Agent Orange lingers in Vietnam food - study

HANOI, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Vietnam War-era defoliant Agent Orange continues to contaminate livestock and fish eaten by Vietnamese decades after it was used, a study released on Monday showed.

A 2002 study in Bien Hoa city, about 32 km (20 miles) north of Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, showed residents and food had high levels of dioxin, the August issue of The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine said.

The report said about 95 percent of blood samples taken from 43 people in Bien Hoa "were found to have elevated TCDD levels", referring to the most toxic of the dioxins.

"Although the spraying ended over three decades ago, in certain areas of Vietnam food is clearly a present-day route of intake of dioxin from Agent Orange," the study said. snip

U.S. embassy officials in Hanoi did not immediately have a comment on the report.

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