"(Agent Orange) Birth Defects: Normal Doesn't Apply": clip from The Secret Agent by Jacki Ochs

Film produced by: Daniel Keller and Jacki Ochs
Film directed by: Jacki Ochs
For more information visit: http://www.vietnamthesecretagent.com
TRT: 56 min

The first feature-length documentary about Agent Orange and its physical and political effects on Vietnam vets, Jacki Ochs' Vietnam: The Secret Agent (1983) remains as riveting and powerful as the day it was made. Tracing the affected veterans' battle to procure medical treatment from an obstinate Veterans Administration, and compensation from the herbicide's equally defiant manufacturers, the film stands as a singularly valuable historical record. Not only that, it has lost none of its emotional power (Special Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival).

In this clip two Vietnam veterans and one spouse discuss their children with birth defects while struggling to keep their pain and anger in check.

Diagnosed with intestinal cancer after returning from Vietnam, Paul Reutershan founded Agent Orange Victims International (AOVI). He encouraged other vets to come forward with their health problems, and initiated the class action lawsuit against the chemical companies that was eventually filed in July, 1978—five months before his death. The suit was settled in January, 1985.

"That was when the veterans started to connect the dots, and realized that these birth defects were not exclusive to their family," Jacki Ochs recalls. "There was this convergence where vets started to realize, by slowly communicating with each other, that it wasn't just their individual hardship. 'This is something that's happening to all these guys around me who went to war.' They weren't alone. We went around the country [conducting interviews], so we were able to show the veteran from New York, the veteran from Louisiana, the veteran from Minnesota."

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• vietnam
• dioxin
• agent orange
• defoliant
• health
• herbicidal warfare
• victims of agent orange
• rainbow herbicides
• Monsanto
• Dow Chemical
• Diamond Shamrock
• Vietnam: The Secret Agent
• Jacki Ochs
• Make Agent Orange History
• US-Vietnam Dialogue Group
• Plan of Action
• conflict-resolution
• environmental impact
• public health
• children's health
• children's rights
• humanitarian concern
• toxic
• poison