Word: dioxin
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...thousands of Viet Nam veterans, the longest battle of America's most unpopular war still rages-in U.S. courtrooms. Last May a $180 million settlement was reached in the class-action suit against seven chemical companies that manufactured Agent Orange, the dioxin-contaminated defoliant that the military sprayed over Viet Nam from 1965 to 1970. The plaintiffs claimed that Agent Orange had caused, among other things, skin disorders in many of the soldiers and birth defects in some of their children. Judge Jack Weinstein of New York, who worked out the mass-damage award, is now holding hearings...
...defoliate the jungles and roadsides that the enemy was using for cover. The herbicide got its name from the bright orange stripes on the steel drums that contained it. By itself, Agent Orange is not considered unusually dangerous to humans, but a compound produced in its manufacture, dioxin, is one of the most toxic chemicals known. A tiny amount of dioxin can kill some laboratory animals and in others produce liver disorders, various cancers and birth defects. In 1970 the U.S. military stopped using Agent Orange over Viet Nam. By that time some 11 million gallons of the herbicide...
...Despite dioxin's effect on laboratory animals, it has never been conclusively established if dioxin-contaminated Agent Orange is directly responsible for ailments in humans more serious than chloracne, a disfiguring skin problem. But after a 1976 explosion at an Italian chemical plant, which spread dioxin over a village and resulted in chloracne and the widespread death of animals, many veterans became convinced that Agent Orange was responsible for most of their ailments...
...manufacturers of Agent Orange in 1979. (He later withdrew from the case in a dispute with other attorneys for the veterans.) During the next five years the case provoked waves of other suits, countersuits, motions and medical examinations, as well as conflicting claims about the harmful effects of dioxin on humans...
William Ruckelshaus, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, laments that the nation seems caught up in a quest for the "chemical of the month." He was referring to once obscure substances, such as dioxin and PCB, that suddenly get catapulted into the public spotlight. Enter October's celebrity poison...