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Howard Wolf
Member
posted April 10, 2000 22:01
The Story of Agent Orange
U.S. Veteran Dispatch Staff Report
November 1990 Issue
It is the war that will not end. It is the war that continues to stalk and claim its victims decades after the last shots were fired. It is the war of rainbow herbicides, Agents Orange, Blue, White, Purple, Green and Pink. This never-ending legacy of the war in Vietnam has created among many veterans and their families deep feelings of mistrust of the U.S. government for its lack of honesty in studying the effects of the rainbow herbicides, particularly Agent Orange, and its conscious effort to cover up information and rig test results with which it does not agree.

STUDY CANCELED

On August 2, 1990, two veteran's groups filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., charging that federal scientists canceled an Agent Orange study mandated by Congress in 1979 because of pressure from the White House.
The four year, $43 million study was canceled, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, because it could not accurately determine which veterans were exposed to the herbicide used to destroy vegetation in Vietnam.
The American Legion, Vietnam Veterans of America and other veteran's groups are charging a massive government cover-up on the issue of herbicide exposure because of the hundreds of millions of dollars in health care and disability claims that would have to be paid.
The results of the scientific studies are rigged, claim many veterans, to exonerate the government which conducted the spraying and the chemical companies which produced the herbicides. Until there is a true study of the effects of Agent Orange, say the veterans - a study devoid of government interference and political considerations, the war of the rainbow herbicides will go on. Charges of a White House cover-up have been substantiated by a report from the House Government Operations Committee. That report, released August 9, 1990, charges that officials in the Reagan administration purposely "controlled and obstructed" a federal Agent Orange study in 1987 because it did not want to admit government liability in cases involving the toxic herbicides.
Government and industry cover-ups on Agent Orange are nothing new, though. They have been going on since before the herbicide was introduced in the jungles of Vietnam in the early 1960s.

PLANTS GIVEN CANCER

Agent Orange had its genesis as a defoliant in an obscure laboratory at the University of Chicago during World War II. Working on experimental plant growth at the time, Professor E.J. Kraus, chairman of the school's botany department, discovered that he could regulate the growth of plants through the infusion of various hormones. Among the discoveries he made was that certain broadleaf vegetation could be killed by causing the plants to experience sudden, uncontrolled growth. It was similar to giving the plants cancer by introducing specific chemicals. In some instances, deterioration of the vegetation was noticed within 24-48 hours of the introduction of the chemicals.
Kraus found that heavy doses of the chemical 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) could induce these growth spurts. Thinking this discovery might be of some use in the war effort, Kraus contacted the War Department. Army scientists tested the plant hormones but found no use for them before the end of the war.
Civilian scientists, however, found Kraus' plant hormones to be of use in everyday life after the war. Chemical sprays that included 2,4-D were put on the market for use in controlling weeds in yards, along roads and railroad rights of way.

ARMY EXPERIMENTS WITH DEADLY DEFOLIANTS

The Army continued to experiment with 2,4-D during the 1950s and late in the decade found a potent combination of chemicals which quickly found its way into the Army's chemical arsenal.
Army scientists found that by mixing 2,4-D and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T) and spraying it on plants, there would be an almost immediate negative effect on the foliage. What they didn't realize, or chose to ignore, was that 2,4,5-T contained dioxin, a useless by-product of herbicide production.
It would be twenty more years until concern was raised about dioxin, a chemical the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would later call "one of the most perplexing and potentially dangerous" known to man.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "The toxicity of dioxin renders it capable of killing some species of newborn mammals and fish at levels of five parts per trillion (or one ounce in six million tons). Less than two millionths of an ounce will kill a mouse. Its toxic properties are enhanced by the fact that it can pass into the body through all major routes of entry, including the skin (by direct contact), the lungs (by inhaling dust, fumes or vapors), or through the mouth. Entry through any of these routes contributes to the total body burden. Dioxin is so toxic, according to the encyclopedia, because of this: "Contained in cell membranes are protein molecules, called receptors, that normally function to move substances into the cell. Dioxin avidly binds to these receptors and, as a result, is rapidly transported into the cytoplasm and nucleus of the cell, where it causes changes in cellular procession." After minimal experimentation in 1961, a variety of chemical agents was shipped to Vietnam to aid in anti-guerilla efforts. The chemicals were to be used to destroy food sources and eliminate foliage that concealed enemy troop movements.

RAINBOW HERBICIDES

The various chemicals were labeled by color-coded stripes on the barrels, an arsenal of herbicides known by the colors of the rainbow, including Agent Blue (which contained arsenic), Agent White, Agent Purple, and the lethal combination of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, Agent Orange.
On January 13, 1962, three U.S. Air Force C-123s left Tan Son Nhut airfield to begin Operation Hades (later called Operation Ranch Hand), the defoliation of portions of South Vietnam's heavily forested countryside in which Viet Cong guerrillas could easily hide. By September, 1962, the spraying program had intensified, despite an early lack of success, as U.S. officials targeted the Ca Mau Peninsula, a scene of heavy communist activity. Ranch Hand aircraft sprayed more than 9,000 acres of mangrove forests there, defoliating approximately 95 percent of the targeted area. That mission was deemed a success and full approval was given for continuation of Operation Ranch Hand as the U.S. stepped up its involvement in Vietnam.

SIX TO TWENTY-FIVE TIMES STRONGER THAN RECOMMENDED

Over the next nine years, an estimated 12 million gallons of Agent Orange were sprayed throughout Vietnam. The U.S. military command in Vietnam insisted publicly the defoliation program was militarily successful and had little adverse impact on the economy of the villagers who came into contact with it. Although the herbicides were widely used in the United States, they usually were heavily diluted with water or oil. In Vietnam, military applications were sprayed at the rate of three gallons per acre and contained approximately 12 pounds of 2,4-D and 13.8 pounds of 2,3,5-T.
The military sprayed herbicides in Vietnam six to 25 times the rate suggested by the manufacturer.
In 1962, 15,000 gallons of herbicide were sprayed throughout Vietnam. The following year that amount nearly quadrupled, as 59,000 gallons of chemicals were poured into the forests and streams. The amounts increased significantly after that: 175,000 gallons in 1964, 621,000 gallons in 1965 and 2.28 million gallons in 1966.
The pilots who flew these missions became so proficient at their jobs that it would take only a few minutes after reaching their target areas to dump their 1,000-gallon loads before turning for home. Flying over portions of South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia that had been sprayed, the pilots could see the effects of their work. Many of them adopted a grim fatalism about the job. Over the door of the ready room for Ranch Hand pilots at Tan Son Nhut Airport near Saigon hung this sign: "Only You Can Prevent Forests."

MAKERS KNEW OF DANGER TO HUMANS

Unknown to the tens of thousands of American soldiers and Vietnamese civilians who were living, eating and bathing in a virtual omnipresent mist of the rainbow herbicides, the makers of these chemicals were well aware of their long-term toxic effects, but sought to suppress the information from the government and the public, fearing negative backlash.
Of particular concern to the chemical companies was Agent Orange, which contained dioxin. Publicly, the chemical companies said dioxin occurred naturally in the environment and was not harmful to humans.
Privately, they knew otherwise.
A February 22, 1965 Dow Chemical Corporation internal memorandum provided a summary of a meeting in which 13 executives discussed the potential hazards of dioxin in 2,4,5-T.
Following that meeting, Dow officials decided to meet with other makers of the chemical and formulate a stance on Agent Orange and dioxin. In March 1965, Dow official V.K. Rowe convened a meeting of executives of Monsanto, Hooker Chemical, which operated the Love Canal dump, Diamond Alkali, the forerunner of Diamond-Shamrock, and the Hercules Powder Co., which later became Hercules, Inc.
According to documents uncovered only years later, the purpose of this meeting was "to discuss the toxicological problems caused by the presence of certain highly toxic impurities" in samples of 2,4,5-T. The primary "highly toxic impurity" was 2,3,7,8 TCDD, one of 75 dioxin compounds.



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