Public Health

Reporter Christie Aschwanden reports from Hanoi, Vietnam on initial meetings with victims to explore the effects Agent Orange sprayed by U.S. military over Vietnam during the 1960s and 1970s. Video shot by George Lerner, featuring reporter Christie Ashwanden.

In A Luoi Valley, Vietnam, Dioxin left from Agent Orange destroyed large swaths of ecosystem during the Vietnam War. While effects of Agent Orange remain pervasive, Phung Tuu Boi works to repair the forests by first addressing the needs of local tribes.

Botanist Phung Tuu Boi has been restoring the forests of Vietnam that were destroyed during the war. Christie and George shot a video of Phung touring the highlands of central Vietnam. The video, "Replanting Vietnam's War Zones," as well as a podcast, are both available on The New York Times' website.

To watch the video, click here.

In A Luoi Valley, Vietnam, Dioxin left from Agent Orange destroyed large swaths of ecosystem during the Vietnam War. While effects of Agent Orange remain pervasive, Phung Tuu Boi works to repair the forests by first addressing the needs of local tribes.

A LUOI VALLEY, Vietnam: Phung Tuu Boi reaches down to inspect one of the spiny shrubs lined up in a row before him. A few feet away, a cow grazes serenely in this emerald valley in the hills of central Vietnam.

LWALA, KENYA- In 2006, NewsChannel 5 reported about a Vanderbilt University medical student who was the first person from his Kenyan village to fly in an airplane.

People back home sold their livestock to pay for his ticket to the United States.

Now they need Milton Ochieng back to save his dying village.

Every student at Vanderbilt Medical School encounters AIDS. But only Ochieng has been orphaned by it.

First his mother, then his father - he learned of their deaths through email.

"I don't think anything really prepared me for it," Ochieng said.

Global health advocates are trying desperately to get your attention. They worry that statistics have lost their meaning. Who can wrap their mind around 6,500 Africans dying of AIDS every day, anyway? As the director of a global health advocacy firm in Washington told me the other day, "We need a story."

That's when I told her about Milton Ochieng'.

Christie Aschwanden visits the site where a U.S. B-52 was shot down over Hanoi, Vietnam in 1972. Video by George Lerner.

B-52 Crash site Hanoi

Interview with Dr. Rapoport about Agent Orange.

Examining the lasting effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam. Pediatrician Dr. Mark Rapoport discusses what should be done to help children affected by dioxin poisoning in Vietnam in what was a legacy of Agent Orange spraying during the Vietnam War by the U.S. military in the 1960s and 1970s.

Vietnam has 54 minority culture groups, and we encountered three of them at A Luoi--the Pako, Ta Oi and Catu.

Yesterday we visited the A Luoi valley in Vietnam's central highlands. Vietnam has 54 minority culture groups, and we encountered three of them at A Luoi--the Pako, Ta Oi and Catu. These groups have their own languages and customs. Because the growing season in the mountains is short, these families often struggle to make ends meet. Ours was the only car in the village, and residents here had fewer motorbikes than the urban dwellers we have met thus far.

During the 1972 Christmas air raids, Vietnamese soldiers in Hanoi shot down a B-52 bomber. The plane crashed in Hun Tiep Lake, where it has remained ever since.