20 Million Gallons of Agent Orange

[polly7]

By Tom Hayden

Source: Tom Hayden.com

Monday, August 13, 2012

http://www.zcommunications.org/20-million-gallons-of-agent-orange-by-tom-hayden

August 10 marked the dark anniversary of the first US spraying of Vietnam with Agent Orange, containing the carcinogen dioxin, a defoliant that fell on millions of human beings, including American soldiers, causing a legacy of cancers and birth defects.

When I visited an Agent Orange conference in Hanoi in 2008, it was stunning to meet professionally attired, suitcase-carrying Vietnamese experts on Agent Orange who were themselves deformed by the effects of the carcinogen. With conspicuous dignity, they represented the cause of disability rights in their own country while demanding reparations for obvious crimes of war from the United States. For decades, the US has refused to recognize the health and environmental impacts of the spraying, while spending billions on health care and disability costs for former American soldiers harmed by the herbicide.

The US has since broke new ground by commencing a modest $43 million clean up of dioxin at one site near Da Nang, a fraction of the 5.5 million acres destroyed by the spraying during the war.

The Peace and Justice Resource Center asked Bob Mulholland, a Vietnam veteran who was immersed in Agent Orange during his service in Vietnam, to reflect on the continuing legacy. He wrote:

[marasinghe]

1. thanks for the post, polly.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/12/vietnam-weaponstechnology?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

".... Thirty years after the war, three million Vietnamese are still suffering from the effects of the poison, which can cause birth defects and cancer, has had a devastating impact on the environment and is now affecting a third generation of victims ...."

[polly7]

4. Yvw.

Thank you for the link. It's hard to imagine so many people are still suffering all these years later and probably fear every day seeing another child born with abnormalities. It must be horrible, and what a needless, insane thing to do.

[longship]

2. "Alex, How did John Boehner get his complexion?"

Isn't this Jeopardy? I phrased my response as a question.

Sorry.

[polly7]

3. Alex Trebek says 'no, he enlisted but got an honourable discharge for a

bad back'. Excellent try though, to explain the orange-man.

[dougolat]

5. Not just in Viet Nam, plenty used in the US

Spraying started under Operation Hades in 1962, discontinued in 1970; but for another decade it was used in local roadside weed control and aerially by the Forest Service and BLM, mostly to help pines compete against leafy trees.
That same year the EPA canceled use around food crops, but Dow and agg interests fought it in court for eight years, continuing it's use and lying about it's safety.
They played games about differences between 2,4,-D 2,4,5,-T
and 2,4,5,-TP and never owned up to the dioxin contamination.
In 1978 they "won" by a Congressional law demanding an impossible standard of laboratory proof, dismissing three decades of evidence.
Continued use was met with roadblocks, armed standoffs, and some helicopter destruction.
Books from that time include :
Thomas Whiteside "Withering Rain"
Billee Shoecraft "Sue The Bastards"
Carol Van Strum "A Bitter Fog"
Lives lost, farms and orchards ruined, still poisoned today, and all AFTER the Viet Nam use was banned.