Agent Orange

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Agent Orange

Just saying the name Agent Orange gets the attention of every Vietnam veteran, and I dare say most of the Australian and American public, not to mention the Vietnamese. Agent Orange was the code name for a herbicide developed for the military, primarily for use in tropical climates. Although the genesis of the product goes back to the 1940s, serious testing for military applications did not begin until the early 1960s. The purpose of the product was to deny an enemy cover and concealment in dense terrain by defoliating trees and shrubbery where the enemy could hide.
The product “Agent Orange” (a code name for the orange band that was used to mark the drums it was stored in) was principally effective against broad-leaf foliage, such as the dense jungle-like terrain found in Southeast Asia. The product was tested in Vietnam in the early 1960s, and was brought into ever widening use during the height of the war in 1967-68, though it’s use was diminishing and eventually discontinued in 1971. Agent Orange was a 50-50 mix of two chemicals, known conventionally as 2,4,D and 2,4,5,T. The combined product was mixed with kerosene or diesel fuel and dispersed by aircraft, vehicle, and hand spraying. An estimated 19 million gallons of Agent Orange were used in South Vietnam during the war.
The earliest health concerns about Agent Orange were about the product’s contamination with TCDD, or dioxin. TCDD is one of a family of dioxins, some found in nature, and are cousins of dibenzofurans and PCB’s. Dioxin is formed by burning achlorine-based chemical compounds with hydrocarbons. The major source of dioxin in the environment (95%) comes from incinerators burning chlorinated wastes. Dioxin pollution is also affiliated with paper mills, which use chlorine bleaching in their process and with the production of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) plastics. The TCDD that can be found in Agent Orange is thought to be harmful to man. In l...