UN Intergovernmental Science-Policy Panel on Chemicals, Waste and Pollution (International) 12/09/2026
Updated: Sep 21
TO: isp-cwp@un.org
Dear Dr Goverse and the ISP-CWP Interim Secretariat,
Will the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Panel on Chemicals, Waste and Pollution consider the intergenerational human-health effects of TCDD/dioxin exposure arising from the use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War within its scientific assessment programme?
I am writing directly to the ISP-CWP because I am the daughter of an Australian Vietnam veteran who served as an Australian Army Plant Operator in Vietnam during 1969–70, including in Phuoc Tuy Province. I identify as an Agent Orange child.
I have spent considerable time tracing this issue through Australian Government records, scientific research, United Nations reports and international processes. I am asking the Panel to consider whether the continuing scientific and policy gap concerning the children and subsequent generations of exposed Vietnam veterans is an appropriate subject for international scientific assessment.
There are several reasons I believe this warrants the Panel’s attention.
In 2014, the Australian Government’s Vietnam Veterans Family Study collected physical-health information concerning veterans’ sons and daughters. However, the principal published Family Study findings focused heavily on mental-health and social outcomes. Physical-health conditions were collected in the underlying material, including Appendix 7, yet the intergenerational physical-health question was not comprehensively resolved through the final published study.
More recent Australian research has continued to identify relationships between veterans’ health and the health of their children.
There is also a much longer history surrounding scientific uncertainty over Agent Orange and its contaminant 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD).
The Australian Department of Veterans’ Affairs itself substantially updated its official historical account of Agent Orange and other chemicals used during the Vietnam War in June 2026.
The DVA account now acknowledges the use and exposure of Australian troops to herbicides and insecticides, the contamination of Agent Orange with dioxin, concerns about effects on veterans and their children, and the history of controversy surrounding the scientific evidence.
Importantly, DVA also records that during Australia’s 1984–85 Royal Commission into the effects of Agent Orange, the Australian Government and Monsanto contributed funding to the defence of the chemical companies, while the veterans eventually exhausted the funds available to them.
This history must also be considered alongside evidence concerning the deliberate creation or amplification of scientific uncertainty.
In 2023, Marcos Orellana and Professor Bethanie Carney Almroth and their co-authors examined the problem of manufactured scientific uncertainty in the context of chemicals and pollution and the establishment of an international science-policy panel. Their work warns of the danger posed when scientific uncertainty is exploited or manufactured by commercial or other interests to delay protective action.
The historical record surrounding TCDD makes that issue particularly important.
Documents and historical evidence identify corporate knowledge and concern about TCDD toxicity going back decades, including evidence predating and overlapping the large-scale use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.
The United States civil RICO litigation concerning the tobacco industry later produced findings concerning systematic efforts to distort and undermine scientific evidence. The relevance for my correspondence is not that tobacco and Agent Orange are the same issue, but that the documented techniques used to manufacture scientific uncertainty provide an established framework against which historical chemical-industry conduct can be examined.
There is now also substantial international attention to the broader issue of toxic remnants of war, pollution, corporate responsibility and the rights of people affected by toxic exposure.
Former UN Special Rapporteur on toxics and human rights Dr Marcos Orellana has addressed toxic exposure, misinformation and manipulation of scientific evidence in his work. His reports provide an important human-rights context for examining harms that can persist long after the original exposure or conflict has ended.
For children of Vietnam veterans, this is not simply a historical veterans’ issue. The underlying question is whether exposure to a highly persistent and toxic contaminant associated with chemical warfare has produced health consequences extending beyond the exposed generation — and whether decades of scientific uncertainty have prevented that question from being properly answered.
Australia is not the only country confronting questions concerning the descendants of Vietnam veterans. Veterans and families in the United States, New Zealand and elsewhere have raised related concerns, while Vietnam continues to experience the environmental and human consequences associated with dioxin contamination.
That makes this an inherently international scientific question.
I therefore respectfully ask:
1. Does intergenerational human-health harm associated with TCDD/dioxin fall within the scientific mandate of the ISP-CWP?
2. Could Agent Orange/TCDD and its potential intergenerational effects be considered as a topic for a future ISP-CWP assessment or work programme?
3. What process should affected families, researchers and civil-society participants use to formally submit scientific evidence or propose this issue for consideration by the Panel?
4. Could the Panel examine not only the available scientific evidence, but also the effect that manufactured scientific uncertainty, conflicts of interest and historical industry influence may have had on the development of the evidence base?
I have attached my father’s Australian military service record and my birth certificate to establish my direct relationship to an Australian Vietnam veteran and the basis on which I am raising this matter.
I have also included below links to three evidence-based articles I have prepared. They bring together the relevant Australian Government, United Nations, scientific and historical source material so that the underlying primary sources can be followed directly.
Sources and supporting documentation
I am not asking the ISP-CWP to accept my personal conclusion about causation.
I am asking whether the international scientific body specifically established to address chemicals, waste and pollution will examine a question that affected families have been asking for more than half a century.
The exposure occurred during war. The contaminant was TCDD/dioxin. The potentially affected population now extends across generations and national borders.
I would be grateful for advice on how this evidence can be formally placed before the Panel and whether this subject can be considered within its future scientific work.
Warm Agent Orange Burns regards,
Danielle Stevens
Geneva AP1 Article 77
We will always be a child of a Vietnam Veteran
A formal complaint has been lodged with the International Criminal Court for Crimes against Humanity. The final submission was the 1st of July 2025.
This is a fantastic initiative and resource. From someone who’s father served in Vietnam and has lived with life long defects associated with dad’s exposure to the toxic chemical cocktail, I want to sincerely thank you. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help the cause here in Australia.