Agent+Orange

 Agent Orange One of the most famous of the "Rainbow Herbicides". Agent Orange is the code name for a herbicide and defoliant used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam war. It was being used from 1965-1970, but from 1968-1969 there was a stronger version of the herbicide made called Agent Orange II, also reffered to as "Super Orange". Agent Orange was given its name because of the orage striped barrels it was shipped and stored in. While the production of Agent Orange was going on dioxins were also produced as a contaminant. Agent Orage wasn't the only "Rainbow Herbicide" that contained dioxins. There are aslo Agents Purple, Pink and Green which had the dioxins in them as well as Agents Blue and White which did not contain the harmful dioxins like the rest. 21,136,000 gallons of Agent Orange was spread across south Vietman and 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to it. This herbicide has cause 400,000 deaths and disabilities a long with 500,000 children who were born with birth defects due to the dioxins in the herbicide. Any exposure to the dioxins (not only from Agent Orange) are indicated to increase the risks of getting different cancers and having children with birth defects. When concerns of Agent Orange's effects on man started to come up tests in labratories were being preformed on animals. This lead them to find that exposer to this herbicide offten became fatal. The U.S. Department of Veterens Affairs has listed some conditions, that are associated with the exposure to the herbicide, as prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple myeloma, type II diabetes, Hodgkin’s disease, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, soft tissue sarcoma, chloracne, porphyria cutanea tarda, peripheral neuropathy, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, spina bifida in children and extra fingers and toes.

These diseases affected many Agent Orange veterans and there children. These affected veterans wanted compensation and treatment for the diseases that affected them and their family. Many of the veterans have not recieved promised medical care and very few of the children affected have received anyhting at all. It was thought that veterans exposed to Agent Orange wouldn't live past 65 and those first veterans that filed the lawsuit for compensation think the government is just waiting for them to die.

 The plan of Agent Orange was to spread it onto the land and redduce the thick jungle areas so that it could not be used for easy coverage. It was also used for clearing sensative areas like around base perimiters and for driving civillians to controlled areas. Using Agent Orange also denied them use of crops needed for subsistance. The use of agent orange was only discontinued in 1971. There are worries now about the dioxins in the herbicide still being active and harmful to people. Researchers in Vietnam and Canada have been studying this and found that the areas where the herbicide was just spread over have very small traces of the dioxins left so it is said to be safe but the areas used for loading and unloading and storing Agent Orange still have high amounts of dioxin found in the soil which could most deffinately still be harmful to humans. The air bases in vietman have been put on the priority list for clean-up.



The dark coloring represents the areas that Agent orange was sprayed. But this is only a map of the areas sprayed by planes. Areas spayed by helicoptor, or any other mathod is **not** shown on here. 

Bibliography

Wikimedia, Foundation, Inc.(2009) Wikipedia Agent Orange. Retrieved from: []  Lewis Publishing Company. Agent Orange Website. Retreived from: []

Images Courtesy of: [|www.greenleft.org.au] [|www.chrisarsenault.ca] [|www.spusa.org] [|www.diggerhistory.info] []