The History, Use, Disposition and Environmental Fate of Agent Orange
by Colonel Alvin L. Young, Ph.D., U.S. Air Force (Ret.), Springer Science and Business Media, 2009
I have been waiting more than a decade for this definitive scientific book on the Agent Orange controversy. My article, “Reexamining the Effects of Agent Orange,” published in the February 1999 issue of Vietnam, was intended to help sort out the facts from the fiction inside the Agent Orange controversy. At that time, with science never having positively proved that tactical herbicides had actually caused Vietnam veterans’ health problems, veterans and supporters took a political route to seek a resolution to the debate. The result was that veterans serving in South Vietnam and surrounding waters between January 9, 1962, and May 7, 1975, now have 11 diseases “presumed” to be associated with herbicide exposure.
I relied on my experience as a former Ranch Hand aircraft commander, as well as the last Herbicide Project Officer for the operation in the early 1970s at the Seventh Air Force Headquarters in Saigon in writing the 1999 article. After my retirement in 1982, I participated in six three-day medical studies of the effects of Agent Orange on U.S. military personnel involved in the spraying operation, the latest in 2003. I have also published several articles and lectured on the subject over the past 17 years. Therefore, when I heard an old friend, retired Air Force Colonel Alvin L. Young, who completed his Ph.D. in herbicidal physiology and environmental toxicology, was writing this book, I patiently awaited the nine years it would take to get the study published. For 40 years Young has collected documents, reports and photographs on the use, disposition and environmental fate of Agent Orange used in Vietnam. He has also edited or published several books, more than 70 peer-reviewed publications, commentaries and editorials on the tactical herbicides used in Vietnam. His scientific specialty is on the use, toxicology, human environmental risks and health impacts involved with the use of Agent Orange.
Young examines all aspects of the ongoing debate, including research being done in Vietnam and the author’s participation at the 2005 and 2007 workshops on Agent Orange and Dioxin Remediation in Hanoi.
Including more than 150 color photos, Young covers the history of tactical herbicides. These herbicides were developed only for military combat purposes with operation Ranch Hand applying 95 percent in South Vietnam and the U.S. Army Chemical Corps spraying the remaining 5 percent. The important difference between tactical herbicide and all other herbicides or pesticides, and what organization eventually controlled these chemicals for use, is also clarified. The strict procedures used by the Air Force and allied forces from 1961 to 1971 are studied—the controls that definitely would have limited any exposure of U.S. and other combat troops to the tactical herbicides. It likely explains the anecdotal reports by soldiers and Vietnamese civilians of exposure to Agent Orange spray. For under Operation Flyswatter, the silver UC123 “Bug Birds” sprayed bases and cities using Malathion—for mosquito and malaria control—from 1966 to 1972.
There is also new information on procurement and use in Vietnam along with a discussion of new data on the dioxin (TCDD) contaminant in the remaining inventories before destruction. A section discusses the area at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida (test area C-52) where the Air Force developed and tested the spray equipment used in Vietnam from 1961 to 1971. These test areas received over 1,300 times the amount of TCDD contaminant in Agent Orange that was disseminated on a hectare in South Vietnam. This area has now shown recovery of plant and animal life back to normal levels.
The final chapter covers previous research conducted in Vietnam itself, hot spots at Bien Hoa and Da Nang Air Fields. In his postlude, Dr. Young asks, “Can there be a satisfactory end to the Agent Orange controversy?” He states the U.S. has given humanitarian aid to assist the Vietnamese government to help build capacity for laboratory analysis of Dioxin and related chemicals. However, concerning the broader issue of “victims of Agent Orange,” the U.S. ambassador in 2007 stated he did not accept the term “victims of Agent Orange” and that any humanitarian assistance to disabled Vietnamese should not be based on evaluation of cause of disability.
Without evidence of widespread exposure to dioxin (TCDD) either from tactical herbicides or other sources, past published information suggesting that Agent Orange caused many diseases in Vietnam veterans, their families, or Vietnamese must be viewed with caution. A connection of evidence of casual relationship has not been scientifically proven and there appears little reason to expect causation to be established at this time. While spina bifida in Vietnamese children is frequently attributed to the herbicide, other risk factors, such as nutritional deficiencies of folic acid are much more likely to explain such defects.
Also, in U.S. veterans both prostate cancer and type 2 diabetes are cases of situations where assumed exposure must be assessed against a background of risk that includes age in the case of prostate cancer, and obesity and family history with diabetes. Young states that Vietnam and Agent Orange are now firm public policy issues as well as medical and scientific concerns. These public issues favor our veterans. This is quite acceptable, since science alone cannot eliminate the perception of bodily harm. Therefore the controversy over the use of tactical herbicides in Vietnam and elsewhere appears to be with us for the immediate future. However, the government should have recognized by now that many veterans do appear to be at risk for a variety of health problems and diseases due mainly to the “Vietnam experiences.” The question early on should have been asked “Why spend many millions and 30 years of time focusing on Agent Orange instead of providing aid and benefits to all Vietnam veterans?” Young concludes, with hindsight, the government could have done better and been more generous to all Vietnam veterans by focusing much less on Agent Orange and more on the total Vietnam experience. This book is a must read for all interested in the Agent Orange controversy. Almost every definitive statement the author makes is backed by references to a peer-related scientific study cited in his footnotes.
Originally published in the October 2009 issue of Vietnam Magazine. To subscribe, click here.
