PSM
Interesting perspective, after reading your post this article came to mind. I'm not sure what to take from this article since I'm no horticulture expert. I do think Agent Orange can be related to Illnesses however I'm sure a number of claims are bogus.
http://www.johntreed.com/agentorange.html
Need for demons
Political groups need demons. Each has its own demonology. A chemical which has at times been called Agent Orange has long been a demon of the political groups who could fairly be described as anti-war, anti-corporation, and anti-chemical.
Those folks, and even most people who are not in those groups, “know” that Agent Orange is a poison that has hurt hundreds of thousands if not millions of people.
No, it hasn’t. It never hurt anyone.
How could that be?
It is an herbicide. People are not herbs.
But everybody says...
Not everybody, just political activists and ignorant laypersons.
I was inspired to write this by a column by Walter Isaacson in the 3/12/07*Time*magazine. The first phrase in the second paragraph in the second column confirms the title of this Web article you’re reading quite plainly,
Scientists have not been able to prove a direct link between Agent Orange and the disabilities…
I love the way he phrases that. He blames the lousy scientists for*failing*to prove what everybody knows: Agent Orange harms humans big time. He seems to be admonishing the scientists to get their acts together at long last. And he seems to be saying that they will do so any day now.
What the terminally-biased Mr. Isaacsonwould*have said were he guided by*logic*andfacts*is,
Scientists have found no link between Agent Orange and the human illnesses often attributed to it.
Stolen Valor
The first time I learned that Agent Orange was not harmful to humans was in the book*Stolen Valor*by B.G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley. That book was written to refute the numerous lies about the Vietnam War and its vets including:
that most Vietnam vets are baby-killing, wife-beating, drug addicts who cannot adjust to societythat blacks served and died disproportionately in Vietnamthat many who claim to be Vietnam vets were never in the military or were never in Vietnam or, if they were in Vietnam, they exaggerate their combat experience and heroismthat military personnel in Vietnam committed widespread atrocitiesthat so-called posttraumatic stress disorder is as extensive and as widespread as depicted by those who purport to suffer from it and by anti-war activiststhat Vietnam vets commit suicide in disproportionate numbers and do so because they served in Vietnamthat Vietnam vets are disproportionately homeless and that the cause is their service in Vietnam
You may assume*Stolen Valor*is merely a screed by a rabid Vietnam vet. Nope. It is a very reasonable, extremely well-documented analysis that cites chapter and verse of pertinent statistics and studies and names names. I have spoken to co-author B.G. Burkett several times by phone. I*highly*recommend the book to anyone who really wants to know the true story of the service of Vietnam vets and the non-service of Vietnam vet imposters and exaggerators.
‘The Myth of Agent Orange’
Chapter 22 of*Stolen Valor*is titled “The Myth of Agent Orange.” Its points include:
Agent Orange was first demonized by Maude DeVictor, a VA Benefits Division employee and black-power movement member who was an anti-war activist turned veterans advocate, not a doctor, scientist, other other type of trained medical person Turning from anti-war activist to veterans advocate wasnot*a*change of mind, rather, it was a way to keep self-righteously complaining about the war after it ended. TV Reporter Bill Kurtis took DeVictor’s claims and turned them into a program titled, “Agent Orange: the Deadly Fog.”Journalist Jon Franklin, who admitted being biased against the military and in favor of finding that Agent Orange caused health problems, did an extensive investigative report with another investigative reporter, Alan Doelp. Bias notwithstanding, the two found that they could*not*substantiate any of the charges made against Agent Orange. In some cases, their findings were*comical‘Orange powder or mist’
For example, some veterans reported that while they were on patrol in Vietnam one day, an “orange powder” sprayed out of a plane descended upon them. Others described it as an “orange mist.”
Folks, Agent Orange ain’t orange.
It is a colorless liquid. It was called Agent Orange because they painted a orange stripe around the 55-gallon drums of it so they could quickly identify them. Also sprayed in Vietnam were Agent Purple, Agent Pink, Agent Green, Agent White, and Agent Blue as well as a bunch of other herbicides that did not have a colored stripe around their barrels. Apparently, the anti-war, anti-corporation, anti-chemical crowd glommed onto Agent Orange, rather that any of the 14 other herbicides used in Vietnam solely because its name resembles the dark Stanley Kubrick 1971 film*Clockwork Orange.
Morons.
‘And occasional lower back pain’
Another comical aspect was the*symptomsattributed to Agent Orange. The VA only compensates Vietnam vets for three illnesses: non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, soft tissue sarcoma, and chloracne. And it appears that these are compensated solely for*political,*not, reasons. But vets who claim to have been harmed by Agent Orange describe*every physical and mental illness symptom known to man. They sound like comedian Richard Jeni in one of whose routines he speaks as a chemical plant employee who suffered from,
A string of suspicious health maladies. In one month I got heart disease, bone disease, brain disease, water on the knee, water on the floor, water on the couch, pneumonia, old monia, ammonia, rocking pneumonia and the boogy woogie blues. I got diarrhea, pyorrhea, gonorrhea, Rhea Perlman, yellow fever, scarlet fever, pink eye, blue balls. I got leprosy, pleurisy, jealousy, misery, envy, athletes foot fungus with tough-actin’ Tenactin. I got PMS, TMJ, HBO, Nick at Night, Showtime, ESPN, the Discovery Channel—and occasional lower back pain.
These vets and their advocates claim Agent Orange causes*every*human ailment. In fact,no*substance or organism does that. Each substance or organism that does cause human illness causes one or a discrete number of symptoms.
Delayed reaction
Yet another comical aspect is the number of years after exposure that vets claim the symptoms first appeared. Both common sense and science tell us that the symptoms of exposure to any harmful substance peak immediately after exposure and that the more time that transpires between exposure and symptoms, the greater the probability some other source is responsible. Most likely, the delayed “onset” of Agent Orange symptoms is caused by the vet in question reading or hearing through the vet grapevine that you can get tax-free money from the VA if you claim illness attributable to Agent Orange.
Those guys who demolish buildings with explosives send a letter to all neighbors warning them of the coming blast, its date and time, and offering to compensate the nearby residents for any damage resulting from the blast. Once, they had to*postpone*the blast to another day. But after the originally scheduled time for the blast passed, dozens of people showed up at their temporary office wanting compensation for the damage they had suffered—from the blast that had*not yet occurred!
When they get paid to do so, people get all sorts of symptoms.
Although reporters contacted by Franklin and Doelp always referred to “studies” that said Agent Orange caused illnesses, no one could ever specify the exact study. They all claimed to have heard it from someone else. They concluded it was a sort of*rumor*or what is often called an*urban legend.
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