Agent Orange: deployment of chemical weapons by ARPA and DOD in Vietnam

Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it.

This post is about the history of using pesticides/herbicides as chemical weapons by the United States ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency, predecessor to DARPA) and the DOD (Department of Defense) in the development and deployment of Agent Orange on civilian targets and food supply in Vietnam, as well as on US own military forces. The reason I am writing about this is because the herbicide chemical weapons program was practically identical to how DARPA and DOD deployed covid countermeasures on the US and worldwide targets.

I will be quoting from many sources, including this very detailed analysis in a paper published by Columbia University in journal Nature in 2003:

Between 1961 and 1971 herbicide mixtures, nicknamed by the colored identification band painted on their 208-litre storage barrels, were used by United States and Republic of Vietnam forces to defoliate forests and mangroves, to clear perimeters of military installations and to destroy `unfriendly' crops as a tactic for decreasing enemy food supplies. The best-known mixture was Agent Orange. About 65% of the herbicides contained 2,4,5 trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T), which was contaminated with varying levels of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD).

US Air Force (USAF) operations, codenamed Operation Ranch Hand, dispersed more than 95% of all herbicides used in Operation Trail Dust, the overall herbicide program. Other branches of the US armed services and RVN forces, generally using hand sprayers, spray trucks (Buffalo turbines), helicopters and boats, sprayed smaller quantities of herbicide.

In addition to Agent Orange many other chemical weapons were used. Agent Blue was especially effective at killing rice. Agents Blue and Orange are chemically unrelated. Blue is made up of arsenic compounds, is deadly to humans and lives forever in soil and water supplies.

Over time, arsenic poison builds up and magnifies in humans and animals, increasing in toxicity over decades. Four million gallons of Agent Blue was sprayed over Vietnam between 1961 and 1971, but Blue didn't work on broadleaf vegetation such as jungle canopies as well as the other rainbow herbicides.

Agents Pink, Purple and Green were phased out by 1964, being contaminated with three times as much TCDD as Agent Orange.

An estimated 19 million gallons of these chemical agents were sprayed over Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos during the war. At least 11 million were Agent Orange.

The roles of both ARPA and DOD in development and deployment of Agent Orange were nearly identical to their roles in the development and deployment of Covid-19 injections and other “medical countermeasures”:

Role of ARPA

ARPA's research and development efforts through Project AGILE significantly influenced the military's decision to use herbicides in Vietnam. It provided the scientific and technical basis for the large-scale defoliation operations that followed, contributing significantly to the military's herbicide program.

Project AGILE:
ARPA established Project AGILE in the early 1960s to investigate means for engaging in remote, limited asymmetric warfare, particularly for use in supporting countries fighting Communist insurgents in Southeast Asia. Project AGILE ran from mid-1961 through 1974 and played a crucial role in developing herbicides as a military weapon for use in Vietnam.

Herbicide Testing and Development:
Under Project AGILE, ARPA performed various aspects of herbicide development and testing:
- Conducted tests on combinations and concentrations of herbicides
- Performed calibration studies of spray delivery systems to achieve desired application rates
- Experimented on optimal conditions to minimize spray drift
- Supported the development of the Hamlet Evaluation System, which collected political census data later used for estimating population exposures to herbicides

Subproject VI:
As part of Project AGILE, Subproject VI covered "individual and special projects," which included the use of herbicides like Agent Orange. This subproject was responsible for overseeing various aspects of herbicide research and development.

OCONUS Test Program:
ARPA sponsored the "Outside the Contiguous US" (OCONUS) Defoliation Test Program under Project AGILE, ARPA Order 423. This program included tests conducted in Thailand in 1964 and 1965 to determine the effectiveness of aerial applications of various herbicides, including Agent Purple and Agent Orange, in defoliating upland jungle vegetation representative of Southeast Asia.

Collaboration with Other Agencies:
ARPA worked in conjunction with other military branches and agencies. For example, the United States Army Biological Center, based at Fort Detrick, Maryland, conducted some of the test programs sponsored by ARPA.

Data Collection and Analysis:
ARPA developed a package of programs for analyzing data from the Hamlet Evaluation System, which was later used to estimate population exposures to herbicides.

Role of the Department of Defense

- Ordered the production of Agent Orange and other tactical herbicides
- Authorized the use of Agent Orange in combat operations
- Controlled the transport, storage, and use of Agent Orange
- Implemented the herbicide program in Vietnam through various military branches
- Assigned research and development responsibilities for new herbicides to the Army Chemical Corps at Fort Detrick
- Tasked the Air Force with operational responsibility for the herbicide program
- Procured Agent Orange and other tactical herbicides from chemical companies under the Defense Production Act of 1950
- Implemented Operation Ranch Hand, which used C-123 cargo planes to spray herbicides in Vietnam
- Initially required presidential authority for Agent Orange use, but by 1965 no longer needed such approval

The role of Monsanto and other pesticide manufacturers:

Agent Orange was created in 1940, decades before the American involvement in Vietnam and even before the United States entered World War II. It was used in the United States as an agricultural defoliant, as it had the ability to kill some plants while leaving others unaffected.

The U.S. government compelled nine American companies to make Agent Orange for military use, including Dow Chemical and Monsanto, using the Defense Production Act of 1950. Agent Orange was produced strictly for the military, which controlled its transportation, storage and later use.

The Monsanto Chemical Company reported that the TCDD in Agent Orange could be toxic as early as 1962. The President's Science Advisory Committee reported the same to the Joint Chiefs of Staff that same year. Studies from 1954 onward confirm the toxicity of both herbicides used in Agent Orange.

What Agent Orange Does to the Body

Dioxins are persistent organic pollutants, also known as "forever chemicals." While Agent Orange as a whole dries quickly and brakes down when exposed to sunlight when not bound to soil, leaves or grass, the TCDD dioxin contaminants in Agent Orange do not. TCDD is a human carcinogen and the most harmful of all dioxins.

Once introduced into the environment, dioxins like TCDD take a long time to break down, if they do at all. They accumulate in the fatty tissues of animals and humans, building up into the food chain. This means that people previously unaffected by Agent Orange can be exposed to TCDD by ingesting animal fat contaminated with the toxin.

Acute exposure to TCDD and other dioxins can cause chloracne, a dark, patchy series of lesions on the skin. Longer-term exposure causes alterations in liver function, immune system impairment and damage to developing nervous, endocrine and reproductive systems, according to the World Health Organization.

Exposure to Agent Orange causes a number of chronic issues, diseases and cancers. There are 19 presumptive conditions the VA recognizes as connected to Agent Orange exposure, including Hodgkin's disease, lymphomas and cancers affecting the bladder, prostate and respiratory system. Conditions caused by Agent Orange.

If the short- and long-term exposure wasn't apparent, effects of Agent Orange have been shown to skip a generation, meaning genetic effects can reappear in subsequent generations.

The Vietnam War ended in 1975, yet no large-scale epidemiological study of herbicides and the health of either the Vietnamese population or war veterans has been carried out. Large numbers of Vietnamese civilians and US service members have been directly exposed to toxic herbicidal agents sprayed at massive volumes. The VA estimates that as many as 2.8 million Vietnam veterans could have been exposed to Agent Orange while between 2.1 and 4.5 million Vietnamese civilians may have been affected by exposure. The numbers do not include American civilians, U.S. Navy veterans stationed off the coast, Vietnamese combatants or those affected after the war's end.

Agent Orange and other chemical weapons were manufactured by Monsanto, Dow and related suppliers, under orders from the DOD and using the Defense Production Act. This is also very similar to how the DOD contracted with Pfizer, Moderna and other pharma and medical device companies for covid countermeasures in 2020.

No one in the government (ARPA, DOD) was ever held accountable for deaths and injuries and environmental damage caused by Agent Orange and other chemical weapons.

The government and military committed the atrocities, then blamed bad capitalists, after which some corporate shells settled “product liability” lawsuits, but nobody was personally held responsible.

After ~14 years of private litigation the Agent Orange Settlement Fund was created by the resolution of the Agent Orange Product Liability Litigation - a class action lawsuit brought by Vietnam Veterans and their families regarding injuries incurred as a result of the exposure of Vietnam Veterans to chemical herbicides. The suit was brought against the major manufacturers of these herbicides - Monsanto and a few others. The class action case was settled out-of-court in 1984 for $180 million dollars, reportedly the largest settlement of its kind at that time.

The payment program operated over a period of 6 years, beginning, after appeals, in 1988 and concluding in 1994. During its operation, the Settlement Fund distributed a total of $197 million in cash payments to members of the class in the United States.

Of the 105,000 claims received by the Payment Program, approximately 52,000 Vietnam Veterans or their survivors received cash payments which averaged about $3,800 each.

In other words, the plaintiffs had to wait for 18-26 years (and spend money on litigation) to have a 50% chance of receiving $3800 in compensation. In fact, the $1200 payment offered by AstraZeneca to plaintiff Bre Dressen somewhat exceeds this sum in real terms (due to the litigation cost, risk, and time value of money).

Speaking of which, how are those lawsuits against bad pharma doing? Anyone has an update? Are we winning yet?

Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it.

Next time you see a military service member and have an urge to thank them for their service, please stop and consider - service TO WHOM? Instead, I suggest telling them that you pray for their safety and that of their family, and that at some point of their career they will be ordered to commit an atrocity, and that they have the right and in fact the duty to refuse. Pray that they find the strength to refuse.

Coming to 2024, it seems that the GOP lawmakers are well familiar with history and are working to make sure it repeats even better this time. Recall, that current PREP Act declarations include the use of pesticides and nerve agents. Also note that polio is not a virus, it is a poisoning by neurotoxic pesticides (organophosphates and carbamates).

According to Beyond Pesticides news blog, currently GOP lawmakers are advancing the bill to preempt state and local governance on pesticides and shield lawmakers from injury liability lawsuits:

The Senate GOP framework alludes to federal preemption of state and local governance on pesticides, agriculture, and public health in Title X Horticulture title: “Restates and reaffirms U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) obligation with respect to the federal and state regulatory process.” Moreover, in Title XII Miscellaneous: “Protects the ability of livestock producers to raise and sell products into interstate commerce without interference from other states.” Environmental and health advocates believe that these two points refer to House-approved text carrying over from the Agricultural Labeling Uniformity Act and Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act, respectively, and would effectively:

• Prohibit the right to sue for failure to warn when harmed by pesticides. In Section 10204 of the House Farm Bill, language shields (gives immunity to) the producers and users of toxic pesticides from liability lawsuits associated with the harm that their products cause. The provision will block lawsuits like those successfully advanced against Bayer/Monsanto for adverse health effects, like cancer, associated with exposure to their products and companies’ failure to warn about these effects on EPA approved product labels.

• Prohibit the rights of states and local governments to restrict pesticides and protect public health and the environment. In Sections 10204 and 10205, language would prevent local and state governments from passing pesticide ordinances or concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) regulations that conflict with (aka more stringent than) federal regulations and policy.

Links to sources:
https://epiville.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/assets/pdfs/Stellman3.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK195087/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK236347/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK236351/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_AGILE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ranch_Hand
https://media.defense.gov/2010/Sep/28/2001329797/-1/-1/0/operation_ranch_hand.pdf
https://vietnamwar.fandom.com/wiki/Project_AGILE

https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-19-24.pdf
https://corporate.dow.com/en-us/about-dow/company/issues/agent-orange.html
https://www.military.com/history/why-us-used-agent-orange-vietnam-and-what-makes-it-so-deadly.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK236347/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK236351/
https://epiville.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/assets/pdfs/Stellman3.pdf
https://home.army.mil/detrick/application/files/8715/8031/4270/Agent_Orange_A_History_of_its_Use_Disposition_and_Environmental_Fate_Final_Report_30_Jun_08.pdf

Art for today: Foxgloves, watercolor from my sketchbook.

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