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Meet dioxin
Dioxin was not an active or intended ingredient of Agent Orange. It was only present in Agent Orange as a*contaminant*in quantities of around*five parts per billion or less. After being sprayed, the concentration of dioxin on the sprayed areas was diluted to afew parts per quadrillion.*Your body*contains three to five parts per trillion of dioxin, a higher*concentration than was on the ground in Vietnam.*You*are*more dangerous as a dioxin source*than Agent Orange was in Vietnam the day it hit the ground.
Dioxin also*degrades in sunlight within 48 to 72 hours. Dioxin is a naturally-occurring chemical which was on the earth before humans. It is a by-product of combustion and the action of enzymes in the soil.
Sides of the roads in Vietnam
When I was in Vietnam, I remember driving on roads that had been cleared on either side for about 300 yards. 300 yards is the effective range of the AK-47. I assume Agent Orange or one of the other defoliants had been sprayed there, then*Army Engineers using Rome Plowshad pushed the debris away from the roads. There was nothing left but flat, bare dirt like the infield of a Major League Baseball park. No place for the enemy to hide. I recall being extremely grateful to the defoliant sprayers and the Engineers for the clearing.
Even critics of Vietnam defoliation admit it saved many U.S. lives. In fact, not only did it save many U.S. lives, it*hurt no one.
Dioxin is not an herbicide or an ingredient of Agent Orange
Dioxin apparently doesn’t hurt plants. If it did, the enzymes in the soil that make it naturally would defoliate all such soil.
Activists describe Agent Orange as a “powerful herbicide,” which it is, but then they point todioxin*in Agent Orange as the “ingredient” that causes illness. The Agent Orange ingredients that kill*plants*are 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. The corporation that made Agent Orange, Dow Chemical, did not want dioxin in Agent Orange nor did they deliberately put it there. Rather, they did not remove it because the concentrations are so infinitessimal and harmless that there is no need to remove it.
Since the dioxin has nothing to do with killing plants, describing Agent Orange as a powerful herbicide in the context of a human illness discussion is dishonest. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the average American has four to seven parts per trillion dioxin in his or her blood and that dioxin comes from natural sources and combustion, not Vietnam.
The Agent Orange spray rate in Vietnam was three gallons per acre.Federally-funded scientists are afraid to speak out about Agent OrangeScientists are afraid to confirm that Agent Orange was not linked to disease because it is a political hot potato and they do not want to lose federal funding for other research by being labeled as an Agent Orange denier.Veterans tried to blame*lung cancer*among them on Agent Orange. In fact, the increased incidence of lung cancer among Vietnam veterans compared to the general population was explained entirely by the fact that Vietnam vets were more inclined to*smokethan the general population.‘Ranch Hands’Agent Orange was sprayed in Operation Ranch Hand, by an Air Force unit that had 1,265 members over the course of the Vietnam War. Extensive studies of the health of those men revealed*no*increased incidence of disease in spite of the fact that they were covered in Agent Orange on a daily basis.Whenever a new man arrived in the Ranch Hand unit,*all*members including the new guy, would*drink*a glass of the stuff. Some report that they consumed a*gallon*of it over time. That sophomoric stunt was not the brightest thing in the world to do, but again, those Ranch Hands have been extensively studied by medical personnel and no increased incidence of*any*disease has be found among them. One study even found a slightly*lower*mortality rate among the Ranch Hands than among a control group of similar age men!Agent Orange was used routinely all over the worldThe herbicides used in Vietnam were standard herbicides that had been used by highway maintenance crews and others around the world for decades before they were used in Vietnam.‘We can’t stand the political heat. Here’s your compensation’Governmental and lawsuit settlements that suggest Agent Orange culpability appear to be universally motivated by politics or irrational fear of chemicals, rather than scientific evidence.
A study by the Institute of Medicine is athttp://www.landscaper.net/agent.htm. Although it may seem to a casual reader to link Agent Orange to human illness, what it says if you read it carefully is that there appear to be some links between chemicals in a number of herbicides, namely dioxin, and some human illnesses. The IOM study essentially calls for more studies of whether there is a link between Agent Orange and human illness. The study is worded in a weasly manner, apparently spun to appease the political groups that hate Agent Orange.
The study seems to say that*high exposure to dioxin*would be necessary to cause illness, like working with the herbicide daily for an extended period as opposed to merely traveling through an area where it were sprayed once. Although the study was done to investigate the effects of Agent Orange*per se, it quickly abandons the phrase “Agent Orange” and thereafter refers repeatedly to phrases like “chemicals used in herbicides in the Vietnam War,” “herbicides,” and “dioxin.”
That Web site identifies 15 herbicides that were used in Vietnam. Two of them were called Agent Orange and Agent Orange II.
The fact that*dioxin*is linked to human illness, which it is, does not mean that*Agent Orangeis linked to human illness. Everything is a poison in high enough doses. Almost nothing is in low enough doses. Dioxin is, by definition, 100% strength dioxin. Agent Orange contains only infinitessimal traces of dioxin.
Herbicide versus pesticide
Humans consume on a daily basis small quantities of chemicals, including dioxin, that would cause ill health if consumed in*largerquantities. For example, page 2 of John Stossels’s book*Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity*says the notion that “Pesticide residues in foods cause cancer and other diseases is a myth. The truth, according to Stossels and his scientific sources, is,
The residues are largely harmless.
You are exposed to dioxin daily from fires including vehicle exhaust as well as from exposure to dirt and in foods and beverages that you consume.
Humans and insects are animals. Herbicides are designed to kill plants, not animals. Plants have a radically different biology than animals. If*insecticide*does not adversely affecthumansherbicide*would.
I am not an apologist for the military
Some readers may figure I excuse and explain everything the military does. Hardly. Read the other articles that are linked to my military home page:*
www.johntreed.com/military.html. As you will see, my various articles about the military are generally highly critical of it.
This article does not happen to be critical of the military because what I oppose is not the military.*I oppose bullshit. Bullshit is exactly what the military spouts in great quantities in many cases, but*not*about Agent Orange. When it comes to Agent Orange, it is the anti-war, anti-corporation, anti-chemical crowd who are spouting bullshit.
Logic and facts say that Agent Orange has not hurt anyone and was never likely to hurt anyone. It is a regular old herbicide and is no more dangerous than any other herbicide. The outcry against Agent Orange comes from people with hidden agendas like hatred of the military, hatred of the Vietnam war, hatred of corporations like Dow Chemical which made Agent Orange and napalm, hatred of chemicals, vote-seeking politicians, attention-seeking journalists, and vets who want war-related sympathy and compensation for illnesses that deserve neither.
John T. Reed