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Associated PressHANOI, Vietnam (AP) — The United States government has doubled its funding for dealing with the environmental and health consequences of its wartime use in Vietnam of the toxic herbicide Agent Orange, the embassy said Friday.
President Barack Obama recently signed a bill increasing the funding from $3 million to $6 million, embassy officials said. Most of the money is being used in Danang, where U.S. troops used to mix and store Agent Orange at an Air Force base before loading it onto planes.
During the Vietnam war, which ended in 1975, the U.S. sprayed more than 20 million gallons (75 million liters) of Agent Orange and other herbicides across the country to strip Vietnamese guerrillas of ground cover and kill their crops.
Agent Orange contains dioxin, a highly toxic substance that remains in soil and sediment for years and poses a serious health threat to anyone who touches it.
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