The dirt road leading to Fanta's village, Vang Nhang, was nearly impossible to drive over, let alone trek by foot, during the monsoon months. Today, at two years old, the toddler lives with his parents in the remote Vang Nhang village in the mountainous region of Savannakhet in southeastern Laos. This part of the Lao hinterlands is underdeveloped and isolated; its people among the poorest and sickest in the country.
Bomb craters and unexploded ordnance (UXO) limit the arable farmland. For those engaged in subsistence cultivation, the land is a source of livelihood. For a child with a debilitating disease, living far from access to modern amenities that many take for granted elsewhere becomes a matter of life and death.
Fanta’s parents first noticed something peculiar in his left eye when he was less than a year old: that his pupil was white, rather than black, as it should be. A local clinic gave him drops believing it was merely an infection. When his condition worsened, his parents drained their savings to go to a provincial hospital in Savannakhet, which then referred them to Vientiane, the Lao capital city. Months passed without answers. Finally, back in Savannakhet, Fanta was diagnosed with retinoblastoma.
The journey for treatment demanded a long, costly absence from home that would jeopardize the family’s livelihood. Accessing basic healthcare in Laos—with its complex administrative processes—already posed a formidable challenge, especially for those with limited linguistic skills and medical literacy. Many of Laos’ sickest belong to highland non-Lao ethnic minorities. All this, in an unfamiliar setting, with little guidance, would leave any parent feeling daunted and uncertain about what best course of action to take for their child.
With logistical and financial support from our organization, War Legacies Project (WLP), Fanta received the care he so desperately needed. After six months of chemotherapy that required twelve-hour bus trips once a month to Vientiane Children's Hospital, Fanta was fitted with a prosthetic eye. He was cancer free in late December 2024.
Just a few weeks later, things changed when President Donald Trump issued an executive order indefinitely ending USAID. The order was the first in a series that froze funding that had already been allocated for life-saving programs in Laos and elsewhere in the world. The consequences extend far beyond individual cases like Fanta’s, threatening the viability of programs, especially those providing critical health interventions, that have only begun addressing the country’s dire health disparities ensuing from nearly ten years of wartime bombing and chemical spraying.
One USAID program was beginning to address the long-overlooked human health impacts of Agent Orange spraying in Laos. Historically, post-war U.S. assistance in Laos focused on the clearance of UXO and other explosive remnants of war. This breakthrough came after years of advocacy by WLP, alongside champions like former Senator Patrick Leahy and his staffer, Tim Rieser. Unlike neighboring Vietnam, which has received sustained U.S. assistance for Agent Orange survivors, Laos has been largely ignored and forgotten.
Our collective efforts helped secure critical language in the 2022 fiscal year Foreign Appropriations bill, designating up to $1.5 million for programs “to assist persons with severe physical mobility, cognitive, or developmental disabilities in areas sprayed with Agent Orange.” Similar provisions were included in subsequent appropriation bills, paving the way for continued critical funding for Laos.
In June 2024, the allocation of these funds, dating back to our initial work with then-Senator Leahy, finally materialized when USAID expanded its Okard program. The program was a partnership with the Lao government and civil society organizations to improve rehabilitation services and vocational support for persons with disabilities in areas where Agent Orange was sprayed.
This expansion coincided with the conclusion of our Laos Agent Orange Survey—the first systematic study undertaken to document the public health impact of chemical exposure in Laos. The findings were devastating: in just three districts, our survey identified 769 people with disabilities consistent with potential Agent Orange exposure, alongside 309 others suffering from congenital conditions such as epilepsy and cerebral palsy.
For the first time since the war ended in Laos, there was hope. Survivors in some of the sprayed districts of Laos would finally receive a level of recognition and support akin to their Vietnamese counterparts. Okard’s expansion meant that many of those identified in WLP’s survey could access rehabilitation and other essential services. The project would have trained medical professionals and physical therapists at the Sepone district hospital and other peripatetic healthcare providers via mobile clinics. This would have reduced travel times for treatment by up to 12 hours, relieving both logistical and financial burdens for affected families like Fanta’s.
But this hope was short-lived, a momentary reprieve. Under the new administration, these programs—lifelines for some of Laos’ most vulnerable populations—did not survive, despite a recent Supreme Court ruling. As of this blog’s publication, Okard has been officially terminated.
The abrogation of global aid is not just a bureaucratic shift; it is a moral failure on the part of the new administration whose actions are not answerable to reality. It is effectively undoing years of broadened cooperation founded on bipartisan commitment to post-war recovery in southeast Asia. Laos, a country that has also borne the brunt of U.S. military campaigns, continues to grapple with their aftermath. The responsibility to provide assistance should not be contingent on changing political tides nor beholden to preferred ideological positions.
The 13 million tons of explosive remnants of war that littered the Lao, Vietnamese, and Cambodian countryside have resulted in nearly 200,000 casualties since 1975. Only about one percent of Laos has been cleared.
Without immediate action, families like Fanta’s will face impossible choices—between survival and seeking medical care, between hope and despair. A generation of children with birth defects and disabilities linked to America's chemicals will be without the critical support they need. Wheelchairs and other adaptive equipment will no longer be available once the existing supply is exhausted. Currently, over 30 children on our list are awaiting cleft lip and/or cleft palate surgery and 20 more require club foot corrective surgery.
The U.S. has the means to make a difference and respond with magnanimity; the question is whether the current leadership has the will.
Since 1989, the U.S. has spent just over $1.5 billion in addressing UXO, Agent Orange, and war-related disabilities in southeast Asia. To put that in perspective, in today’s dollars, that is roughly the cost of six days of fighting during the Vietnam War. Nonetheless, these meager gains can vanish overnight. Worse, the abrupt withdrawal of aid sends a dangerous message to allies and adversaries alike: that America’s word cannot be trusted and that its leadership is feckless and, worse, for sale.
If foreign aid is not reinstated immediately, we risk undoing decades of progress. Sadly it might already be too late.
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