Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong | The Vietnamese doctor honoured by the Magsaysay

Along with the many horrors of the Vietnam War, there has been a particularly noxious one: the lingering effects of the notorious herbicide Agent Orange, which has caused severe deformity, miscarriages, cancer and other diseases in soliders of the war as well as Vietnamese civilians. Civil society organisations in Vietnam have long fought to bring justice for those victimised by Agent Orange.

This year, among the honorees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award is Dr. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, a respected Vietnamese obstretrician who has strived to right the wrongs of the Vietnamese war and advocate for those impacted by Agent Orange.

The Vietnam war

The Vietnam war was fought between communist North Vietnam and Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and its allies, the most important one being the United States. The Vietnam war lasted from 1955 to 1975 and resulted in the deaths of three million people, including civillians as well as fighters on both sides of the conflict. Vietnamese officials estimated that two out of every three deaths was that of a civilian. When troops withdrew in 1975, however, the ordeals of war were far from over.

Agent Orange, a defoilant, was used during the war to clear dense forests along Vietnam’s border with Laos and Cambodia, near waterways, and in areas near Saigon. The aim was to prevent the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong from using the forests to hide their tracks and supplies.

Agent Orange comprised of the highly toxic tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDD). It was only one of several other herbicides, such as Agents White, Green, Blue, Purple and Pink, used in the war; these were named after the colour-coding on the barrels which stored them. Between 1962 and 1971, more than 10 million gallons of defoliant were sprayed from the air in Vietnam by American planes. Agent Orange was effective in clearing large patches on land, killing plants within days. But the chemical also leached into water and from there crawled up through the food chain- through fish and ducks to people who consumed them.

It affected soldiers in the war— both foreign and Vietnamese, and lingered in the environment. The impacts have been seen over four generations, in including children— half a century later, the effects can still be seen in neworn babies. The chemical has caused an increase in miscarriages, skin diseases, cancers, birth defects, and severe congenital malformations.

Estimates say that 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to the toxin. Medical researchers from Vietnam and other countries continue to study and evolve mechanisms to counter the impacts of the noxious Agent Orange.

Nguyen’s fight

Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong was born in 1944. She grew up in the war years, and became a doctor just as the war had reached its peak.

In 1968, as an intern, she delivered a severely malformed baby for the first time. She recalled: “It was horrible for me, I was nauseous, vomiting and shaking. And how was the scared young mother? She was in shock when she saw her baby. Since then, every day or two, I have witnessed such birth defects and mother’s sufferings. But, for many years, I didn’t know what caused these tragic events,.”

The quest for the cause of these deformities led Dr. Phuong to Agent Orange, and she became engaged in activism to help others afflicted by it.

Adding to the body of research about the impact herbicides, Dr. Phuong and her colleagues published research which established that people in areas sprayed with Agent Orange suffered from three times as many birth defects as in other places. Dr. Phuong joined the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA), a Hanoi-based non profit organisation established in 2004, comprising victims and volunteers seeking to offer help to affected individuals.

Dr. Phuong also engaged in advocacy at the international level, with organisations like the American Public Health Association. She has also supported legal action seeking compensation from herbicide manufacturers for the damage done by Agent Orange.

Besides this, Dr. Phuong has been a respected obstretician in her country, having been the former director of Tu Du Hospital, Vietnam’s largest obstetric hospital. She pioneered in vitro fertilization in Vietnam, earning the moniker “Dr. Fairy” from grateful parents. As a member of the National Assembly, Dr. Phuong has pushed for legislation on family planning and reproductive health.

In her citation, the board of trustees noted that it “honors not only a woman and physician of extraordinary dedication and talent, but also the spirit of public service and the message of hope she continues to propagate among her people.”

“She offers proof that it can never be too late to right the wrongs of war, and gain justice and relief for its hapless victims,” it adds.

What is the Ramon Magsaysay Award?

The Ramon Magsaysay Award, considered one of Asia’s top honours, is awarded in recognition of “greatness of spirit shown in selfless service to the peoples of Asia.”

The award was instituted by the trustees of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund in 1957 in honour of the late President of the Philippines Ramon Magsaysay. It was first awarded in 1958. Till 2008, it was awarded in six categories: government service, public service, community leadership, peace and international understanding; emergent leadership and journalism, literature, and creative communication arts. Except for emergent leadership, all the other categories have now been discontinued.

To date, 322 people and 26 organisations hailing from 22 Asian nations have been awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

Several doctors have received the top honour for their work, including India’s Dr Ravi Kannan, the Director of the Cachar Cancer Hospital and Research Center (CCHRC) in Assam, Japanese opthalmologist Taddoshi Hattori, who pioneered cost-effective eye treatment in Vietnam, and Psychiatrist Sotheara Chhim, the executive director of Cambodia’s Transcultural Psychosocial Organization, which tackled widespread mental health issues following the horrors of the Khmer Rouge.

The other awardees this year are noted Japanese filmmaker and co-founder of Ghibli studios Hayao Miyazaki, Bhutan’s Phuntsho Karma, a former Buddhist monk, scholar and social worker; Indonesia’s Farhan Farwiza, the conservationist-founder of Yayasan Hutan Alam dan Lingkungan Aceh (HAkA), dedicated to preserving the Leuser ecosystem; and the Rural Doctors Movement from Thailand.

The 2024 awardees will be honoured in a ceremony in Manila this November.