Findings

Congress makes the following findings: (1) Between 1961 and 1971, approximately 19,000,000 gallons of 15 different herbicides were sprayed over the southern region of Vietnam by the United States Armed Forces, including 13,000,000 gallons of Agent Orange. (2) Between 1968 and 1971, a total of 6,500 spraying missions were carried out in an area of about 1,500,000 hectares, which represented about 12 percent of South Vietnam and portions of Laos and Cambodia. (3) Studies have found that tens of thousands of Americans were exposed to Agent Orange during the spraying operations. (4) Agent Orange exposure continues to negatively affect the lives of veterans of the United States Armed Forces, Vietnamese people, Vietnamese Americans, and their children, and has cut short, the lives of many victims with others living with disease, disabilities, and pain that is often untreated or unrecognized.