george i was born with multiple problems. i was missing my leg and my fingers and my big toe on my right foot i use my hands a lot in my artwork i find myself drawing my hands quite a bit to me for my hands you know just as if anyone won but they do tell a story they tell us story of. oxen. did starting here before going global and now it's pulling my.

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iraq. county alabama. coming up. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so. you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought

you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. mission free cretaceous three days for charges free. agency free. three stooges free. old free blow against cloning video for your media project a free media. tom. the

u.s. air force kept detailed records of the spray missions that began in one thousand nine hundred sixty one and continued for ten years these voluminous records were used to create maps and calculate the extent of the spring thirty years after the war and. one of the things that we did when we created the street graphic information system was to create a way in which you could take these tens of thousands of flight legs of a of a plane and translate them into what happened on the ground and we can

tell you in any one grid have much was sprayed him many direct hits we also got files from the national archives of where people live where the hamlets were that i could actually put how many people lived in each of those squares of ground and we calculated that probably four million vietnamese were directly sprayed by by the herbicides in the late one nine hundred sixty s. there were some tests done chemical tests done on the on the toxicity of two four five t. and. when it was observed that the two for fighting could lead to birth defects in laboratory and laboratory test a ban came down in the united states and. the military was forced to stop using it

shortly thereafter in in vietnam because one of the arguments that was made about why this was ok to use in vietnam was that it was safe at home the. agent orange is t c d d tetra or for koreans these are the koreans so this is the most toxic and it can stay in the environment for decades to hundreds of years and it can accumulate in the food chain we found it and in fish and turtles and snakes in vietnam for example we're concerned about the dioxin because it appears that dioxin molecule for molecule is very toxic is very persistent it builds up by all accumulates in people and it can cause a number of health effects to people i think of cancers i think of.

in the in deficiency or the inability to fight infections or cancer i think of and the current disruption or such as diabetes or thyroid hormone problems. during the vietnam war many american soldiers were also exposed to agent orange veterans later experienced increased rates of cancer skin diseases and other ailments in one nine hundred ninety one the u.s. government finally recognized the effects of dioxin on veterans and passed the agent orange act children etc and seven also suffered severe health problems. thank you mona edwards who lives in texas lost her daughter gino to cancer in two thousand and eight and you know was thirty eight years old.

i met. kenny in the summer of one thousand nine hundred sixty seven and he had just came back from vietnam we were together about three years and we got married and the following year we had our first child and that was gina and jim was born with congenital birth defects she had. her. purse her abdomen was open from the sternum to the pubic area. she had all of her internal organs on the outside of her body and they were enclosed in a sack she didn't have a uterus while her uterus was split and i say oh it's heart shaped her bladder was the same way a heart shaped. she didn't have a anus she didn't have a vagina. her hips were out like this and her it rib cage was too.

and she was deformed in the genital area you couldn't tell if she was male female or why they couldn't tell that she was female until they got her to children's hospital and they found ovaries and they said well it's girl and then i had family members that had been to the hospital to see her that were telling me and i had been released from the hospital yet while you know the baby doesn't have the baby doesn't have that it was born with and pretty soon i'm not thinking that i had a baby a beautiful little baby anymore in my mind i had something and i didn't know what it was so when i first saw one to the hospital i first saw the baby shoot they had an incubator and she was in the neonatal unit and i looked in and i thought oh my god you know she is a beautiful little baby she had a low down on a roof pretty hair had they had a little pink bow or hair and i thought well i did have a beautiful little baby there's nothing wrong with her and that stayed in my mind i completely forgot all the bad stuff you know i just dropped all of it and so i went

in to see or and i could only put my hand to the poor hold the toucher and one of the nurses came over without thinking and pulled the cover it down off of her and i saw what she looked like for the first time my knees went out i went to the floor and that's pretty much stayed with me since then you know it was just it was just such a shock you know i had i was eighteen years old. i didn't know why i just didn't know why and it was you know your few years later when i started to hear about agent orange. and you know i knew that her dad had been in vietnam and that's when i started to do a little research into that and think you know because i used to think did i take any medicine while i was pregnant with her i didn't take even aspirin i wasn't sick the whole time i was pregnant with her. i was raised on the merrimack river in st

louis that when there's not a healthier place in the world to be you know i was out in the country as healthy my husband you know he was and i i had no idea oh you know what caused it. but then i started to you know hear more about agent orange and i contacted the i think you know was probably five then and i contacted the disease control center in atlanta and i told them my story and they sent me a packet of research papers that they had that they. had been doing on laboratory animals and i remember one thing i haven't looked at those for years but there was one thing there were one of the animals had been born with that was exposed they exposed to dioxin with. with genital deformed deformities. i think the best time and you just life and i look back on her life i can scan

through it and i can say ok was it from one to six now she had all those surgeries six to twelve no she's having all those problems in school no friends you know she played with her cousin and her cousin sometimes didn't want to play with her and then was so was it from you know twelve high school knowledge she was still having problems you know social problems and they want to play with her or they made fun of her all constantly made fun of or so when was it. you know i see or as a teenager and her life was just out of control. she really she was searching for a boyfriend as soon as i mean she was really a pretty girl she tracked a lot of guys that when they found out her problems she they couldn't handle them and so she was devastated by that she wanted to get married she wanted to have kids want to have a big beautiful wedding. have friends she you know she wanted all the things that a girl that age once i think gina. blamed me many times

for the way she was born actually i was in therapy. and the counselor told me one time gina has so much anger at you and she said you having been the woman that gave her life and she said she has so much anger at you she blames you. when i watched her die. even you know even though she was going to be there anymore i thought i want somebody to know i want somebody to know what you've lived through if they could have seen her life if they could have seen my life and to think you know just if you have children imagine your child in that life you really imagine

it sit all those days in a hospital not knowing if they're going to live or die look at their bodies and know what they're going to live for the rest of their life and then think again before you pull that out spray that i mean really think about it because you disproved by that my daughter's life you destroyed my life. and i get angry about it i get so angry about it because i don't think anybody thought i don't think anybody thought and i don't think they cared one way or another as long as it wasn't their families in all honesty if i could make them figure out what you know kind of monetary value can you put on ok i can't have a child make me feel better about it there isn't one really so i thought about that a lot of delight no even if they offered it i don't think i'd take it because that would be like they're buying me off or saying oh well we made it all better and you can't i want them to not do these things again when we have

wars first i wish there were no wars going to our guests human nature but. if you decide to dump chemicals all over everybody here's what's before except you know that there are consequences to the land to the people to the environment that are felt for generations don't just walk away and say oh no are we we didn't do anything and you're on your own that that angers me to no end you know there's some fat cats. one of these companies on tons and tons and millions of dollars who does not care that my life has been affected by this and that oh who's going to hire me to be like a cover model when i look like this and who's going to you know look at me the same way as other women you know knowing that i can't have children they don't care.

when i when i look at pictures or see the results or read about the results of what's happened to the vietnamese people i'm kind of horrified. obviously agent orange is in their soil it's been in their generations and i gather that people are unable to leave him in move away so it's continuing to affect their health and it's much more dramatic than anything that's happened to me it makes me look at myself and go i got off lucky by comparison. i feel that way about some of the other vietnam veterans children here you know by comparison i could be so much worse off i have spinal bifida i could be unable to walk i could have skin problems there are far worse than the ones i have i look at some of the pictures of the children of the vietnamese and i can't look because it's it's so distressing it's so hard for me to see that but i also feel that again you know i got off lucky

and i have when i look at that i have no really i have no right to complain now you know i think i think the debt that's owed to the vietnamese people is far greater than any debts owed to me. in vietnam there are twenty eight known hotspots that are highly contaminated with dioxin. the former. is

one of them. in the vicinity of bases where agent orange was stored and where spraying missions originated people continue to be affected by dioxin in their food and in the soil and water. thank. you just one. excuse. me. it's very nice to meet you and i'm so thankful that you've invited me into your home it is very special and thank you very much that moment and i think that you know. i live with more than one kid i was based in quoting tree for six months and i was exposed to agent orange their. lawyer called

the good looking that it was not sprayed directly. at the area i was in had been heavily sprayed but i knew i was exposed by drinking the local water and eating the food there. telling me. can you tell me a little bit about yourself and what is it like having sisters that need so much care. and still is. gradually should speak loud. and just the youngest and this is this. you are going to. use in c. . seventeen used. nothing wrong. with. making contingency. plans and.

now currently sleeping in. my images the straightest. says you can stay in. do something and it can soon it's. just. another thing. in the use of the feudal. system i have one younger brother and he's like you need that is none of those none have problems. he's grown up his whole life. having me as a sister so it's you know sometimes it's difficult.

time is a monochord musician. the son of a veteran who is exposed to agent orange he became totally blind at age twelve. his soldiers sister who is thirty five has been a better reason since soon after her.

son back. but. when my eyes went bad i was worried that i would have to give up music that was when a teacher in the history class at my music school. who taught us about beethoven. i learned that beethoven became deaf after the age of thirty. you know. it is here you know not just this was a great shock to him and he searched for a way to recover. the. sound of the teacher played the fits in for me

and spoke about fate. that there is a theme in the symphony of fates knocking at the door. it was the idea is that only by overcoming a harsh fate can one find true happiness. that he. doesn't even know what this is what i thought when i heard that story. comes knocking on everyone's door. that. if you want out with that what matters is how we respond to it. as i came into middle school and high school i joined the band and i love music very much. i love to sing i love i started playing trumpet. i really really wanted to play french horn but i don't have fingers on my left hand

so i was out and you play with your left hand so i was very sad but i went to trumpet and then i did marching band so for someone with one leg that was very difficult. you need physical strength to play the trumpet the. same way. he did and i was it hard for you. know. i have a lot of hot air. but music was freeing to me i know i met pierce and met friends some acceptance that i hadn't had before so we are common in that that we found some life through music. but i think so to. begin with after i began to play music. people began to look at me with respect and not with pity

because i mean. he. who.

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world. science technology innovation all the moves developments around russia we've got the future covered. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world

has been seeing from the streets and can attach. china operations are on the day.