 Between 1962 and 1971, the United States Military sprayed over eighty million liters of defoliants over southern Vietnam in order to remove vegetation cover that was used by Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces for concealment. Along roads, canals, railroads, and other transportation arteries, the herbicidals were sprayed to clear a swath several hundred yards wide to make ambushes more difficult. Large areas of forest that hid sanctuaries and bases were denuded, thereby forcing the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong to move or risk discovery and attack. Overall, about six million acres were sprayed, not correcting for multiple coverage.
The herbicides were mixtures of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, phenoxy herbicides that act as growth regulators and cause destructive proliferation of tissues in plants when they are in a stage of active growth. Another plant growth regulator used was picloram. Cacodylic acid, an organic arsenic compound, killed crops by causing them to dry out. Various mixtures of these herbicides arrived in Vietnam in distinctive color-coded drums, the origin of the names "Agent Orange," "Agent Blue," "Agent White," etc. The primary focus in the continuing controversy over the human health effects of herbicides involves a dioxin impurity created as a byproduct in the manufacturing process of 2,4,5-T, one of the two herbicides in Agent Orange.
An article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch accused the U.S. and its South Vietnamese allies of using "dirty war" tactics against the Viet Cong, including spraying "poison" to destroy rice fields and roadside ambush cover. The article so disturbed Congressman Robert W. Kastenmeier of Wisconsin that he wrote President Kennedy and urged him to renounce the use of herbicides in Vietnam, calling them chemical weapons. The Department of Defense responded to Kastenmeier's letter, contending that the herbicides being used in Vietnam were not chemical weapons and charging that the press and communist propaganda organs had distorted the facts about the defoliation efforts.
A RAND Corporation report concluded that the spray program had generated much hostility toward the United States and its South Vietnamese allies.
Crop destruction struck at the very heart of a rural South Vietnamese farmer's existence, eliminating not only the food supply upon which he and his family depended, but also obliterating in one spray pass the product of many months of his family's labor.
Nguyen Xuan Hung recalls a morning 40 years ago when three US C123 aircraft flew overhead. They circled and then from the aircraft a mist covered a wide area. Those who were present at that time felt a tightness in their chests, difficulty breathing and nausea. Several days later, thousands of acres of mangrove forest
turned yellow and withered.
In 1969, a study was released that presented evidence that 2,4,5-T, a component of Agent Orange, could, in relatively high doses, cause malformed offspring as well as stillbirths in mice. This study closely followed a spate of reports in the South Vietnamese press that Agent Orange had caused human birth defects in that country. Because of doubts about the safety of 2,4,5-T, the Departments of Health, Education, and Welfare; Interior; and Agriculture on April 15, 1970, ordered the immediate banning of this chemical.
To better understand how toxic this chemical is, 80g, or just enough to fill a child-size talcum powder container, if dropped into the water supply of a city the size of New York, would kill the entire population. Ground-breaking research by Dr Arthur H Westing, former director of the UN Environment Program, a leading authority on Agent Orange, reveals that the US sprayed 170kg of it over Vietnam.
Today, in one small hamlet of over 20 households, more than ten households have Agent Orange victims. There is a family where four out of their six of their children are Agent Orange victims.
One Vietnamese woman recalled that in 1961, she and her boyfriend were both provincial transport soldiers. One day, when they were transporting military supplies, US aircraft bombarded them and sprayed toxic chemicals. Two people in their team died immediately.
Her boyfriend was seriously wounded.  She said she was lucky that she was not wounded, but she felt short of breath. Later they were married, however she gave birth to still-born children on three different occasions. Tran Thi Hoan, born in 1986, suffers the effect of Agent Orange. Agent Orange/dioxin was sprayed on her mother while she was gardening. Both of Hoan’s legs and one hand are seriously atrophied.
Dr Arnold Schecter, a leading expert in dioxin contamination in the US, found in one soil sample in Vietnam TCCD levels that were 180 million times above the safe level set by the US environmental protection agency.
Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, the former commander of the US Navy in Vietnam presented a report to the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs which contained data linking Agent Orange to 28 life-threatening conditions, including bone cancer, skin cancer, brain cancer - in fact, almost every cancer known to man - in addition to chronic skin disorders, birth defects, gastrointestinal diseases and neurological defects.
Zumwalt uncovered irrefutable evidence that the US military had dispensed Agent Orange in concentrations six to 25 times the suggested rate.
The President of Vietnam, Nguyen Minh Triet, has said “The pain of AO/dioxin victims is not merely their own pain, but is also the common pain of the whole nation”.
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