Agent Orange And Dioxin Essay Research Paper

Agent Orange And Dioxin Essay, Research Paper

In 1961, the United States began spraying herbicides in its military campaign to defoliate

the jungles of southern Vietnam. Mimicking Smokey Bear, American pilots chuckled

Remember, only you can prevent forests, as they dropped weed killers over target sites.

But as research progressed, the true nature of the chemicals which they were spraying

came to light. It is certainly no longer a laughing matter when it is realized that Agent

Orange, a fifty-fifty mixture of 2,4,D and 2,4,5,T usually mixed with kerosene or diesel

fuel, could be as deadly to humans as it is to plants.

The military research of herbicides dates back to World War II. A grant was provided

by the National Research Council to develop a chemical to destroy rice crops in Japan.

2,4,D and 2,4,5,T was the result. A discussion between President Roosevelt and White

House Chief of Staff, Admiral William D. Leahy determined that this heinous chemical

should not be used. But in 1961 President Kennedy signed two orders allowing Agent

Orange to be used in Vietnam (one to destroy crops and the other to defoliate the

jungle). Defoliation stripped the jungle of vegetation. Left barren, it no longer provided

camouflage for the Viet Cong, their supply routes and base camps would be more prone

to aerial attacks. Crop destruction denied the communists of local food sources. This

forced them to divert more resources to provide and transport foods from other regions.

But just as important, crop destruction also weakened enemy morale and forced villagers

to move to cities where they could be more easily controlled.

The program for spraying herbicides over Vietnam was either called Operation Trail

Dust or Operation Ranch Hand . It began in 1961 and peaked from 1967 to 1969.

Various methods were employed to systematically spray these chemicals, which were

dispersed by aircraft, vehicle, boat, and hand-spraying. On ground, they were used by

soldiers to clear the perimeters of their base camps. Riverboats were used to spray the

riverbanks. Most damage to the jungle was done by air. The Air Force Operation Ranch

Hand, as it was called, used C-123 cargo aircrafts (providers) and helicopters to drop the

majority of the herbicides. There were an estimated 19.4 million gallons dropped during

the Vietnam War, sixty percent of which were Agent Orange. The average C-123 aircraft

could dump eleven thousand pounds of agent orange over three hundred acres in four

minutes.

There were many types of herbicides used by the United States in Vietnam. Each was

named after the color of the four inch band painted around the fifty-five gallon drums in

which it was contained: Agent White, Purple, Blue, Green, Pink and Orange.

The effects of the sprayings on the jungle were immediately recognizable. Estimates

show that six million acres or twenty percent of the entire land area of the republic of

South Vietnam was covered with chemical poisons. The President of South Vietnam,

Nguyen Van Thieu, announced that herbicides had destroyed twenty-three percent of

forests in his country. Scientists from the American Association for the Advancement of

Science who visited Vietnam in 1970 reported that bamboo had spread to reclaim forest

floors that hardwoods once claimed. Nearly all trees of coastal mangroves were destroyed

after one spraying and were not expected to return to their normal states for at least one

hundred years. More than six thousand two hundred and fifty square miles of south

Vietnam still can not be farmed because of defoliation.

The effects of the herbicides on humans were less obvious. Agent Orange is a

mixture of two major compounds- 2,4,Dichlorophenoxy acetic acid and

2,4,5,Trichlorophenoxy acetic acid. By mimicking a natural plant growth hormone, auxin,

these herbicides are able to induce plants to grow themselves past their natural levels of

tolerance. They were first used in the 1940 s in the United States to destroy weeds in

grain fields, pastures and turf. By the 1960 s, these herbicides had become an important

method of controlling weeds. Unfortunately, it was unknown at that time that Agent

Orange also contained one of the most lethal compounds known to man, dioxin. It s

ironic that the dioxin that makes agent orange so deadly isn t even an intended part of

the plant killer.

Dioxin generally refers to a group of about seventy-five chemicals made of two

benzene rings with substituted chlorines. They are by-products in the manufacture of

chlorine products like Polychlorinated Biphenyl oils or the burning of chlorine containing

wastes such as PVC pipes. In the production of chlorophenoxy herbicides, they were

unwanted chemicals that couldn t be removed. Dioxin is also produced by automobiles

(chlorinated chemicals are deliberately added to fuels), steel mills ( chlorinated solvents,

cutting oils and plastics are put into the

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