Agent Orange

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For other uses, see an herbicide and defoliant.

Agent Orange is the code name for a powerful herbicide and defoliant used by the U.S. military in its Herbicidal Warfare program during the Vietnam War. Agent Orange was used from 1961 to 1971 and has disputedly caused serious harm to the health of exposed Vietnamese, Australians, Canadians and Americans, their children and grandchildren.

Agent Orange is a roughly 1:1 mixture of the herbicides 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T). These herbicides were developed during the 1940s for use in controlling broad-leaf plants. First introduced in 1947, both of these herbicides had widespread use in agriculture by the middle of the 1950s.

During the Vietnam War, Agent Orange's official military purpose was to remove the leaves of trees to prevent guerrilla fighters of the National Liberation Front from hiding. Agent Orange is a colorless liquid: its name was from the color of the stripes on the barrels used to transport it. Other code-named herbicides used by the US Army in moderate to large quantities during this timeframe include Agent Blue (cacodylic acid), Agent White (4:1 mixture of 2,4-D and picloram), Agent Purple, Agent Green, and Agent Pink.

Agent Orange as a military defoliant was discontinued in 1971, after over 6,000 spraying missions in Vietnam and Cambodia; 2,4-D continues to be widely used as an herbicide. The use of 2,4,5-T has been banned in the U.S. and many other countries.

Effects on humans

Agent Orange was found to have toxic dioxin contaminants which have been blamed for causing health disorders and birth defects in both the Vietnamese population and U.S. war veterans. It has also been found to have carcinogenic properties.

In 1980, New Jersey created the New Jersey Agent Orange Commission, the first state commission created to study its effects. The Commission's research project in association with Rutgers University was called "The Pointman Project". It was disbanded by governor Christine Todd Whitman in 1996.

An April 2003 report paid for by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that during the Vietnam War, 3,181 villages were sprayed directly with herbicides. Between 2.1 and 4.8 million people "would have been present during the spraying." Furthermore, many U.S. military personnel were also sprayed or came in contact with herbicides in recently sprayed areas. The study was originally undertaken for the U.S. military to get a better count of how many veterans served in sprayed areas. Researchers were given access to military records and Air Force operational folders previously not studied. The re-estimate made by the report places the volume of herbicides sprayed between 1961 and 1971 to a level 7,131,907 liters more than an uncorrected estimate published in 1974 and 9.4 million more liters than a 1974 corrected inventory. It was produced under contract for the Army by Diamond Shamrock, Dow, Hercules, Monsanto, T-H Agricultural & Nutrition, Thompson Chemicals, and Uniroyal.

On January 31, 2004, a victim's rights group, the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA), filed a class action lawsuit in a US Federal District Court in Brooklyn, New York, against several US companies, for liability in causing personal injury, by developing and producing the chemical. Dow Chemical and Monsanto were the two largest producers of Agent Orange for the US military, and were named in the suit along with eight other companies. A number of lawsuits by American GIs have been won in the years since the Vietnam War.

On March 10, 2005, the District Court judge dismissed the suit, ruling that there was no legal basis for the plaintiffs' claims. The judge concluded that Agent Orange was not considered a poison under international law at the time of its use by the US; that the US was not prohibited from using it as an herbicide; and that the companies which produced the substance were not liable for the method of its use by the government. The US government, which has sovereign immunity, had not been a target of the lawsuit. However, in 1984, chemical companies that manufactured Agent Orange paid $180 million into a fund for United States veterans following a lawsuit.

The National Toxicology Program has classified 2,3,7,8-TCDD, the dioxin in Agent Orange, to be a known human carcinogen, frequently associated with soft-tissue sarcoma, Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Hodgkin disease and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

The VA has listed prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple myeloma, type II diabetes, Hodgkin’s disease, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, soft tissue sarcoma, chloracne, porphyria cutanea tarda, peripheral neuropathy, and spinal bifidia in children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange as side effects of the herbicide.


Miscellaneous

  • The Union Carbide company produced the constituents of agent orange at Homebush Bay in Sydney Australia where the 2000 Summer Olympics were staged.[1]
  • The Wu-Tang Clan mentions Agent Orange in their song "Reunited". The lyrics include: "...Worldwide total carnage, the sickest flow / that be code named Agent Orange, killin you slow..."
  • The German thrash metal band Sodom made an album with lyrical content based on Agent Orange -- "The Fire That Doesn't Burn". The name of the album is "Agent Orange". A song of the same name can also be found on the album.
  • R.E.M.'s song "Orange Crush" from the album Green is about Agent Orange.
  • Agent Orange is referenced in the film Rambo: First Blood, when John Rambo visits a friend's house (his friend Delmar Berry), and finds out from his wife that he died after the war as a result of Agent Orange poisoning. Rambo is a fictional special forces soldier who fought in the Vietnam War, and, along with Delmar, were the only two to survive combat operations.
  • The band Depeche Mode from Great Britain have a b-side instrumental piece by the name of "Agent Orange".
  • Singer-songwriter Tori Amos' album Boys For Pele includes a song titled "Agent Orange", but uninspired by the chemical.
  • The punk band Agent Orange was named after the chemical.
  • The song "Orange" by 10,000 Maniacs is often speculated to be about the substance, often supported by the claim that former singer Natalie Merchant's cousin was born without arms due to Agent Orange.
  • There is a character called Agent Orange in the Xanth series by Piers Anthony.
  • The Uniroyal plant in Elmira, Ontario was one of seven suppliers producing Agent Orange for the U.S. military's use in Vietnam.
  • In the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Kate Winslet's character mentions on a train that if she had the job of naming hair dye products then her first contribution would be to name an orange hair dye 'Agent Orange'.
  • In the film Major Payne, Damon Wayans plays a former military officer who is forced to make ends meet by teaching JROTC at a private academy. When one of the cadets stares at him too long, Major Payne yells "...when a man gets to eyeballing me, it makes my Agent Orange act up!!"
  • Rage Against the Machine makes a reference to "the agents of orange," in the song Sleep Now in the Fire.
  • Director Tony Scott made a short film entitled "Agent Orange" as part of a series of short film / product promotions for Amazon.com. References are overtly about secret agents and the color orange, but subvertly about the toxifying effects of love and relationships.
  • As of August 1998, there is a London based specialist cleaning contractor called "Agent Orange Enterprises Limited" which promises efficient cleaning of premises, clearance of gardens, rubbish clearance and a number of other specialist works and who are currently cleaning the offices (or "chambers") of some of Britain top lawyers in the Inns of Court in London.

Further reading

  • Weisman, Joan Murray. The Effects of Exposure to Agent Orange on the Intellectual Functioning, Academic Achievement, Visual Motor Skill, and Activity Level of the Offspring of Vietnam War Veterans. Doctoral thesis. Hofstra University. 1986.

External links

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