Word: dioxins
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...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...
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...
...maintains that even before this warning, top U.S. officials already knew the hazards of dioxin in Agent Orange from the Government's own research and that as a Government contractor, the company was simply filling an order. The federal court documents show that in 1967 the Joint Chiefs of Staff reviewed a Rand Corp. warning about the herbicide but discounted it and continued the spraying, believed by the military to be essential to the war effort, for an additional 2½ years. Yet the Pentagon is on record as having ordered Agent Orange from Dow and others specifically...
...hearings, is not expected to go before a jury until next year. "It's been all cloak and dagger," says ex-Navyman Sutton, "but I think the truth is finally coming out." No doubt, but some truths may continue to prove elusive: while scientific studies have shown that dioxin is fatal to laboratory animals even in minute quantities, its effects on humans are still a matter of considerable debate among experts...