Did the US gov. use Agent Orange even after they knew it was harmful?

Factual Questions
1

I’ve got an uncle who’s got cancer due to walking through areas contaminated by Agent Orange as a soldier in Vietnam. The US government, I think, is paying his bills (or has offered to) because they acknowledge that it is due, in fact, to Agent Orange. I’m sorry I don’t remember all of the details.

When did the government learn that Agent Orange is harmful to people, and when did it stop using it in Vietnam? Hasn’t the US government used Agent Orange since Vietnam? I feel like I read an article a while back that it had used it recently, even, in Columbia.

2

As far as I know, Agent Orange hasn’t been used since 1971. The Wikipedia page agrees with my recollection. It has been used outside of Vietnam, though. It was used in Korea in the 1960s.

3

More precisely, they acknowledge that it might be due to Agent Orange, and they have no way of proving otherwise. I think that the biggest correlation is with prostate cancer, but even without Agent Orange, that’s already one of the more common cancers, so it’s quite possible that your uncle would have gotten it anyway.

4

I thought Roundup was Agent Orange Lite.

5

No.

Very emphatically no.

Roundup is Glyphosate, an amino acid analogue. It is totally unrelated chemically or in mode of action to “Agent orange”, which was a mixture of various chlorinated aromatics.

I woudl be surprise dif they hadn’t. The stuff is very effective, very cheap and quite safe… when manufactured properly.

Time for a chemistry lesson.

2,4, D and 2,4,5,T are the primary active ingredients in Agent Orange, and they are still sold and widely used to this day. I’ve used 2,4D literally thousands of times, and 2,4,5,T on several occasions. As herbicides go they are very effective and essentially non-toxic. In terms of toxicity they are comparable to table salt or Coca Cola.

The problem with Agent Orange is that it was cheaply manufactured. During the manufacture of 2,4,5 T there are inevitably some dioxins produced. I would happily use properly manufactured Agent Orange right now. It is the dioxins that caused the problems, not the herbicides themselves.

The question then becomes “When did the government learn that dioxins in 2,4,5, T are a potential helath hazard?”.

The first evidence in the scientific literature of birth defects associated with 2,4,5, T was published in 1971. That evidence wasn’t in any way conclusive and was conducted with mice at very high rates. 2,4, 5 T was still sold and used in the US until the late 70s.

The NAS published a report in 1974 on the effects of Agent Orange use in Viet Nam that concluded that there was no evidence of helath effects on covilians or military.

The first evidence of human health effects linked to 2,4,5, T was published in 1978.

So in short the the government didn’t learn that Agent Orange is harmful to people until 1978 at the very earliest.

Note that to this day it remains very doubtful if Agent Orange is repsonsible for any human health probelms. There is simply no scientific evidence to support such a conlcusion. We do know that Agent Orange contained dioxins, and we do knwo that dioxins can cause helathprobelms, but tehre is no actual evidence that tehlevel and period of exposure associated with Agent Orange has or even could cause probelms.

6

If you actually research the evidence for dioxins causing health effects you will find that high doses cause chloracne (see before and after shots of Viktor Yuschenko at The man who survived Russia's poison chalice
AFAIK he doesn’t have any other health problems. (A bad case of chloracne is enough!)

In 1976, thousands of people in Seveso, Italy were exposed to large amounts of dioxin as a result of an industrial accident. 30 years later, after extensive, detailed studies, the epidemiologist conclude that maybe it caused problems other than chloracne (or maybe not).

The VA program to compensate some vets with certain health conditions who may have been exposed to dioxin in Agent Orange is based on politics, not science, and the fact that it is impossible to prove that in any given individual, any health event (good or bad) following exposure was not caused by the exposure.

7

I’m not saying your wrong, but I remember there being something about my uncle’s brigade, where they were at a certain time, and the particularly large number of them who’ve gotten cancer on their legs since Vietnam. Something about walking through a large swath of land that had been cleared using AO. Which is all to say, I got the impression that they were pretty sure (though they can’t prove it) that the cancer was related to the AO.

I know I need to get my facts straight. I’ll be seeing my uncle in a week or so, I’ll have to clear this up.

8

What are the alternate explanations for the third-generation birth defects that Vietnam says are a consequence of Agent Orange?

9

As my Viet-Nam vet brother (82nd Airborne, multiple decorations, including valor) would say- “Agent Orange? You mean the GI’s best friend?”

Imagine you are attacking a NV position. Real nice to see what you are shooting at. :wink:

10

FWIW, Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, later CNO, was convinced that his Vietnam-serving son died, and his grandkids had developmental disorders, because of the use of Agent Orange that he himself approved.

11

There’s no evidence they actually exists. Some kids in Viet Nam are born with defects. Some kids in OKlahoma are born with birth defects. Once you account for the obvious factors such as helth care and nutrition there’s no evidence the incidence is any higher in Viet nam than in Oklahoma. Certainly the incidence in Viet Nam is no higher than in any comparable SE Asian nation.