"Operation Ranch Hand" began on this date 50 years ago. Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign has the story.
On August 10th, 1961, the U.S. armed forces began the first spraying of toxic chemicals in Vietnam, launching “Operation Ranch Hand” a program that lasted almost a decade. Operation Ranch Hand focused its deadly weapons upon South Vietnam, causing destruction of Vietnam's environment, ecological systems and catastrophic consequences to human health.
Ed. note. “Operation Ranch Hand” actually didn't start until 1962. In 1961, President Kennedy signed two orders allowing Agent Orange to be used in Vietnam. One order to destroy crops, and another order to defoliate the jungle.
This August 10th, 2011 marks the 50th anniversary of the Agent Orange disaster in Vietnam. This is a very sad commemoration for the Vietnamese people. More than 3 million hectares of forests and rice fields and about 26,000 hamlets were sprayed by the U.S. with toxic chemicals. Even now, fifty years later, a number of "hot spots" are still severely contaminated with high levels of dioxin in the soil and water. Out of about 5 million Vietnamese who were exposed to Agent Orange/dioxin, 3 million people are estimated to be suffering from illnesses or birth defects.
Monsanto and Dow Chemical knew they were making dioxin contaminated AO. From a diary a long time ago; Agent Orange Ain't That Bad.
As the government asked the chemical companies to produce more and more herbicide as the war escalated, whatever quality control that may have existed became non-existent. With greater demand, the companies in effect sped up their production line, which led to higher temperatures and pressure in the production process. Defendants knew from the experiences of Boehringer and another German company, Badische, that higher temperatures and pressure lead to greater dioxin content. After Boehringer shut down its plant in the 1950’s due to dioxin contamination, it discovered why dioxin was formed and how to avoid it. The company later reopened its plant and managed to keep dioxin levels at a reasonably low level. This new process involved keeping an upper temperature limit of between 150 and 155 degrees Centigrade. In Boehringer’s system, an alarm would go off when the temperature rose above 157 degrees. This meant that the reaction to form TCP (when dioxin is normally produced) took 12 to 13 hours, much longer than with higher temperatures. Boehringer shared this information with the chemical companies in 1957, after it had experienced a measure of success in avoiding dioxin formation. ...Though defendants knew in the 1950s that decreasing temperature in the autoclave reaction would greatly lower levels of dioxin in their 2,4,5-T, they intentionally and deliberately failed to follow these precautions.
Dow’s reaction temperature during the early 1960s ran as high as 212 to 225 degrees, nowhere near the safe level of 150 degrees, and the reaction took only 45 minutes. ...The reason for this was that lowering the temperature of the reaction and therefore slowing down the process would have cost more and taken longer.
Operation Ranch Hand was flown out of Bien Hoa Airbase where I spent my SE Asia vacation.
I will be manning a booth at the Vancouver (WA.) Peace and Justice Fair today and won't have much time to participate in the coments but wanted to get this out.
BOHICA
Repentant ex member of Murder Inc.
Southeast Asia Division