Agent Orange
Just saying the name Agent Orange gets the attention of every Vietnam
veteran, and I
dare say most of the Australian and American public, not to
mention the
Vietnamese. It has been argued about, written about,
researched and debated,
published in magazines and newspapers, talked about
on radio and television. It
was the subject of documentaries, legal battles,
and in Australia a Royal
Commission that lasted some two years and cost
3.8 million dollars. Agent Orange
was the code name for a herbicide developed
for the military, primarily for use
in tropical climates. Although the
genesis of the product goes back to the
1940’s, serious testing for
military applications did not begin until the
early 1960’s. The purpose of
the product was to deny an enemy cover and
concealment in dense terrain by
defoliating trees and shrubbery where the enemy
could hide. The product
"Agent Orange" (a code name for the orange band that
was used to mark the
drums it was stored in) was principally effective against
broad-leaf foliage,
such as the dense jungle-like terrain found in Southeast
Asia. The
product was tested in Vietnam in the early 1960’s, and was brought
into ever
widening use during the height of the war in 1967-68, though it’s
use was
diminished and eventually discontinued in 1971. Agent Orange was a 50-50
mix
of two chemicals, known conventionally as 2,4,D and 2,4,5,T. the
combined
product was mixed with kerosene or diesel fuel and dispersed by
aircraft,
vehicle, and hand spraying. An estimated 19 million gallons of
Agent Orange were
used in South Vietnam during the war. The earliest health
concerns about Agent
Orange were about the product’s contamination with
TCDD, or dioxin. TCDD is
one of a family of dioxins, some found in nature,
and are cousins of
dibenzofurans and PCB’s. Dioxin is formed by burning
chlorine-based chemical
compounds with hydrocarbons. The major source of
dioxin in the environment (95%)
comes from incinerators burning chlorinated
wastes. Dioxin pollution is also
affiliated with paper mills, which use
chlorine bleaching in their process and
with the production of Polyvinyl
Chloride (PVC) plastics. The TCDD that can be
found in Agent Orange is
thought to be harmful to man. In laboratory tests on
animals, TCDD has caused
a wide variety of diseases, many of them fatal. TCDD is
not found in nature,
but rather is a man-made and is always an unwanted
byproduct of the chemical
process of manufacturing of certain herbicides,
bactericides, wood
preservatives, and other products. It is believed by many
scientists to be
the most toxic of all synthetic chemicals. It was first
identified as a
contaminant in 1957, but not recognized as a major public hazard
until the
mid 1970’s. The Agent Orange used in Vietnam was later found to be
extremely
contaminated with TCDD. The Agent Orange in Vietnam was contaminated
in
amounts from 0.05 to almost 50 parts per million, with the most
common
contamination being 2 parts per million (ppm). This contamination
resulted in an
estimated 368 pounds of dioxin sprayed over Vietnam in a
six-year period.