Taiwan Today

In recent days it has been revealed that the widely-used “Crocodile” mosquito coils imported from Vietnam contain high levels of dioxin. Now government officials and scientists are saying the dioxin may be a result of the massive use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. During the war, the guerilla warfare practiced by the Vietnamese fighters made it difficult for the U.S. military to put its strength to full use, according to the Cabinet-level Environmental Protection Administration. To turn the situation around, U.S. forces sprayed over ten million gallons of chemical defoliants over the jungles of central Vietnam to reduce the dense foliage there, so that the Communists could no longer use them for cover. “While the war eventually came to an end, the residual defoliants contaminated the soil and rivers of Vietnam, causing a high dioxin background value,” said Ling Yong-chien, a professor in the Department of Chemistry at National Tsing Hua University. He added that dioxins are still polluting the plants and crops of Vietnam, causing serious damage to the country’s agriculture. He suspects the sawdust from Vietnam used to manufacture the mosquito coils could also have been tainted by the chemical compound. Agent Orange has brought an atrocious legacy to Vietnam’s environment, according to Ling. Trees, rice, fish and shrimp have all been exposed to the poison. “Dioxins can easily accumulate in animal fats. The poultry, livestock and fish in central Vietnam are at a high risk of being infected,” he added. Gaston Wu, a professor in the Department of Chemistry at National Taiwan Normal University, pointed out that Agent Orange is an early insect repellent containing chloride that causes dioxin formation in the natural environment. Not only that, the impurities resulting from the manufacturing process could also contain dioxins. If dioxin is somehow absorbed into the human body, the lymph nodes, the central nervous and reproductive systems could all be affected, causing deformation, mutation and cerebral edema, Wu explained. He called on the government to perform residual testing on Vietnamese imports, such as disposable chopsticks and dry foodstuff, for dioxin contamination. (SFC-HZW)