The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene says it’s working with Frederick County health officials to investigate a possible cancer cluster near Fort Detrick, where workers dumped industrial chemicals and field-tested Agent Orange decades ago.

DHMH says it hopes to know by late September whether the cancer rate within a mile of Fort Detrick is significantly higher than in other parts of the county or state.

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Sympathy abounded and a lot of money was raised for Agent Orange victims during activities held across the country on August 8 in honour of the Day ‘For Vietnamese Agent Orange/dioxin Victims’.

The Hanoi Association of Victims of Agent Orange/dioxin (HAVA) and the Hanoi Radio & Television hosted a meeting entitled ‘Gratitude to Comrades-in-arms’ for AO victims, their families and international friends in the city.

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The Department of Veterans Affairs is set to start making payments to the first of thousands of disability claims to Vietnam veterans with Ischemic Heart disease, Parkinson’s disease and B-cell leukemia. Those illnesses are the newly associated diseases to exposure to defoliants, including Agent Orange, used in the Vietnam war.

A 60-day countdown to the day in October that VA can start compensating up to 86,000 veterans retroactively for these diseases will begin when VA publishes its final implementing regulation, which could be this week.

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A new social networking site called OneVietnam.org aims to help younger generations of Vietnamese Americans connect with one another through their culture and roots.

“We are using cutting edge technology, technology that young people are growing up with and are very familiar with social media,” said co-founder Uyen Nguyen, who graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in economics. “Our philosophy is that if you open up a dialogue, and if there is a connection with things in the community, there is to be a huge momentum that we can expect in the future of many different causes.”

To read the full blog post (external link), click here.

The timing of Mrs. Clinton’s remarks here, at the start of a two-day stop that includes an Asian regional security meeting, suggested that she wanted to make her point and move on. She emphasized that the United States would increase cooperation on trade and investment, and would do more to help people suffering lingering effects from Agent Orange, a chemical spray the American military used as a defoliant during the Vietnam War.

To read the full article (external link), click here.

First steps, first word, first laugh.  These are all milestones that parents look forward to for their child.  But for Thuy and her mother, those moments of celebration may never come.  Working at the Social Network for People with Disabilities (SNPWD), one of the initiatives of East Meets West, I witnessed the potential of investing in a community to address the needs of its people.

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Saigon feels like it was a lifetime ago. Though our service week has concluded and all has been said and done, I do not feel like I am a different person now than I was before. I was outside of my comfort zone for several days and I have seen sights and thought ideas that I never could have imagined, but I do not feel like I have changed. This entire experience was supposed to be about change, but I still feel very “the same.” I do not feel, with the knowledge and experiences gained from this past week, I would have done anything differently.

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In my last post, I talked about the efforts of one individual whose dedication to helping people with disabilities provided for those with the least in society.  However meaningful and impactful his work might have been, it certainly has yet to lead to the kind of game-changing outcomes that higher-capacity organizations can achieve.  In this piece, I discuss my experience with an organization where I spent the last week working (as part of my VIET2010 service week) and who is helping to reshape the way educational, health, and social services for the needy are delivered in Vietnam: the East Meets West Foundation.

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