A lawsuit against US defoliant makers is expected to go ahead, as the Seoul District Court agreed Monday to accept study results on damage caused by constituent chemicals as evidence. Some 17,200 defoliant victims in Korea had sued manufacturers Monsanto and Dow Chemical for damages totaling W5trillion. The civil department of the court announced that it will adopt the report titled "A Comparison Analysis on Chemical Dioxin Levels of the Liver Serum of Soldiers of the Vietnam War and Soldiers who Did Not Participate," which Baek Byeong-yop, the counsel for the plaintiffs, submitted to the justice as evidence.

According to the report, the dioxin level of Vietnam War soldiers was two to three times higher than that of non-Vietnam War soldiers. At the request of professor Kim Jeong-soon of the Graduate School of Public Health at Seoul National University, the research was done by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which surveyed 740 soldiers, some of whom participated in the Vietnam War for six months.

The court said it will use the report as evidence after hearing the opinion of the US defoliant manufacturers; Monsanto Corporation and Dow Chemical. Some 17,200 people including Na Il-joo and other Vietnam War soldiers, who have suffered side effects from the use of defoliants, had filed a lawsuit against Monsanto and Dow Chemical, for damages, W5.161 trillion (W300 million per person), with the Seoul District Court in October, 1999.

(Lee Myeong-jin, mjlee@chosun.com )