Agent Orange - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Agent Orange. Some of those products were brought to market as herbicides. The British were the first to employ herbicides and defoliants to destroy the crops, bushes, and trees of communist insurgents in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency. These operations laid the groundwork for the subsequent use of Agent Orange and other defoliant formulations by the US.
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The Secret Agent Summary
In August of that year, the South Vietnamese Air Force conducted herbicide operations with American help. But Diem's request launched a policy debate in the White House and the State and Defense Departments.
In November 1. 96. President. John F. Kennedy authorized the start of Operation Ranch Hand, the codename for the U. S. Air Force's herbicide program in Vietnam. Agent Orange was manufactured for the U. S. Department of Defense primarily by Monsanto Corporation and Dow Chemical.
In some areas, TCDD concentrations in soil and water were hundreds of times greater than the levels considered safe by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency. In that same year, the First Committee of the General Assembly decided to send the text of the draft convention to the General Assembly, which adopted Resolution 3. December 1. 0, 1.
Convention attached as an annex thereto. The convention, namely the Environmental Modification Convention, was opened for signature and ratification on May 1.
October 5, 1. 97. The convention prohibits the military or other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long- lasting or severe effects. Many states do not regard this as a complete ban on the use of herbicides and defoliants in warfare but it does require case- by- case consideration. This clause has yet to be revised. Two primary threads of the controversy now relate to toxicity of the agent or potential long- term health effects and to additional potential exposure locations outside of the war- zone. Chemical description and toxicology. Diane Courtney and others found 2,4,5- T could cause birth defects and stillbirths in mice.
In one such study, from Hamburg, Germany, the risk of cancer mortality increased by 1. T- producing section of a Hamburg manufacturing plant. However, prior to Operation Ranch Hand (1. At the time, precautions were not taken against this unintended side reaction, which also caused the Seveso disaster in Italy in 1. The employment of 2,4,5- T by the military rapidly ended, according to the American Cancer Society, following the convincing results of a study in 1.
T could cause birth defects in lab animals. It has been associated with increased neoplasms in every animal bioassay reported in the scientific literature. The IOM found an association between dioxin exposure and diabetes. These included 2,4- D (2,4- dichlorophenoxyacetic acid), 2,4,5- T (coded LN- 1.
MCPA (2- methyl- 4- chlorophenoxyacetic acid, 1. B and 1. 41. 4A, recoded LN- 8 and LN- 3. LN- 3. 3). Department of the Army contracted the University of Chicago to study the effects of 2,4- D and 2,4,5- T on cereal grains (including rice) and broadleaf crops. From these studies arose the concept of using aerial applications of herbicides to destroy enemy crops to disrupt their food supply. In early 1. 94. 5, the U. S. Army ran tests of various 2,4- D and 2,4,5- T mixtures at the Bushnell Army Airfield in Florida, which is now listed as a Formerly Used Defense Site (FUDS).
In the years after the war, the U. S. The chemicals involved were 2,4- D, 2,4,5- T, and endothall (3,6- endoxohexahydrophthalic acid). During 1. 95. 2/5. T over the Waturi peninsula in Kenya to assess the value of defoliants in the eradication of tsetse fly. Later, the Americans used Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. During the Malayan Emergency, Britain was the first nation to employ the use of herbicides and defoliants to destroy bushes, trees, and vegetation to deprive insurgents of cover and targeting food crops as part of a starvation campaign in the early 1. A detailed account of how the British experimented with the spraying of herbicides was written by two scientists, E.
K. Woodford of Agricultural Research Council's Unit of Experimental Agronomy and H. G. H. Kearns of the University of Bristol.
Secretary of State. Dean Rusk advised President. John F. Kennedy that the British had established a precedent for warfare with herbicides in Malaya. Spray runs were also conducted from trucks, boats, and backpack sprayers. Air Force records show at least 6,5. Operation Ranch Hand.
Department of Agriculture application rate for domestic use. Environmental Protection Agency. Overall, more than 2.
South Vietnam's forests were sprayed at least once over a nine- year period. They later discovered nearly all of the food they had been destroying was not being produced for guerrillas; it was, in reality, only being grown to support the local civilian population. For example, in Quang Ngai province, 8. This contributed to widespread famine, leaving hundreds of thousands of people malnourished or starving. In 1. 96. 5, 4. 2 percent of all herbicide spraying was dedicated to food crops.
The first official acknowledgement of the programs came from the State Department in March 1. As early as 1. 96. United Nations charging that the U. S. A weapon, by definition, is any device used to injure, defeat, or destroy living beings, structures, or systems, and Agent Orange did not qualify under that definition. It also argued that if the U.
S. The affected residents are living in substandard conditions with many genetic diseases. In 2. 00. 6 Anh Duc Ngo and colleagues, of the University of Texas Health Science Center, published a meta- analysis that exposed a large amount of heterogeneity (different findings) between studies, a finding consistent with a lack of consensus on the issue. With a casual relationship near the threshold of statistical significance in still- births, cleft palate, and neural tube defects, with spina bifida being the most statistically significant defect. Extensive testing for dioxin contamination has been conducted at the former U. S. Some of the soil and sediment on the bases have extremely high levels of dioxin requiring remediation. The Da Nang Airbase has dioxin contamination up to 3. The persistent nature of dioxins, erosion caused by loss of tree cover and loss of seedling forest stock meant that reforestation was difficult (or impossible) in many areas.
Animal- species diversity was also impacted; in one study a Harvard biologist found 2. The movement of dioxins through the food web has resulted in bioconcentration and biomagnification. The urban population in South Vietnam nearly tripled, growing from 2. The rapid flow of people led to a fast- paced and uncontrolled urbanization; an estimated 1. Saigon slums. With the exception of liver cancer, these are the same conditions the U. S. Veterans Administration has determined may be associated with exposure to Agent Orange/dioxin, and are on the list of conditions eligible for compensation and treatment.
Members of the Army Chemical Corps, who stored and mixed herbicides and defoliated the perimeters of military bases, and mechanics who worked on the helicopters and planes, are also thought to have had some of the heaviest exposures. However, this same group of individuals has not shown remarkably higher incidences of the associated diseases, leading to disagreement within certain circles of just how much effect the defoliants actually have on the health of those exposed. Others with potentially heavy exposures included members of U. S. Army Special Forces units who defoliated remote campsites, and members of U.
S. Navy river units who cleared base perimeters. Veterans began to file claims in 1.
Department of Veterans Affairs for disability payments for health care for conditions they believed were associated with exposure to Agent Orange, or more specifically, dioxin, but their claims were denied unless they could prove the condition began when they were in the service or within one year of their discharge. By April 1. 99. 3, the Department of Veterans Affairs had compensated only 4. Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam. Codario, one of the first civilian doctors to see afflicted patients, Mayerson, so impressed by the fact a physician would show so much interest in a Vietnam veteran, forwarded more than a thousand pages of information on Agent Orange and the effects of dioxin on animals and humans to Codario's office the day after he was first contacted by the doctor. Hartz as their principal client, filed the first US Agent Orange class- action lawsuit, in Pennsylvania in 1. Vietnam suffered through exposure to toxic dioxins in the defoliant.
Codario, including about 1. However, on May 7, 1. The companies agreed to pay $1.
Federal Judge Julius Weinstein refused the appeals, claiming the settlement was . By 1. 98. 9, the veterans' fears were confirmed when it was decided how the money from the settlement would be paid out. A totally disabled Vietnam veteran would receive a maximum of $1.
Furthermore, by accepting the settlement payments, disabled veterans would become ineligible for many state benefits that provided far more monetary support than the settlement, such as food stamps, public assistance, and government pensions. A widow of a Vietnam veteran who died of Agent Orange exposure would only receive $3. The commission's research project in association with Rutgers University was called . It was disbanded by Governor Christine Todd Whitman in 1. Prior to this, such levels could only be found in the adipose (fat) tissue.
The project studied dioxin (TCDD) levels in blood as well as in adipose tissue in a small group of Vietnam veterans who had been exposed to Agent Orange and compared them to those of a matched control group; the levels were found to be higher in the former group.