phu Cat Airport and Bien Hoa.

“We want to make sure that everything is done safely, accurately and completely,” said ambassador Michalak as an explanation for the US being slow in disbursing the funds, as the Vietnamese side has charged. “We’re certainly working as fast as we possibly can.”

At least 1 million to 4 million of Vietnam’s citizens are believed to have suffered health consequences after being exposed to dioxin but according to Dr. Son, the exact figure is still undetermined.

He added that the two countries are still working to determine the scope of dioxin contamination at the Bien Hoa site and figure out the most effective technology to be used to clean the hotspots.

At Da Nang, a project to monitor health conditions of residents of all the wards living nearby the airport will be implemented soon.

It is estimated that between 1961 and 1971, the US dropped about 80 million liters of Agent Orange, containing 366 kilograms of the highly toxic dioxin, over large areas of southern Vietnam.

Reported by Huong Le