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### Viewing cable 03HANOI373, JOINT RESEARCH ON HEALTH/ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF

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Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
03HANOI373 | 2003-02-16 01:22 | 2011-08-25 00:00 | UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY | Embassy Hanoi

`

    This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

` `

    UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 09 HANOI 000373

    SIPDIS

    SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED

    DEPT FOR EAP/BCLTV, OES/STC (GGROTH),
         STAS (NNEUREITER), EAP/RSP, EAP/PD AND OES/PCI
    DEPT PASS HHS FOR OGHA/STEIGER; NIH/FIC/GKEUSCH;
         NIH/NIEHS/OLDEN, PORTIER; CDC/OGH/BLOUNT;
         CDC/CEH/SINKS, BARRETT, NEEDHAM; FDA/OIA/WBATTS
    DEPT PASS USAID FOR G/ENV, G/H
    DEPT PASS EPA FOR WFARLAND
    DEPT PASS OSTP FOR GAINES
    BANGKOK FOR REO
    SECDEF ALSO FOR ISA/AP/LSTERN AND ES/WVAN HOUTEN
    USDA FOR FAA/AO/SSAP/HEUTE, ITP/ODA/SHEIKH
    NSC FOR BEARDSWORTH

    E.O. 12958: N/A
    TAGS: KSCA KTIA TSPL TNGD PREL TBIO OSCI SCUL ENRG OTRA TRGY MNUC VM
    SUBJECT:  JOINT RESEARCH ON HEALTH/ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF
    AGENT ORANGE/DIOXIN - AN ASSESSMENT OF VIETNAMESE ATTITUDES

    SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - PLEASE PROTECT ACCORDINGLY

    ¶1.  (U) This is an action cable.  Please see Paragraph 13
    below.

    ¶2.  (SBU) SUMMARY:  To date, the Government of Vietnam (GVN)
    has made little, if any, progress towards achieving the
    goals set forth in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
    signed in Hanoi on March 10, 2002, following bilateral
    meetings held in Hanoi after the International Agent
    Orange/Dioxin Conference funded by the U.S. National
    Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).
    Embassy believes that this lack of progress reflects the
    unwillingness of the GVN to allow its scientists to engage
    in genuinely transparent, open rigorous scientific
    investigation to determine the true extent of the impact of
    AO/dioxin on health in Vietnam.  We believe that the GVN
    will attempt to control, disrupt, or block any research
    project that could potentially produce scientific evidence
    that refutes the GVN's allegations of broad, catastrophic
    damage to the health of Vietnamese citizens, especially
    birth defects.  Joint research on the environmental issues
    will probably be limited to projects that focus on soil
    sampling and searches for low-cost emerging remediation
    technologies.  Another factor that has hampered overall
    Vietnamese responsiveness has been the disruption of the
    leadership and functioning of National Steering Committee 33
    (responsible for oversight of all issues related to Agent
    Orange) that resulted from the creation of the Ministry of
    National Resources and Environment in August 2002.  Despite
    this assessment, the Embassy advocates continuing the USG
    effort to promote cooperative scientific research programs,
    while at the same time taking a straightforward approach to
    counter the Vietnamese propaganda campaign that hinges on
    non-scientific, but visually effective and emotionally
    charged, methodology aimed at laying blame on the USG.  Two
    new proposed projects funded by NIEHS, one in environmental
    remediation technologies and one in health research related
    to pregnancy, will provide a gauge by which to further
    assess Vietnamese attitudes and intentions.  END SUMMARY

    ¶3.  (U) Dr. Anne Sassaman, Director, Extramural Grant
    Program, National Institute of Environmental Health
    Sciences, visited Hanoi during October 27-31, 2002, to
    continue the dialogue with Vietnamese counterparts on joint
    scientific research on health and environmental effects of
    Agent Orange (AO)/dioxin in Vietnam, and to determine status
    of Vietnamese efforts and attitudes towards pursuit of goals
    defined in the Memorandum of Understanding signed on March
    10, 2002, following bilateral discussions in Hanoi.
    Embassy/Hanoi EST Officer accompanied Dr. Sassaman to most
    of her relevant meetings.  In November, Dr. Sassaman briefed
    members of the Interagency Working Group on AO/Dioxin (IWG-
    AO/D) in Washington on the results of her visit.  On January
    16, 2003, Embassy EST Officer met with Dr. Nguyen Tien Dung,
    Director, Office 33, to follow-up on the unresolved issues
    that had been discussed during Dr. Sassaman's visit.  In
    early February, EST Officer also met with NIEHS officer in
    charge of organizing an environmental assessment and
    remediation workshop and the U.S. lead investigator in a
    joint health research project that has received approval and
    funding by NIEHS.  Embassy wishes to provide the IWG with
    our observations and assessment of Vietnamese attitudes
    toward implementation on joint scientific research.

    ¶4.  (SBU) Although the history of U.S. Government (USG)
    efforts to engage the Vietnamese in joint scientific
    research go back as far as 1994, we will look at events over
    the past two years, beginning in December 2000 at the
    bilateral meetings held in Singapore.  Based on our
    observations of Vietnamese behavior over the past two years,
    interaction with key players and observers on the Vietnamese
    side following the March 2002 International Conference in
    Hanoi funded by NIEHS, the results of Dr. Sassaman's recent
    visit, and EST Officer's recent meetings with Office 33, the
    Embassy's assessment is that the Government of Vietnam (GVN)
    has no intentions of allowing its scientists to engage in
    genuinely transparent, open, rigorous scientific
    investigation to determine the true extent of the impact of
    AO/dioxin on health in Vietnam.  Why?  Because, we believe,
    the GVN will never permit research that in any way might
    discredit the main theme of its two-decade long propaganda
    campaign, i.e., AO/dioxin is to blame for a huge range of
    serious health problems - especially birth defects and
    mental retardation - of residents of central and southern
    areas and/or northern soldiers who served there.  We feel
    certain that many responsible GVN and Communist Party
    officials know that allegations of the extreme degree of
    adverse impact of AO/dioxin on health are grossly
    exaggerated and unsupported by any objective measure.  Thus,
    to engage in a truly comprehensive scientific research
    program would expose the official folly, and place the
    government in an untenable position.  It would also open a
    Pandora's Box of questions about why the GVN - and more
    importantly, the Communist Party - has misled its people and
    focused on demonizing AO/dioxin and failed to carry out
    appropriate public health programs that could have mitigated
    other sources of threats to human health.  It is our
    assessment that the GVN will permit only research that they
    are confident will support and/or lend credence to their
    claims.  Thus, any proposal that includes verifiable
    measures of exposure, and independent validation of
    diagnosis, the sine-qua-non of scientific study for health
    impact assessment, will not be acceptable to the GVN.  If
    there is any uncertainty about the outcome of the research,
    they will either not approve it or cancel it if subsequent
    indications imply that the results could contradict their
    propaganda message.  We believe there are Vietnamese
    scientists who, if given the opportunity, would seek to
    conduct high quality scientific research.  No matter what
    their motives and intentions, virtually all Vietnamese
    scientists view joint research with U.S. experts as an
    excellent mechanism by which to acquire training, equipment,
    and technology.   Why did the GVN finally agree to
    scientific research?  In our view, they realized that
    agreement to engage in joint research would give the
    appearance of cooperation with the USG, while at the same
    enhance their leverage in pursuit of their main objective -
    financial compensation and support for research
    infrastructure from audiences sympathetic to their
    propaganda message.  Thus, we believe the GVN's highest
    priority continues to be waging its ongoing propaganda
    campaign to morally indict the USG in collaborations with
    sympathetic members of the broader international community
    as its highest priority.  Engagement in a scientific
    research endeavor is a secondary, supporting effort of the
    primary strategy to force the USG to bow to international
    pressure and in the words of several of the international
    interlocutors of the GVN's position, "address the chemical
    holocaust that has been visited on Vietnam - to fully
    remunerate and premeditate the devastation caused and denied
    since the 1960's."

    ¶5.  (SBU) On the environmental side, the Vietnamese probably
    will not attempt to exert such heavy-handed control because
    the focus of initial research is to test/evaluate relatively
    inexpensive emerging soil sampling and remediation
    technologies in locations where both sides agree there is a
    high probability of dioxin residue in the soil (i.e., the
    suspected "hot spots").  The ongoing pilot project between
    U.S. EPA and the Vietnamese scientists at a suspected hot
    spot in Danang Airbase is the only ongoing project upon
    which to judge Vietnamese behavior.  We note that permission
    for the soil samples obtained from that site to be sent back
    to the U.S. for state-of-the-art testing was not granted
    until after/after the soil sampling tests in Hanoi
    demonstrated the high probability of a heavy dioxin residue.
    We are waiting on the results of the testing in the U.S. and
    follow-up visits by EPA.  The next phase of the "Danang
    Project" is to seek methods of defining the parameters of a
    "hot spot" and evaluating/assessing emerging low-cost
    technologies for a pilot remediation project.  The
    counterpart Vietnamese scientists are enthusiastic about
    this project.

    ¶6.  (SBU) The Vietnamese are more willing to study the
    environmental effects, but we anticipate that there are
    caveats.  We predict they will not participate in or allow
    studies that would cause problems for their agricultural
    export industries.  Thus, any study that looks at dioxin
    contamination of food products will only be permitted if it
    cannot be generalized to types and classes of foods that are
    only of commercial importance to Vietnam, or in areas that
    do not have any commercial food production.  Thus, it will
    never be possible to do broad and scientifically useful
    ecologic studies of dioxin.  Second, they will not permit
    studies that undermine their propaganda campaign.  For
    example, the Hatfield Consultants research report showed
    that in the areas of heaviest spraying, the AO/dioxin
    applied by aerial spraying was no longer at levels
    considered hazardous to health.  This finding has never been
    publicly admitted or commented on by the Vietnamese - and
    subsequent soil sampling for areas of aerial spraying has
    not been permitted.

    ¶7.  (SBU) National Steering Committee 33, the entity
    responsible for oversight and management of all programs to
    deal with all issues related to AO, is composed of
    representatives from at least ten different ministries or
    equivalent level organizations.  The government decree that
    established Committee 33 is classified "secret"; most or all
    documents related to AO or the committee's actions are also
    classified as they are considered to have national security
    implications.  The senior representative from each ministry
    or agency is a Vice-Minister or equivalent rank.  Committee
    33 guides/controls the health and environmental research,
    the internal propaganda campaign, the campaign to acquire
    foreign donations, etc.  Although we do not know the precise
    mechanisms by which this committee operates, we assume that
    ministries such as S&T, Natural Resources and Environment,
    Foreign Affairs, Health, Culture and Information, National
    Defense, and Public Security as well as the Communist Party
    Central Committee and the National Assembly play important,
    key roles in the decision making process.  Former Minister
    of Science, Technology and Environment Dr. Chu Tuan Nha
    served as the Chairman until he was replaced as Minister in
    August 2002.   Minister Nha, a scientist, was viewed by the
    Embassy as someone with a generally pragmatic, objective
    attitude who supported scientific research (but still
    spouted the party line about "victims" when necessary).  In
    October 2002, Committee 33 Standing Vice-Chairman Dr. Pham
    Khoi Nguyen, who has now moved from his position of Vice-
    Minister of S&T to become a Vice-Minister in the newly
    created Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment
    (MONRE), told Dr. Sassaman that a recommendation had gone
    forward to the Office of Government to appoint a Deputy
    Prime Minister (DPM) to chair the committee.  Dr. Nguyen
    commented that elevating the chair to a higher level would
    make the Committee more efficient (presumably because a DPM
    would have more clout to resolve disputes between
    ministries).  However, in January 2003, the GVN issued a
    decree appointing Mr. Mai Ai Truc, Minister of Natural
    Resources and Environment, as the new Chairman.  Although
    the chairmanship was not elevated to the DPM level,
    oversight of Committee 33 was shifted from DPM Pham Gia
    Khiem, whose portfolio includes S&T and education, to First
    DPM Nguyen Tan Dung.   This shift in oversight of Committee
    33 coincided with placement of MONRE under the oversight of
    DPM Dung.  Minister Truc is not a scientist.  His academic
    background is literature; his entire career has been spent
    working in the Party and/or People's Committee of Binh Dinh
    Province.   Despite Minister Truc's lack of scientific
    credentials, he has told the Ambassador that he has first-
    hand experience with the spraying of AO and AO's impact on
    the environment and health.  He said that, in his home
    province, AO had caused bananas to grow to an enormous size.
    The poor, starving residents had no choice but to eat this
    AO-contaminated fruit.  As a result, the women had borne
    many children with birth defects.  Minister Truc's comments
    dovetailed nicely with the Vietnamese propaganda line.  The
    Ambassador responded politely that there could be many other
    possible causes of birth defects, including deficiencies in
    prenatal care and the diet of pregnant women, and this
    potential myriad of factors was the basis for the USG's
    desire to conduct good scientific research to find the
    answers.

    ¶8.  (SBU) In discussions with the Dr. Nguyen Tien Dung,
    Director of Office 33 (permanent staff for Committee 33),
    Dr. Sassaman described the process for
    reviewing/approving/funding research grants submitted to
    NIEHS.  A key feature was the independent peer review to
    evaluate the quality of the science.  Dr. Dung explained
    that, in the Vietnamese process for research on topics
    related to AO/dioxin, a proposal would undergo scientific
    review (not an independent peer review, but one conducted by
    a government ministry, such as Ministry of Health for health-
    related research), and then go to Committee 33 for final
    approval.  Committee 33's decision would be based not on the
    merits of the science and/or potential benefits to
    understanding the issue, but rather on non-scientific
    factors and points of view (e.g., internal political,
    national defense).  Both Dr. Dung and MONRE Vice-Minister
    Dr. Pham Khoi Nguyen frequently used the term "control" when
    describing Committee 33's role.  Dr. Dung explained that
    data/information related to GVN policy on AO was still
    considered a "state secret" and water, soil, human
    tissue/blood samples were also considered to be state
    secrets.  Committee 33's approval would be required each

    SIPDIS
    time a scientist wished to send such items out of Vietnam
    for testing and analysis.  In response to a question about
    the process for obtaining approvals, Dr. Dung explained that
    even if Committee 33 approved a research proposal that
    clearly defined parameters of health research (defined
    geographic area, target population, intended use of samples,
    etc), approval would not be a blanket approval for the
    lifetime of the project.  Committee 33 would have to approve
    the shipment of each batch of samples.  The authority cannot
    be delegated to a single senior official or to a sub-
    committee.  This control factor would allow the Vietnamese
    to stifle a research project at any point.  In this context,
    Dr. Sassaman and Dr. Dung discussed the unresolved issues in
    the MOU related to:  a) the degree to which research
    findings will be made available to the international
    scientific community; b) the avenues through which research
    findings will be published; and c) the process that must be
    followed for publication approval.  Dr. Dung's description
    of the Vietnamese perception of these issues was that
    "control" (of information and research findings) was of
    paramount concern to Committee 33.  Dr. Sassaman explained
    that no credible U.S. researcher would be willing to invest
    time and effort into a project which could be undermined or
    whose findings could not be published.  Dr. Sassaman
    stressed that this was not a point to be taken lightly, and
    Dr. Dung promised to relay her remarks to Committee 33.

    ¶9.  (SBU) On January 16, 2003, EST Officer met with Dr. Dung
    to discuss the status of  Vietnam's efforts to move forward
    on the issues discussed with Dr. Sassaman.  Dr. Dung offered
    the following.

             -- Office 33 has submitted a proposal to Committee
    33 and Chairman Truc for establishing a mechanism for
    general approval for human tissue and blood samples to be
    sent abroad for testing and analysis.  Dr. Dung would not
    offer an anticipated timeframe for approval.

             -- Committee 33 has not yet appointed Vietnamese
    members of a Vietnam-US Joint Advisory Committee, which per
    the March 10 (2002) Memorandum of Understanding, would be
    established to define the scope of the joint research
    program; coordinate the collaborative research program on
    human health and environmental effects of Agent
    Orange/Dioxin; and review and approve research content areas
    under the program.  (BEGIN COMMENT:  The U.S. members were
    appointed in the summer of 2002.  END COMMENT)

             -- Dr. Dung advised that Committee 33 had not yet
    received the Vietnamese text of a joint grant proposal for
    joint health research project submitted to NIEHS by a U.S.
    investigator with a Vietnamese Ministry of Health
    counterpart investigator.   (BEGIN COMMENT:  During Dr.
    Sassaman's October 2002 visit, she discussed this proposal
    with both Dr. Dung and the Vietnamese investigator.  At that
    time, the Vietnamese investigator stated that the proposal
    was being translated into Vietnamese.  Subsequently, in
    January 2003, the proposal was evaluated via NIEHS's
    independent peer review board and scored well enough to
    receive funding.   EST Officer informed Dr. Dung that NIEHS
    would be willing to fund the project only/only after
    receiving formal confirmation that Committee 33 had approved
    the project, and the issues of publication and human
    tissue/blood testing had been resolved.   END COMMENT)

    ¶10.  (SBU) The following is a brief review of GVN actions
    that tend to support our assessment.
             --During the December 2000 bilateral talks in
    Singapore, the Vietnamese delegation spent three days in a
    failed attempt to get the U.S. side to sign a Memorandum of
    Understanding which included a U.S. commitment to provide
    humanitarian assistance to all the "victims" of AO/dioxin as
    a pre-condition for engaging in joint scientific research.
    A central theme was "the research has already been done and
    we already know the results show direct cause-effect
    relationship between AO/dioxin and the health of Vietnamese
    people."

             --The Vietnamese print and visual media
    consistently conveys the message that there are many
    "victims" of AO for which the USG should accept
    responsibility providing humanitarian assistance.  The
    frequency and tone sharpen just before and just after
    significant events.

             --The Vietnamese organizers (under direction from
    Committee 33) refused to allow the international press to
    attend the March 2002 conference.  Following the conference,
    the main theme of Vietnamese media articles was not related
    to the science.  Rather, the theme was "the USG finally
    admitted that U.S. military forces had sprayed millions of
    gallons of AO during the war."

             --The GVN's consistent, persistent message has
    been, "we do not need the science to prove a link between
    AO/dioxin and the health of our people.   We already have
    the proof."  This message runs counter to any expression of
    intent to engage in serious joint scientific research, but
    it is being parroted by the press (as mouthpieces of the
    Party and the bureaucracy of government), by government
    officials at all levels, by educated citizens in all walks
    of life, and by many international NGOs and other
    institutions.  The success of the propaganda campaign has
    strengthened the GVN's resolve to continue on that front
    while at the same time maintaining a faade of willingness
    to engage the U.S. in scientific research on health effects.

             --Except for the Danang soil sampling project, the
    GVN has made no progress towards achieving goals set forth
    in the March 10 MOU, not even to appoint members to the
    joint advisory committee that is to provide oversight to
    define the scope of the overall joint research program;
    coordinate the collaborative research program on human
    health and environmental effects of Agent Orange/Dioxin; and
    review and approve research content areas under the program.
    The creation of MONRE and the subsequent turmoil caused in
    establishing a new management team within Committee 33 can
    explain some of the inertia.  However, at the same time, the
    propaganda campaign was not disrupted.

    ¶11.  (SBU) As an indicator of the pervasiveness of the
    Vietnamese position on AO/dioxin, we would like to share the
    failure of our recent efforts to engage the Vietnamese in a
    broader effort to look at public health issues that that
    might be easily resolved.  At several points, HHS has
    suggested to Vietnamese counterparts an affordable and
    effective national campaign to eliminate cretinism.
    Multiple sets of national data strongly indicate that
    cretinism is the leading cause of preventable mental
    retardation.  Hypothyroidism in pregnant women due to lack
    of iodine has been a national epidemic for as long as the
    data has been recorded.  Multiple surveys have shown
    prevalence rates of between 15 and 40% of goiter in pregnant
    women.  Various biochemical surveys have documented many
    pregnant women with no detectable iodine in their urine.
    This provides conclusive evidence that their baby will be
    born with a significant mental defect, and in many cases,
    with severe and profound mental retardation.  Off the
    record, many international public health experts estimate
    numbers of cretins born each year in Vietnam at a minimum in
    the tens of thousands.  However, we have been unable to get
    the GVN to engage in a substantive, high priority national
    program for elimination of this deficiency.  There could be
    various reasons for the GVN's reluctance to start such a
    program.  We understand that it took the World Health
    Organization many years to convince some African countries
    to participate in a similar program.  However, we must
    assume that some knowledgeable Vietnamese officials
    recognize that conducting such a public campaign would lead
    even the average citizen to wonder if the condition of a
    vast majority of profoundly retarded children, whose
    affliction has been blamed on AO/dioxin, could have been
    avoided easily by pre-emptive remediation of a nutritional
    deficiency.  Here are other examples of easily remediable
    problems that are given insufficient attention, perhaps
    because doing so would undermine the AO/dioxin blame game:
    the high rates of cerebral palsy in the general population
    due to birth injury, the epidemic of liver cancer due to
    chronic active hepatitis because of poor medical practices
    and inadequate blood screening.  Both of these conditions
    are routinely blamed on AO/dioxin.  Parenthetically, we also
    note a similar approach taken to another significant issue
    of disability in Vietnam - the issue of UXO.  The government
    makes every attempt to use this to generate sympathy and
    funding, especially with the international community, and
    often links the two issues of AO/dioxin and UXO together to
    maximize the effect of demonizing the US for the "holocaust"
    of the Vietnam War (a term that is constantly used by the
    GVN and their international sympathizers).  The GVN never
    mentions that much of the UXO resulted from their own
    military and guerilla operations in the affected provinces
    and any attempt to quantify this is always stopped
    immediately.

    ¶12.  (SBU) Pending Projects By Which to Gauge Vietnamese
    Attitudes and Intentions:

               a.  (SBU) On 7 February, EST Officer and NIEHS
    officer Dr. William Suk met with the two lead Vietnamese
    scientific investigators in the Danang Soil Sampling Project
    being conducted jointly with U.S. EPA.  Dr. Suk is taking
    the lead in an NIEHS plan to organize a workshop in Vietnam
    to explore new, emerging technologies related to
    environmental assessment and remediation.  This workshop
    would be the first step in the next phase of the Danang
    Project already discussed between EPA and the counterpart
    Vietnamese organization for this project, the National
    Center for Natural Science and Technology (NCST).  The
    Vietnamese investigators were very excited about the
    potential for this workshop, and offered the use of NCST
    facilities.  However, they emphasized that GVN and Committee
    33 approvals would not be automatic.  They expressed
    optimism that Dr. Dang Vu Minh, Director General, NCST (and
    a member of the Communist Party Central Committee and a
    member of the National Assembly), who was tasked by the GVN
    to manage the Danang Project, would support the workshop.
               b.  (SBU) On 8 February, EST Officer met with Dr.
    David Carpenter, School of Public Health, University of New
    York at Albany, who is the lead U.S. investigator on a joint
    research project with the Hanoi Medical University related
    to effects of AO/Dioxin on pregnancy.  In January 2003, this
    project was approved by NIEHS for a 3-year grant.   NIEHS is
    withholding release of funds pending receipt of formal
    notification that Committee 33 has approved the proposal
    without substantive changes.  Dr. Carpenter was in Hanoi to
    meet with the lead Vietnamese investigator.   (COMMENT:
    Embassy suggests that the IWG seek more details on the
    project from NIEHS.  END COMMENT)  Dr. Carpenter, having
    expected some obstacles related to funding issues, was
    upbeat after his conversations with the Vietnamese
    investigators.  However, as noted in Paragraph 9 above, this
    proposal has not been yet been submitted to Committee 33 for
    approval.  The lead Vietnamese investigator did not mention
    any problems related to obtaining approval for shipment of
    blood samples to the U.S. and predicted approval would be
    granted for the overall project by April 2003.  EST Officer
    and Dr. Carpenter discussed the potential for Committee 33,
    even after granting general approval, to interfere with the
    efficiency of the research.  (BEGIN COMMENT:  On 7 February,
    one of the NCST investigators in the Danang Project, who was
    familiar with the Carpenter project, voiced the opinion that
    Committee 33 would never approve a project which allowed all
    blood samples to be shipped to the U.S. for analysis.  The
    investigator cited ongoing problems (mainly lengthy delays)
    in obtaining Committee 33's approval to ship soil samples to
    the U.S. and third countries.  END COMMENT)  Embassy views
    this project to be a litmus test to evaluate the GVN's
    willingness to pursue good science and demonstrate its
    intentions towards health research on the AO/dioxin issue.
    This is a pioneer endeavor.

    ¶13.  (SBU) The USG must decide how to address the issue of
    scientific cooperation, since it is now clear that the GVN
    is unwilling to engage in any real scientific cooperation
    and will undercut the effort to serve its propaganda
    objectives.  We feel that ignoring this situation will have
    the probable outcome of continued success on the part of the
    Vietnamese in engaging the broader international community
    to exert pressure on the USG to remediate and remunerate all
    the "victims."  The issue is how to address this.  We
    encourage the IWG and others in the USG to focus on this
    issue.

               -- The Vietnamese are succeeding at their
    longstanding propaganda campaign.  We need to counter the
    disinformation with valid, scientifically documented
    information.  We should challenge bogus, slanted journalism
    - both vernacular and international - with factual,
    objective responses that expose the fallacies of the GVN
    propaganda and describe other potential factors that
    contribute to the health problems that the Vietnamese
    attribute solely to AO/dioxin.  Silence or bland, non-
    specific responses will only tend to "confirm" the
    disinformation in the eyes of the audience.  We should
    publicize our efforts to engage and support the Vietnamese
    in joint scientific research, and expose foot dragging
    and/or efforts by the GVN (Committee 33) to stymie the
    progress of a worthwhile project.   We should not hesitate
    to respond to efforts to attribute all maladies to AO/Dioxin
    by noting the large number of Vietnamese who are victims of
    their own government's inability to provide them with
    adequate nutrition, quality medical services and protection
    from environmental.  The Embassy cannot accomplish this
    alone.  Our Public Affairs Officer, with support from the
    new HHS officer (not yet selected) who will serve as Embassy
    Health Attach, needs support to deal with Vietnamese
    propaganda campaign and the constant barrage of queries from
    the international media.  Embassy requests that the IWG,
    with support from NIH/NIEHS, prepare a concise summary on
    dioxin, which Embassy and other agencies involved in the
    AO/Dioxin issue can use as a basis for talking points that
    address key questions related to dioxin and what the
    international scientific community knows about it.  Our
    intent is that this would provide sufficient factual,
    objective information that would demonstrate why the USG has
    taken the position that there are many unanswered questions
    about the health effects, and justify our call for further
    scientific research to determine how much, if any, adverse
    impact AO/dioxin has had on health in Vietnam.  In other
    words, we need to be able to counter the Vietnamese position
    that exposure to dioxin, no matter under what circumstances
    and at what levels, eliminates all other possible causes of
    a health problem.  This document would also serve as a
    primer for the uninformed, particularly the press who tend
    to focus solely on the fact that dioxin is a persistent
    organic pollutant linked to health problems.

               -- The Embassy is not advocating that we turn our
    backs on sincere, genuine efforts to pressure the Vietnamese
    to engage in serious scientific research.  We advocate
    continuing a proactive approach to demonstrate to all
    stakeholders that we want the March 10 MOU to be a framework
    for advancing science, not just a piece of signed paper that
    serves as "evidence" for the Vietnamese propaganda machine
    to prove that the U.S. accepted blame for spraying
    herbicides during the war and by default accepted the
    allegations of causing catastrophic damage to the health of
    hundreds thousands of Vietnamese citizens.  Embassy will
    support the U.S. agencies (NIEHS, EPA, CDC) in all phases of
    the Danang Project, including the new initiative on
    exploring remediation technologies, and the health research
    project currently awaiting Committee 33 approval.  We will
    try to "push the right buttons" from the Office to
    Government down to the functional agencies in the Vietnamese
    bureaucracy to keep up pressure for implementation of these
    projects.

               --Embassy expects the soon-to-be assigned Health
    Attach to take the lead in promoting cooperation in health
    research by supporting NIEHS programs and by interacting
    closely with the appropriate counterparts in the Ministry of
    Health and the medical universities.
    BURGHARDT

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