Agent Orange

I

Introduction

Agent Orange, name given to the most deadly herbicide used by United States forces in extensive spraying operations in the Vietnam War. The intention was to deprive the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army of jungle cover and crops; it was later shown to be deadly to human health.

Estimates of the quantity of herbicide dispersed in South Vietnam between 1961 and 1970 range from 70 to 86 million litres (15 to 19 million gallons). A vast area was denuded of foliage, and tens of thousands of soldiers and innumerable Vietnamese civilians were exposed.

The process used in the manufacture of Agent Orange (a 50:50 combination of 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid) also created extremely toxic by-products known as dioxins, which subsequent research has shown contribute to severe birth defects and certain rare cancers in humans. The many different combinations of chemicals were all known by different names according to the colour of the barrel in which they were shipped, such as Agent Blue and Agent White.

II

History

Use of defoliants was hugely controversial. Developed by the United States in World War II for potential use against Japan’s rice crop, they were not employed because military officials considered them a form of chemical warfare, banned under international agreements. Britain used them successfully in the war against Communist insurgents in Malaya in the 1950s. Consequently, in the 1960s, the administration of President John F. Kennedy was persuaded by the US Army to approve their use, beginning in 1961.

III

How the Effects Were Revealed

Agent Orange penetrated the waxy covering of leaves to poison the entire plant, and after being sprayed widely, made many areas of Vietnam look like the “no-man’s-land” of World War I. In 1969 a South Vietnamese newspaper reported that thousands of rural villagers had become sick with strange symptoms, including stillbirths and birth deformities. That same year, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the largest organization of scientists in the United States, voted to conduct a study of the ecological and medical effects of herbicide spraying in Vietnam. Scientists consider dioxin to be one of the most toxic substances known. In 1970 it was revealed that one of the chemicals in Agent Orange caused birth defects in laboratory animals. Faced with mounting pressure, the administration of President Richard Nixon abruptly halted herbicide missions in that year. Shortly afterwards, the AAAS team in Vietnam showed that considerable levels of dioxin were present in fish, a principal staple of the Vietnamese diet, and in human mother’s milk.

Throughout the 1970s numerous court battles were fought to limit civilian use of herbicides containing dioxin for agricultural and forestry purposes. In 1975, President Gerald Ford announced that the United States would no longer employ such defoliants during “offensive operations”. By 1978 the Veterans Administration (VA) was besieged with complaints from thousands of ex-servicemen of skin rashes, liver disorders, and rare cancers (soft-tissue sarcomas, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and Hodgkin’s disease).

In 1984 the seven major manufacturers of Agent Orange agreed to an out-of-court settlement of $180 million after being sued by Vietnam ex-servicemen, rather than face legal judgment about whether they knew Agent Orange contained dioxin before selling it to the government. A trust fund was set up by the court to disburse monies to ex-servicemen claiming dioxin-induced illnesses.

By 1986 over 210,000 claims had been filed. Studies conducted by the Centers For Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, and the US air force concluded that a strong relationship existed between exposure to Agent Orange and birth defects like spina bifida and cleft lip. Studies in Vietnam indicate a prevalence of liver cancers and reproductive abnormalities. Though the VA insisted that no causal connections could be proved between Agent Orange exposure and specific illnesses, the growing body of epidemiological evidence, and pressure from ex-servicemen’s organizations, prompted the US Congress to act in 1991 by passing a bill that provides disability payments to Vietnam ex-servicemen suffering from soft-tissue sarcomas and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. By 2000 claims were being made in Vietnam that illnesses and birth defects caused by Agent Orange could be passed on to a third generation of victims, with dioxins infecting foetuses through the placenta and infants through breast milk.