Agent Orange and other chemicals — Since, as predicted, Iraq is looking more and more like Viet Nam insofar as the fiasco aspect is concerned, you have to wonder what the equivalent “bad idea” to Agent Orange exists? I have a couple of good ideas. Anyone want to guess?
The earliest health concerns about Agent Orange were about the product’s contamination with TCDD, or dioxin. TCDD is one of a family of dioxins, some found in nature, and are cousins of the dibenzofurans and pcb’s.
The TCDD found in Agent Orange is thought to be harmful to man. In laboratory tests on animals, TCDD has caused a wide variety of diseases, many of them fatal. TCDD is not found in nature, but rather is a man-made and always unwanted byproduct of the chemical manufacturing process. The Agent Orange used in Vietnam was later found to be extremely contaminated with TCDD.
related link:
If you want to get sick to your stomach, read this.
noted by E. Campbell because of Canadian use of the substance in New Brunswick.
My guess is Depleted Uranium.
Geez..some contest..
OK..It’s over. It is indeed depleted Uranium.
So TCDD is “one of the most virulent poisons known to man.” And if 80 grams of TCCD is enough to kill the entire population of New York City, then why did no one die when a toxic cloud containing up to 20,000 grams of TCDD engulfed the town of Seveso, Italy? 37,000 people were exposed to this stuff for two weeks and no one died?
Indeed, it seems at least one man owes his life to the myth of TCDD toxicity. Someone tried to assassinate the Ukrainian opposition leader, Viktor Yushchenko, using dioxin. I guess the would-be assassin believed that pseudo-science EPA spreads.
Not a single dioxin-caused death has ever been proven. Not a single dioxin-related cancer case has ever been demonstrated. Chloracne, yes; death or cancer, no. The science actually implies that exposure to low levels of dioxin may actually (heavy irony here!) decrease the risk of some cancers.
Perhaps my old toxicology professor was correct when he said, “TCDD is the most hazardous substance known to guinea pigs. But man is not a guinea pig.”
Your toxicology professor must have been working for Dow on the side. And denial is a river is Egypt.
Whether or not the exact mechanism of TCDD and dioxin is precisely set forth in current reviews, there is no doubt of the range of defects and deaths, ranging from SIDS to cancers associated with the various colors of chemical deathtraps used as defoliants — including Purpe, which was Orange + arsenic. That also was used on the Canadian defoliation experiments. The whole body of study has been adjudged overwhelming by peer review for decades.
Ignoring a body of evidence because you choose politically to focus on a single element is not only unscientific, it is anti-scientific. But, it might get you invited to Dow cocktail parties.
Incidentally, John, if you check in with VA websites for “veterans’ benefits and advice” — you’ll find language like this:
“Based on clinical research, the following diseases are on VA’s Agent Orange list of presumptive disabilities: chloracne, Hodgkin’s disease, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, porphyria cutanea tarda, respiratory cancers (lung, bronchus, larynx and trachea), soft-tissue sarcoma, acute and subacute peripheral neuropathy and prostate cancer. A regulation is being developed to add diabetes mellitus.”
But, then, lots of these folks think they really were guinea pigs.
In addition, monetary benefits, health care and vocational rehabilitation services are provided to Vietnam veterans’ offspring with spina bifida, a congenital birth defect of the spine. A new law authorizes health care and monetary benefits to children of female veterans who served in Vietnam for certain additional birth defects.