The Red Cross estimates that roughly three million Vietnamese people have been affected by Agent Orange's dioxin contamination, including more than 150,000 children born with serious birth defects, some in families who had no direct exposure to the chemical themselves

The Red Cross estimates that roughly three million Vietnamese people have been affected by Agent Orange's dioxin contamination, including more than 150,000 children born with serious birth defects, some in families who had no direct exposure to the chemical themselves

Ducks turned out to be the problem. In 2003 a team led by Arnold Schecter of the University of Texas School of Public Health sampled food animals around Bien Hoa City, about 35 kilometres from Ho Chi Minh City. They measured TCDD, the dioxin that contaminated Agent Orange, at up to 343 parts per trillion in duck tissue. A normal background reading sits below 0.1. Free-range chickens carried it. So did fish, and one unlucky toad. None of those an…