How were the American soldiers affected by agent orange during the Vietnam war?

Answer 1

Agent orange was a known carcinogen but was used continuously throughout the Vietnam War to clear vegetation around fire bases and base camps. It was sprayed from the air, contaminating large numbers of soldiers and civilians with the cancer-causing agent. Cancer started showing up in higher numbers, along with birth defects from the soldiers' offspring.

Answer 2

The US Department of Veterans Affairs had determined (March 2001) that US servicemen in Vietnam from approximately 1962 to 1975, had been exposed to "herbicides" (Agent Orange) which may be consistent with:

l. Chloracne or other acneform disease consistent with chloracne; but must occur within one year of exposure to Agent Orange.

2. Hodgkin's diesease.

3. Multiple Nyeloma.

4. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

5. Soft-tissue sarcoma (other than osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma, Kaposi's sarcoma, or mesothelioma).

6. Respiratory cancers (cancer of the lung, bronchus, larynx, or trachea). Must occur within 30 years of exposure to Agent Orange.

Ref: Department of Veterans Affairs: March 2001

Answer 3

Agent orange one of the rainbow chemicals used in the Vietnam war (this war was the herbicideal warfare program) was sprayed across Vietnam by the American airforce. The whole point in this was because of an unknown argument between the two countries. The results in agent orange meant that during the 1960s peasants crops were destroyed. Also people were killed or maimed (maimed means that a person is permantley injured meaning that they may lose limbs) around 500,000 children were born with facial disfigurements. I hope that you now understand the devastating effects that agent orange has caused and that you totally respect the diseased and disfigured as the disfigurements still happen to this day. I hope not to be racist but it what the Americans did back then was a tiny bit stupid and destroying peoples lives over something silly was completely unnesscarsary.

Answer 4

Approximately 25,000 GIs were somewhere on the ground in South Vietnam during one average working day. The other 475,000 men were either on rotation from the field or assigned to rear support duties (bomb handlers, clerks, medical personnel, mechanics, engineers, military police, administrative personnel, truck drivers, long shoremen, fork left operators, warehousemen, etc. etc.). Those 25,000 men on the ground would still be there when the "Ranch Hand" operation men made their "spray runs" over the forests.

Answer 5

Thoughts back then:

1. Most men didn't know about it.

2. When they did know, they didn't care (there were more dangerous things to worry about back then).

3. If the US governments using it, then its gotta be safe!

4. Whats Agent Orange!?

Answer 6

The rainbow herbicides were a group of powerful chemicals that were used to destroy the foliage where the Viet Cong were hiding, they were identified by the stripes on the barrels they were in, the first use of these were during the Kennedy Administration during Operation Ranch Hand.

Answer 7

Agent Orange is a "broad spectrum herbicide" - a chemical that will kill any plant you put it on - used in the US defoliation mission called Operation Ranch Hand during the Vietnam War. Ranch Hand used many herbicides, all of which were named "Agent" and a color name. IIRC there were fifteen "Rainbow Herbicides" and nine chemical companies that made them, including Dow and Monsanto. Agent Orange worked the best so it was the one that saw the most use.

Agent Orange was a mixture of two herbicides, 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. The problem is, when you make 2,4,5-T you have to be very careful about temperature control or a hazardous chemical called TCDD is formed. We didn't know this at the time or how bad TCDD was, so all the Agent Orange had TCDD in it. TCDD causes many different cancers, alters your genes so you produce children with birth defects...basically, the worst stuff in the world. And then we went out and sprayed 11.4 million gallons of this stuff on Vietnam.

It didn't affect the soldier IN the Vietnam War, but it's screwed up most of them since they've been back.

Answer 8

The annoying orange?