the three million Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange (ao) have received a severe judicial defeat. us district judge Jack B Weinstein dismissed their case in Brooklyn, New York, on March 10, 2005 saying that ao and similar herbicides cannot be considered poisons banned under international rules of war. Weinstein also ruled that the plaintiffs had failed to prove that ao is the cause of their illnesses. The lawsuit was filed in January 2004; the first attempt by Vietnamese victims to seek compensation from 37 us-based manufacturers of ao defoliant (see Down To Earth,