Australia cancer deaths linked to Agent Orange

Australia cancer deaths linked to Agent Orange

Town's rate 10 times state average, says researcher
· Call for inquiry into claims of secret testing in 1960s
Barbara McMahon in Sydney The Guardian, Monday May 19 2008 Article historyAbout this articleClose This article appeared in the Guardian on Monday May 19 2008 on p16 of the International section. It was last updated at 10:04 on May 20 2008. Claims by a leading researcher that cancer deaths in a small town in Queensland, Australia, are 10 times higher than the state average owing to the secret testing of Agent Orange there more than 40 years ago are to be investigated by the authorities.

Australian military scientists sprayed the toxic herbicide on rainforest near Innisfail during defoliant testing in the early years of the Vietnam war, it is alleged. The jungle began dying and has never recovered, according to local people.

The site is near a river which supplies water for the town in the far north of the country and researchers believe the spraying may be responsible for cancer rates in the area being 10 times the state average and four times the national average.

The Innisfail claims were made by the researcher Jean Williams, who has been awarded the Order of Australia medal for her work on the effects of chemicals on Vietnam war veterans. She said she found reports of the secret tests in Australian War Memorial museum archives.

"These tests carried out between 1964 and 1966 were the first tests of Agent Orange," she told Fairfax Media.

Williams said one of the files on the testing was marked "considered sensitive" and showed that the chemicals 2,4-D, Diquat, Tordon and dimethylsulphoxide had been sprayed on the rainforest.

"It was considered sensitive because they were mixing together all the bad chemicals, which just made them worse," she said. "Those chemicals stay in the soil for years and every time there is a storm they are stirred up and go into the water supply."

Williams also claimed that a file which could prove that wider testing took place had gone missing from the archives.

A former soldier, Ted Bosworth, has backed up the claims, saying two scientists he drove to the site in the 1960s were interested in the effect the chemical cocktail had on rubber vine, which is also found in Vietnam.

"They sprayed the trees by hand and then in the next couple of weeks I took them back up and they put ladders up against the trees and took photos of them as the foliage was dying," he said. "They called it some other funny name - I hadn't heard of Agent Orange then."

Agent Orange was sprayed by the Australian and the US military during the Vietnam war to defoliate jungle where North Vietnamese troops were positioned. The cocktail of toxic chemicals in Agent Orange has been linked to cancer, birth defects and other health problems.

Yesterday the local mayor, Bill Shannon, called on the Australian Defence Force to investigate Williams's claims. He said the half-acre site remains deforested, and though the town's water supply showed no evidence of the chemicals, local people had long been concerned about cancer rates in the area. "I'd like to know exactly what did happen and the extent of it. We don't want a cover-up," he said.

Queensland's premier, Anna Bligh, said she was disturbed by the claims. "Any concerns these residents have can and will be investigated thoroughly," she said in Brisbane yesterday.

However, the Queensland health department said that the incidence of cancer in Innisfail is no higher than in other parts of the state.

· This article was amended on Tuesday May 20 2008. Queensland's premier is Anna Bligh, not Blyth. This has been corrected.

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