The Negative Effects Of Agent Orange

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.

Chemical Warfare was also something that the Americans used that was drastically negative. Many innocent South Vietnam citizens were killed from a chemical called napalm. This jelly like substance stuck to a surface and burned. Much of it was dropped on villages

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

Kara Hinson The war in Vietnam started in 1955 and lasted until 1975. Many Americans believed it was a pointless war that had no meaning. The United States became involved in the Vietnam Warbecause they wanted to stop the spread of communism. This war took 50,000 lives and wounded 300,000 American men. Due to the My Lai massacre which killed hundreds of innocent and unarmed Vietnamese civilians, protests about the draft start all over the country, because of draft dodgers and draft deferment, and the government misleading people back home, this was known as the credibility gap, Americans are turning against the war in Vietnam. This leads to anti-war protesters, known as doves springing up across the United States demonstrating their opposition to the war.The Vietnam War is one of the most known wars in history, many innocent people were killed that had no involvement. United States soldiers came up with strategies to kill off the Vietcong, but occasionally the United States was not sure who were Vietcong and who were not. Napalm was a jellied gasoline that explodes when dropped in large canisters the napalm was usually dropped on villages. When the napalm was dropped on the villages, the Vietnamese houses and vegetation were destroyed. Napalm burned men, women, and children who were in the villages the clothes would burn completely off their bodies. Agent orange another substance used this was sprayed by an aircraft over the jungle. Agent

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

“We were told, ‘it’s totally safe and it won’t hurt you at all,” he added. “We were told you can drink it, you can brush your teeth with it, or you can bathe in it. It won’t hurt you. Those were lies.” (“U.S. Soldiers Sprayed Agent Orange across Korea” 1) Agent Orange was an herbicide used by the United States military forces in Vietnam between 1962 and 1971 to destroy their enemies’ food supply, land, and protection. Twelve million gallons of this toxin were sprayed. (Department of Preventive Medicine 1) It affected the Vietnamese and the American troops who were fighting in the same jungle. Little did the United States military know the effects of this dangerous herbicide. It caused many long-term complications, including health problems

This article is about veterans who served in the Korean War in 1967 who has been affected by Agent Orange. AgentOrange is a defoliant chemical that was used for an herbicide warfare program that causes multiple health problems to people who have been affected by it.The veterans have asked Congress to grant them health care and compensation forgetting it. The Congress denied the grant and the veterans are furious. Because many of the veterans are currently suffering from diseases and illnesses that was caused by the Agent Orange, they wanted benefits. There has been more than1.4 million people who are trying to get the grant from the Congress. They had only granted veterans who served on the Korean Demilitarized Zone from April 1968 through August 1971 eligible for benefits and has at least one illness that is connected to the Agent Orange.

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

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)

Vietnam veteran Paul Reutershan said on the Today show, “I died in Vietnam, but I didn’t even know it” (Wilcox x). For the veterans that survived the Vietnam War without major physical injuries, there were still other problems to endure. After the war, many veterans faced disapproval for fighting, serious psychological problems, and for some, diseases believed to be caused by herbicides used in the war. Many veterans didn’t even think that Agent Orange could have been the cause for their diseases since the effects show themselves many years later. Reutershan was the first to publicly attribute his diseases to the herbicide Agent Orange he was exposed to during the Vietnam War.

There have been many wars throughout American history and millions of lives have been lost fighting for the land of the free. On November 1st, 1955, one of the most controversial wars in American history began; the Vietnam War. The politics behind the Vietnam War are very in-depth and important, but the issues being addressed now are based on the weapons used during the war and how they affected veterans; more specifically, the weapon is one that had more long-term effects and did not kill the enemy at the point-blank exposure. The U.S. created a newer chemical weapon known as Agent Orange. Agent Orange is a very lethal and harmful chemical that the U.S. used on the Viet Cong to try to weaken them by depriving their food source and cover. Now, over five decades after the war, veterans from both sides are still being greatly affected by this war tactic and the goal is to understand more about the human effects during and after the war.

During the war about 19 million gallons of herbicides and over 4.5 million acres of land were sprayed in Vietnam from 1961 to 1972. This chemical contains the chemical dioxin. This was later revealed to cause serious health problems including tumors, birth defects, rashes, psychological symptoms and cancer. Many of the men that came home from war and

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

In the Vietnam war, the United States used a strategy of spraying tactical herbicides. Agent Orange was the main herbicide; it got its name from the orange strip on the drums that was used to haul it from place to place (Hillstrom and Hillstrom 184). This was not the only agent sprayed though. There were also Agents Blue, Pink, White and Green. All of which got their name the same way (Schmidt 2). This strategy seemed great at first but it was more than expected.

The chemical weaponry that were used on the Vietnam vegetation had an adverse effect on the people in a way that even after three generations, the effects are still evident on the children. Many of them are born with malformations and severe defects in the nervous structure and immune system. The chemical also affected the American soldiers and veterans as many of them have health issues related to these weapons. Although the American government thought that they were only punishing the North Vietnamese, American veterans ended up victims of chronic and unhealthy conditions.