Agent Orange : Chemical Effects In The Vietnam War

Agent Orange was a strong and powerful herbicide used by the United States during the Vietnam War. Agent Orange was used to eliminate forest cover for the North Vietnam Army, and kill crops to try and starve them. It was very effective in its job and was used for 10 years during the Vietnam War. Agent Orange not oly kills the plants that it was targeting, but it also had a amjor affect on the people that were exposed to it. Agent Orange is a very deadly weapon, and people are still facing the consequences of it today.

The first chemical to be discussed is Agent Orange; Agent Orange has been identified as a human carcinogen; this chemical was introduced during the Vietnam War as a defoliant for the thick Vietnamese jungle. Although Agent Orange contained a variety of herbicides, most of the pesticide contained Phenoxyacetic acid – based herbicide 2,4-D and 2,4, 5-T. The most common mixture

The first chemical to be discussed is Agent Orange; Agent Orange has been identified as a human carcinogen; this chemical was introduced during the Vietnam war as a defoliant for the thick Vietnamese jungle. Although Agent Orange contained a variety of herbicides, most of the pesticide contained Phenoxyacetic acid – based herbicide 2,4-D and 2,4, 5-T. The most common mixture of the Agent Orange used during

Napalm is a highly flammable sticky jelly used in incendiary bombs and flamethrowers, consisting of gasoline thickened with special soaps, they were very deadly weapons used during the war. Operation Agent Orange is a herbicide and defoliant chemical, one of the tactical use Rainbow Herbicides. This devastating chemical sprayed more than 20 million gallons all over vietnam, Cambodia and laos from 1961 to 1971. The chemical contained these diseases Al Amyloidosis, Chronic B-cell Leukemias, Diabetes Mellitus type 2 and many more diseases but whoever survived this I feel sorry for.

Agent orange was used in the vietnam war from 1961-1971 and it is a mixture of 2 herbicides.

Vietnam suffered enormous environmental damage from the war, manliy from US bombing and use of defoliants such as Agent Orange. Bombing destroyed many rice-growing areas in South Vietnam and severely damaged the ecomony of North Vietnam. US government s denied Vietnam any foreign aid after the war.

The war in Vietnam was, and continues to be, one of the most controversial hot button topics in American history. The military’s use of dangerous pesticides, like Agent Orange, is a major part of this controversy. Agent Orange is a defoliant that was widely used to deforest dense jungle areas to reduce both hiding places and food sources for the Vietnamese. During the war, American B-52 bombers released over nineteen million gallons of Agent Orange over the Vietnamese countryside. After ten years of continuous dumping, 1971 finally marked the end of America’s use of Agent Orange and other herbicides. In 1974, the United States government, headed by Richard Nixon, swore the country would never again use chemical weapons in a first strike. (Levy and Scott-Clark)

created to try to deprive North Vietnamese soldiers, or guerillas, of food, cover, and other resources during the war. The U.S. sprayed nearly 20 million gallons in all from 1962 to 1971 in Vietnam, eastern Laos, and parts of Cambodia as part of Operation Ranch Hand. Unfortunately, the effects of Agent Orange did not just hurt the Viet Cong soldiers and the environment, but also many South Vietnam soldiers and U.S. soldiers who had to go through the pesticide infested area. The entire environment that it covered was harmed very substantially and nearly every person who came in contact with it now suffers from an illness or has a very increased risk of nerve, digestive, skin, and respiratory disorders, as well as numerous cancers. The ruminants from the chemical have also had effects on the offspring of veterans with it in their system; anywhere from birth defects to cancers have been reported from the chemical

This causes death to innocent people after the war and there were also many innocent people killed during the war which bothered America’s inner voice and for many that inner voice became an outer voice in protests. The second issue of Agent Orange also bothered the conscience of the United States. “Between 1961 and 1971 about 20 million gallons of herbicides were dropped on South Vietnam.” (Black 19) The U.S. “...had no idea of how dioxin, the lethal contaminant in Agent Orange, might blight [people’s] lives down through 3 generations.” (Black 14) This was a very inhumane tactic used in the war and many who opposed the Vietnam war “...felt that U.S. actions in Southeast Asia were crimes against humanity.” (Maxwell 439) The Vietnam war also

This had tremendous a effect on the people of the United States and costed the United States a extraordinary amount of money. The United States also damaged the Vietnamese severely, even complications after the war. In the process of hurting the Vietnamese, the United States hurt themselves. This herbicide indeed cause more harm than good, the United States had over 400,000 people affected by this. The United States had a major lawsuit behind this.

Today, the Agent Orange case is a serious threat to public health as veterans and generations affected up onto today are still suffering. A large amount "Herbicide Orange" was used in Vietnam has been of major belief to many that contributed to the most tragic environmental and public health problems. Scenarios such as a U.S. troop who was just an electrician said he saw "no action" in the war, decades later this veteran developed Type 2 diabetes. A lot of others experience their scars from this exposure right away, especially the troops who were in the first line of exposure. The newly releases troops complained about skin rashes such as chloracne, cancer of all sorts, other health issues, but one devastating of them all, birth defects in their children. They all believed the spraying of AO have contributed to the root of the issues. Although, the spray was normally diluted with oil and waterways, it is also believed to have long-term effects on rivers and lakes. Also causing the civilians of the affected areas to be a long lasting effect upon them. Agent Orange herbicide was not just an ordinary herbicide. It was mixed with a unique amount of two different components, 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. The U.S. introduced this chemical as a design to destroy plant life in the war in 1961. It was commonly used to destroy or defoliate dense, forest broad leaf plants, trees, shrubs and food crops. Because the North Vietnamese had a war advantage from heavy jungles and camouflage hiding

Men’s and women’s health and healthcare have been plagued by serious issues in the United States for generations. The articles Men at War: Vietnam and Agent Orange by Cynthia R. Daniels, Masculinities and Men’s Health: Moving toward Post-Superman Era Prevention by Don Sabo, Health Care Reform-A Woman’s Issue by Catherine DeLorey, and Why the Precautionary Principle? A Meditation of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) and the Breasts of Mothers by Sandra Steingraber, all center around different issues in healthcare. All the articles focus on the problems of healthcare and how it should be reformed, but two take on the topic of women’s health, while the other two focus their articles on men’s healthcare.

Agent Orange is a herbicide that was used to defoliate the jungles, meaning the United States military was trying to kill off the trees in Vietnam in order to take away places for North Vietnamese military men could hide (1). The Viet Cong did not fight conventionally against the American military, they could not do so and expect to win. This caused them to resort to guerilla warfare in order to strike and weaken parts of a division or unit. The Americans used Agent Orange as a defense strategy in order to take away hiding places for the Viet Cong to run to after hitting the American units (2). What is especially harmful to those who were around Agent Orange and where it was sprayed was the dioxin, which is a byproduct of one of the chemicals components. People still worked and breathed even with the residue of the toxin still in the air and in the soil, civilians and military personnel alike. The toxin carried in it a carcinogen that got its way into the water and in the soil. Slowly as the years have passed and Vietnam has been hit with a lot of monsoons clean water has washed away the toxic water, but not before it entered into the food chain and then started to accumulate into body fat and tissue in humans that was able to passed from a mother to their child threw breast milk. The American military, by word of the American government, dumped millions of gallons of Agent Orange onto the southern half of

Agent Orange was an innovate chemical used during the Vietnam War. It was a defoliant that helped the United States thought the war, yet it had left a permanent and devastating impact on vietnam vets and the Vietnamese people. From 1961 to 1971, the U.S. military sprayed a range of herbicides across more than 4.5 million acres of Vietnam to destroy the forest cover and food crops used by enemy North Vietnamese and Vietcong troops the majority being Agent Orange. Not only did Agent Orange contaminated areas throughout Vietnam, but the areas where the herbicides were manufactured, stored or tested in the United States and elsewhere in the world are also contaminated to this day with Agent Orange.

The destruction this chemical caused to the vegetation should have been the first clue that what destroys nature will in due time destroy us. We are the cause for this mess; but we should have been notified much earlier about the potential risk associated with Agent Orange. According to the Executive Summary on Operations Trail Dust and Ranch Hand, "On April 17,1995 Researchers have found that during the spraying of Agent Orange in southern Vietnam, dioxin levels in human tissue were as high as 900 times greater in Vietnamese living in southern Vietnam than those living in Northern Vietnam where Agent Orange was not used."(Arison5) It was not until 1993, when the Institute of Medicine News reported, "Evidence exists linking three cancers and two other health problems with chemicals used in herbicides used in the Vietnam War, a committee of the Institute of Medicine has concluded. Those diseases are soft tissue sarcoma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and Hodgkin's disease as well as chloracne and prophyria cutanea tarda (PCT)."(Turner-Lowe1) An explanation of each disease follows: Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma refers to any group of cancers of lymphoid tissues that multiply. These are found mainly in the lymph nodes and the spleen. The symptoms are related to painless swelling of the lymph nodes in the neck or groin region. There is an attempted