The Effects Agent Orange Produced on Health

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“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.” (“U.S. Soldiers Sprayed Agent Orange across Korea” 1) Agent Orange was an herbicide used by the United States military forces in Vietnam between 1962 and 1971 to destroy their enemies’ food supply, land, and protection. Twelve million gallons of this toxin were sprayed. (Department of Preventive Medicine 1) It affected the Vietnamese and the American troops who were fighting in the same jungle. Little did the United States military know the effects of this dangerous herbicide. It caused many long-term complications, including health problems for the veterans, birth defects, and contaminated grounds. Therefore, it was wrong of the United States to spray such a dangerous herbicide without looking further into the damage that it would leave behind. (National Academies Press)
There were a variety of methods to spray Agent Orange—including by airplanes, helicopters, boats, trucks, and backpack sprayers. From the United States going to the extreme of spraying this deathly toxin; most of the veterans who were distributing the herbicide or being exposed to the toxin would later have health problems. There were different ways the veterans could have been exposed from either mixing, storing, or spraying the toxin. Also, veterans could ingest the toxin a variety of ways, such as, breathing it in, ingesting it, or absorbing it through the skin. Determining the health effects was difficult because it was not known how long the veterans were exposed to the toxin. If the United States would have looked more into the herbicide these health problem...

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"We Weren't Soldiers…." Ecologist 36.5 (2006): 036-039. GreenFILE. Web. 30 Jan. 2014.
Wilson, Ryan D. "Agent Orange still 'killing' Vietnam War veterans." Clay Center Dispatch (KS) 21 Mar. 2013: Newspaper Source Plus. Web. 29 Jan. 2014.

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