[Islam-Online- Science, Ideas & Technology]

HANOI (AFP) - A U.S. scientist said he was more optimistic about the prospects for joint research into the impact of the U.S. chemical defoliant Agent Orange after a meeting here with Vietnamese Vice President Nguyen Thi Binh.

"We had a very good, almost hour-long meeting," said Arnold Schecter, a leading U.S. expert on dioxin, the cancer-causing chemical contained in the 15 million gallons of Agent Orange U.S. forces sprayed during the Vietnam War. "She said that it would be a good thing for the United States and Vietnam to work together on Agent Orange and work together to help the Vietnamese people."

Schecter has been pressing the authorities here to reach agreement with Washington on Agent Orange research before U.S. presidential elections in November sharply reduce President Bill Clinton's powers to raise money from Congress.

U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen and U.S. ambassador Pete Peterson have said Washington is ready to fund joint research, but the administration insists Hanoi must first show greater openness amid charges from some in Congress that it is exploiting the issue for propaganda purposes and as a means of getting its hands on U.S. tax dollars.

Schecter said the Vietnamese authorities had yet to grant him authorization to take samples from his current field trip to Vietnam for analysis at a World Health Organization laboratory in Germany. But he said he was now more optimistic that the permission would come through before his planned departure this Friday.

The University of Texas public health specialist left Hanoi for Ho Chi Minh City later Monday to start fieldwork at a suspected dioxin hotspot at a former U.S. air base at Bien Hoa just outside the city. During a research trip there last year, Schecter detected the highest levels of dioxin contamination found anywhere in Vietnam since 1973. Tests on 20 people whose diet consisted mainly of fish from a nearby river found 19 had abnormally high levels of dioxin.

Schecter wants to take 180 food, soil and sediment samples from the base to a World Health Organization laboratory in Germany for analysis, to try to assess how big the hotspot is and how much of a danger it poses. "They have got a serious problem ... We have got to see how large an area is contaminated and whether there are others," he said.

With the signing of last week's landmark trade agreement between Hanoi and Washington, the Agent Orange issue is now one of the main remaining obstacles to rapprochement between the two former foes. The two sides have also yet to sign science and technology and defense agreements