'You ask what we were doing over there all those years: what
it was all about? I'll tell you pure and simple: it was a noble cause.' --
Ronald
Reagan
[Agent Orange is the code name for a herbicide,
(one of several defoliants used, the others were Agent Pink, Agent Blue and
Agent White, derived from the colour coding of the drums containing the
defoliants) used by the U.S. military in its Herbicidal Warfare program
during the Vietnam War, when an estimated 21,136,000 gal. of Agent Orange
were sprayed across South Vietnam. 4.8 million Vietnamese people were
exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in 400,000 deaths and disabilities, and
500,000 children born with birth defects.
Agent Orange was manufactured by
Monsanto, Dow Chemicals (manufacturers of
Napalm), Uniroyal, Hercules, Diamond Shamrock, Thompson Chemical and TH
Agriculture. Monsanto were the main supplier. The Agent Orange produced by
Monsanto had dioxin levels many times higher than that produced by Dow
Chemicals, the other major supplier of Agent Orange to Vietnam.
Dioxins are one of the most toxic chemicals known to man. Permissible levels
are measured in parts per trillion, the ideal level is zero. The Agent Orange
manufactured by Monsanto contained 2,3,7,8-tetrachlordibenzo-para-dioxin (TCDD),
extremely deadly even when measured against other dioxins. The levels found in
domestic 2,4,5-T were around 0.05 ppm, that shipped to Vietnam peaked at 50 ppm,
ie 1,000 times higher than the norm.
Operation Hades, later changed to Operation Ranch Hand, sprayed 6 million
acres of forest in Vietnam, 19 million gallons of defoliant. The intention was
to turn Vietnam into desert, to cause such destruction that Vietnam would never
recover. The first and most immediate effect of Operation Ranch Hand was the loss of
tree cover. Millions of acres of forest destroyed. It was only later that the
carcinogenic and other effects began to emerge.
US service men, who at most only served a few months tour of duty, have
suffered from cancers, skin disorders and liver disorders. In an out-of-court
settlement in May 1984 the manufacturers wore forced to pay $180 million in
damages for exposure to Agent Orange, little more than 'nuisance value'.
Monsanto as the key defendant was forced by the presiding judge to contribute
45.5% of the total pay-out.]
See:
[2016
Sept] Glyphosate in Childhood Vaccines DTap Adacel (Sanofi Pasteur)
vaccine had 0.123 ppb, Influenza Fluvirin (Novaris) 0.331 ppb and HepB Energix-B
(Glaxo Smith Kline) 0.325 and Pneumonoccal Vax Polyvalent Pneumovax 23, (Merck)
had 0.107 ppb of glyphosate.The MMR II (Merck) vaccine, which CDC whistle blower Dr.William Thompson has linked to autism, had levels up to
25 times higher than
the other vaccines, at 2.671ppb.
[2011 July] U.S. Soldiers
‘Sprayed Agent Orange Across Korea’“We were told, ‘It’s totally safe and it won’t hurt you at all,’” he
added. “We were told, ‘You can drink it, you can brush your teeth with it, or
you can bathe in it. It won’t hurt you. Those were lies.”
Dow Brings Back An Agent Orange Ingredient for New GM Plants. "History is
repeating itself before our eyes. Dow Chemicals and Monsanto, joined at the
karmic hip, both manufactured Agent Orange for use in Vietnam, and both are
notorious for minimizing the adverse health effects associated with exposure to
the agent. Neither corporation learned from its mistakes, largely because the US
government underwrote the risk of using the chemical, and therefore shielded
them from the bulk of the legal and financial fallout."
Quotes
''In researching
Thorsen's
involvement with the
CDC,
Grundvig came across other instances of malfeasance. In 1984, Coleen Boyle was a
principal investigator for the CDC, charged with investigating the effects of
Agent Orange. Today, Boyle is the director of the National Center on Birth
Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD), an arm of the CDC.
In the 1980s, the CDC was given extensive information from
the army on Operation Ranch Hand about the flight patterns of Agent Orange. The
information was archived in Pennsylvania, but the CDC refused to go to the
archives and look at it. Doing so meant they'd have to face the truth about the
contamination of U.S. troops — about half a million American veterans who suffer
from cancers and other diseases caused by Agent Orange.
The CDC basically gave up on the Agent Orange studies saying
they "couldn't figure it out," when in fact they could have, had they simply
gone to Pennsylvania. In so doing, they forfeited $21 million in research money,
which in and of itself raises questions about motives. Apparently they deemed
the loss of $21 million to be preferable to what they might find by doing the
research.
"The 101st Congress came out [with a report in 1990 and called it [the] "Agent
Orange cover up" to basically skewer the CDC. Unfortunately, nothing happened.
They didn't fire the people in charge. They didn't clean house in the CDC. Once
those people at the top were able to get away with this, they felt emboldened.
They also had a template for future issues like Ebola and Zika," Grundvig
says.
With Boyle, the CDC demonstrated they are really masterful at covering up issues
that are directly related to the public health, or issues that could have a
negative impact on people's perception of a certain exposure.''
[2016 Dec] Master
Manipulator: The Explosive True Story of Fraud, Embezzlement, and Government
Betrayal at the CDC
Occasionally I saw these [genetically deformed] children in contaminated
villages in the Mekong Delta; and whenever I asked about them, people pointed to
the sky; one man scratched in the dust a good likeness of a bulbous C-130
aircraft, spraying. -- John Pilger
Monsanto has in fact submitted false information to EPA which directly
resulted in weakened regulations ... -- Cate Jenkins
Monsanto covered up the dioxin contamination of a wide range of its
products. Monsanto either failed to report contamination, submitted false
information purporting to show no contamination or submitted samples to to the
government for analysis which had been specially prepared so that dioxin
contamination did not exist. -- Cate Jenkins
We have over 50,000 children that have been born with horrific
deformities; the link is clear. -- Vu Trong Huong, director War Crimes
Investigation
These Agent Orange births are normal for us ... Every now and then we have
what we call a foetal catastrophe - when the number of miscarriages and deformed
babies, I am afraid to say, overwhelms us. -- Dr Pham Viet Thanh, Tu Du
hospital
First sprayed in 1968, Mr. Vinh was plagued by muscular
and skeletal disorders. But after the war ended in 1975, his health deteriorated
rapidly. By 1994, he was paralyzed and spent six months in hospital, being fed
liquids through his nose. He recovered, but not enough to work on his rice farm.
Today, his voice is hoarse, he can't swallow solid food, his spine is numb and
often he is too weak to walk or even to turn over in bed. Dioxin interferes with
reproduction, so Mr. Vinh's nightmare swept up his children and grandchildren as
well. One son is blind and mentally handicapped. Another is deaf. A third has
spinal problems. One daughter is partly paralyzed, another mentally handicapped,
the third chronically weak with children born blind. Vietnam estimates 400,000 people
were killed or maimed by the defoliants, 500,000 children have been born with
defects from retardation to spina bifida and a further two million people have
suffered cancers or other illnesses. Yet they have received no compensation from
those who produced the chemicals and those who made them a weapon of war.[2008] 'Last ghost' of the Vietnam War
Quang Van Tuoi, a 65-year-old veteran of the Viet Cong,
shows a small photo of his youngest daughter, born with deformed limbs and
mental handicaps. Her eyes are glassy and unfocused, and her body is partly
paralyzed.All five of his children, born from 1975 to
1994, have similar mental problems. “We kept hoping we would have a healthy
child,” he says. “But they all suffered the same illness.”[2008] 'Last ghost' of the Vietnam War
