Agent Orange - Think

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AGENT ORANGE

What do you really know about it?

Until today, I knew it was a chemical used in the Vietnam war, and that’s about it.

Now…. now I know a bit more, and I’m horrified, once again, at what humanity is capable of inflicting upon each other.

Agent Orange is the code name for one of the herbicides and defoliants used by the U.S. military in its herbicidal warfare program during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. Agent Orange was given its name from the color of the orange-striped 55 US gallons (210 L) barrels in which it was shipped. It is a roughly 1:1 mixture of two phenoxyl herbicides in iso-octyl ester form, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T).

Agent Orange was by far the most widely used of the so-called “Rainbow Herbicides“. Between 1965 and 1970 close to 12,000,000 US gallons (45,000,000 l; 10,000,000 imp gal) of Agent Orange were sprayed in Vietnam, eastern Laos and parts of Cambodia by the US military to defoliate rural/forested land, depriving guerrillas of food and cover, and as part of a general policy of forced draft urbanization by destroying the ability of peasants to support themselves in the countryside.[1]

According to Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in 400,000 deaths and disabilities, and 500,000 children born with birth defects.

I had no idea so many people were still living with the effects of this horrific agent 30 years later. Both Veterans in the US as well as thousands upon thousands of people in Vietnam are still suffering from the effects of Agent Orange.

Among the many complications associated with Agent Orange and dioxin are:

* Skin irritation and skin diseases, such as chloracne
* Neurological disorders
* Nerve disorders, including peripheral neuropathy
* Miscarriages in women
* Type 2 diabetes
* Birth defects, physical deformities, spina bifida
* Cancers: multiple myeloma, respiratory system cancers, Hodgkin’s disease, prostate cancer, leukemia

There are US scientists who still refused to admit there is a connection between Agent Orange and the birth defects of Vietnam War veterans children. But how else can you explain a whole generation of children suffering everything from skin diseases to severe metal disabilities to missing limbs? They all have one thing in common… their parents, or grandparents were exposed to chemical warfare. There are US soldiers who are also suffering from cancers and varying diseases who have gone to court to get some form of redress for their exposure to the toxins. But in Vietnam, what they have had to do, is build Peace Villages. Places where these children can be looked after without fear of what other people might think of them.

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