JAMES J. GIBBONS recently fathered a child born with a cleft palate. Gibbons served in areas of Vietnam sprayed with an herbicide containing the lethal chemical dioxin. Searching for an explanation and aid money for his child, Gibbons appealed to the Army, with no success. As a last resort he wrote his Congressman, "I am desperate and don't know where else to turn."

Gibbons's dilemma is shared by many Vietnamese and American citizens who have been exposed to the deadly dioxin. Government agencies continue to allow its widespread use in a herbicide, despite scientific evidence of the chemical's hazards. The herbicide produced appalling results in Vietnam, where it was used as a weapon of war. And the U.S. government now allows herbicide users to wield this same weapon within our boundaries.

In countless laboratory experiments, dioxin has killed animals when applied in dosages as low as five parts per trillion. Scientists estimate that one medicine dropper of dioxin could kill 1200 people (assuming, as scientists routinely do, that scientists are more sensitive than laboratory animals).

Vietnam served as the first laboratory for testing the United States's latest form of chemical warfare, a dioxin-based herbicide known as Agent Orange. It ranks with napalm as one of the most gruesome destroyers of the Vietnamese land and people. The U.S. Army sprayed Agent Orange from 1962 to 1971 to destroy the protective cover of National Liberation Front bases, and to destroy the crops that were its food supply.

The U.S. strategy, however, exceeded even the Army planners' cool calculations. Agent Orange not only blighted forests and crops, it also insured that nothing will grow in those areas for generations to come. After the spraying ceased, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) conducted an investigation of the environmental and human costs of Agent Orange. NAS found that the Army sprayed more than 10 per cent of the inland forests, 36 per cent of the mangrove forests, and 3 per cent of cultivated land with Agent Orange. The Academy estimates that 11. 25 million gallons of Agent Orange drifted over Vietnam--at least 100 kilograms of pure dioxin. This is well over the dosage scientists believe could kill human beings. Even the conservative Academy concluded that the herbicide changed the ecosystem of the forests, spreading diseases and disease-carriers such as rats and mosquitoes. Other studies have found very high levels of dioxin in the wildlife and fish of the area, contaminating food sources for many Vietnamese.

Beyond the unquestioned environmental damage lies the less easily proved, but more horrifying, damage to the people of Vietnam. Although long-term scientific studies of Agent Orange's effect on Vietnam's population are still underway, Vietnamese doctors have reported significant increases in liver tumors, miscarriages and deformed children--especially those born with cleft palates, a birth defect observed with lab animals. Professor Ton That Tung, director of the Viet Duc hospital in Hanoi, published papers documenting a high incidence of chromosome damage among people in sprayed areas.

In this case, however, the Vietnamese were not the only guinea pigs in the army's chemical warfare experiments. Agent Orange has affected the Vietnam veterans who sprayed or were stationed near sprayed areas. They have since suffered many of the same symptoms as the Vietnamese. Veterans describe eating in sprayed areas, and climbing through jungles dripping with the herbicide. Their children have the same birth defects as the Vietnamese children and the veterans themselves complained of recurring dizziness and nausea, weight loss and skin disease--other common symptoms of dioxin poisoning.

Results of experiments conducted by American scientists corroborate the herbicide's human effects. The experiments have produced death, cancer, liver tumors, birth defects, nervous disorders, loss of sexual drive, and spontaneous abortions in laboratory. While scientists agree that the evidence is not yet conclusive, one study seems to bear out claims that dioxin is harmful to human beings. A scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Dr. James Allen, conducted a series of tests on rhesus monkeys, the animal most like humans in chemical sensitivity. He found that dioxin administered over a period of months in dosages as low as 550 parts per trillion, caused cancer and eventual death. Allen fed dioxin to monkeys in amounts comparable to those consumed by people eating contaminated fish, vegetables or wildlife. After six months, Allen bred the monkeys; five of the eight conceived, and four aborted in the second month or pregnancy. At the end of his study, five of the eight monkeys died because the dioxin killed their red and white cells. Surviving monkeys evidenced massive hemoragghing and extremely low red and white blood cell count.

These and other scientists findings indicate that dioxin may accumilate in the body. Even if a person is exposed to a very low dosage of dioxin, repeated exposures have the same effect as one massive dose. Some scientists also speculate that dioxin may build up in the body fat producing toxic effects when the fat is broken down by weight loss. Accumulation would explain the characteristic symptoms of dioxin that occur years after a veteran served in a sprayed area.

Although the number of veterans with symptoms paralleling lab results is increasing, the Army and the Veterans' Administration (VA refuse to accept responsibility for the health problems of the veterans and their children. The V.A., which has received over 500 dioxin inquiries, still maintains that no one has proved cancer originated in Vietnam or that a male veteran exposed to Agent Orange could transfer genetic abnormalities to his child.

The complaints of the Vietnam veterans have found a more receptive audience in Congress and the press. Several news articles and television documentaries have alerted other vets and some Congressmen. The heat is on the V.A. This April, the House Committee on Veterans Affairs viewed a television documentary produced in Chicago, where local veterans are particularly well-informed about Agent Orange. Fourteen Congressmen were sufficiently shocked to demand a report from the V.A. and the General Accounting Office. The Committee tentatively plans to hold hearings on Agent Orange this fall, but the V.A. still refuses even to hear the complaints of affected veterans.

The somber roster of people suffering the effects of Agent Orange has not deterred the U.S. Department of Agriculture from using a weakened form of Agent Orange, 2,4,5-T, to spray forests, rangelands and pastures in the United States. The Pacific Northwest bears the brunt of the spraying, but Wisconsin, Minnesota, West Virginia and other heavily forested states endure the dousings as well.

Figures published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) show the US Forestry Service sprayed over five million pounds of 2,4,5-T over the U.S. in 1976. It defends the use of this herbicide on the grounds that it defoliates selectively, killing hardwoods without harming softwoods, which accounts for the bulk of the lumber produced in the U.S. The Forestry Service also uses the herbicide to clear land for telephone lines, railroads, and highways, as well as to clear weeds from rice fields.

Citizen groups in sprayed areas are organizing, motivated by evidence that spray drift causes severe environmental and health damage.

Like the Vietnam veterans, the people who live near the sprayed areas have begun to experience the ill-effects of the dioxin. Crop-dusters try to confine spraying to forested areas with sparse populations, but the herbicide wafts toward more populated areas. Studies conducted by the Forestry Service document the phenomenon of "spray drift": the herbicide spreads to outlying areas coating them in a fine mist of chemicals. The Service found that dioxin floats into streams, where it harms fish. The same study documented a loss of vegetation adversely affecting the fishfood supply.