Operation Ranch Hand

Secretary Rusk seconded Gilpatric's recommendation for a limited initial defoliation program restricted to transportation routes

The Department of Defense preferred the second option.

would both alienate friendly Vietnamese and expose the United States to charges of barbarism for waging a form of chemical warfare

Foster's view prevailed, and, on April 15, 1970, the Deputy Secretary of Defense informed the Joint Chiefs that

The last Ranch Hand herbicide mission of the war sprayed a crop target in Ninh Thuan Province on January 7, 1971.

At last, in November 1961, President Kennedy approved the use of herbicides, but only as a limited experiment requiring South Vietnamese participation and the mission-by-mission approval of the United States Embassy, the Military Assistance Command Vietnam, and South Vietnam's government.

some eighteen million gallons of chemicals had been sprayed on an estimated twenty percent of South Vietnam's jungles

including thirty-six percent of its mangrove forests.

Agent Orange, which contains trace elements of the toxic by-product dioxin, was purchased by the United States government from the chemical companies and sprayed on various areas in South Vietnam on orders of United States military commanders.

The best-known mixture was Agent Orange.

nicknamed by the colored identification band painted on their 208-litre storage barrels

Empty barrel residues led to inadvertent defoliation of trees and gardens in Da Nang, Nha Trang, Bien Hoa, Phu Cat and Saigon civilian areas near USAF airbases that handled the herbicides

no large-scale epidemiological study of herbicides and the health of either the Vietnamese population or war veterans has yet been carried out

The best-known mixture was Agent Orange. About 65% of the herbicides contained 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T), which was contaminated with varying levels of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD).

She attributes all these problems to exposure to herbicides manufactured by defendants.

she resided in Tay Ninh province, where she was told several times to cover her head with plastic bags because U.S. aircraft were spraying chemicals.

In 1970, she gave birth to a son, Huynh Trung Son. He was born developmentally disabled and suffered from epileptic convulsions; he died from a convulsion at the age of eight months.

She had two miscarriages, in July 1971 and January 1972.

In 1999, a test revealed relatively high levels of dioxin in her blood.

The first major herbicide shipment arrived in RVN in January 1962; defoliation targets were sprayed during September and October 1962 (Agent Purple)

more than four million litres of the other agents, primarily containing 2,4,5-T, were also used on crops.

Among the hamlets with some population data, 3,181 were sprayed directly and at least 2.1 million but perhaps as many as 4.8 million people would have been present during the spraying.

The full Senate rejected this measure by a vote of 62-22.

Thus, the United States voted against the resolution.

And in 1975, when President Ford issued Executive Order 11,850 renouncing, “as a matter of national policy, first use of herbicides in war,

for the United States, Apr. 10, 1975

deployed by the United States military during the Vietnam War.

and (b) to destroy crops to deprive them of food.

utilized only in areas remote from population.

Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA) estimates that 2.1 million to 4.8 million Vietnamese were exposed to Agent Orange during the war and at least 3 million suffer serious health problems due to that exposure.

According to MOLISA, over 365,000 Vietnamese veterans and their children and grandchildren have medical conditions attributed to exposure to dioxin.

Finally, it argues that the children and grandchildren of people exposed to dioxin have an unusually high level of birth defects and/or health problems.

Average blood levels of TEQ were nearly six times higher among the people from sprayed areas

A separate study of blood dioxin levels of Da Nang residents reported TCDD concentrations "more than 100 times globally acceptable levels."

the residual levels of wartime Agent Orange dioxin (TCDD) in soils of southern Vietnam are generally at or below background levels

a State Department official wrote that the Vietnamese government was unwilling to accept internationally recognized scientific methods because the results may not support their claims of widespread environmental damage and severe health effects.

The Vietnamese government claimed that U.S. officials were instructed to prevent the completion of the exposure studies by senior government officials.

In March 2005, the United States unilaterally terminated the research project.

But honestly, I cannot say whether or not I have myself seen a victim of Agent Orange.

Dale Robinson reports that Operation Ranch Hand dispensed between 17.7 million and 19.4 million gallons of herbicide, of which approximately 10.6 million to 11.7 million gallons were Agent Orange.

A 2003 study of the extent of use and distribution patterns for herbicides based on DOD records estimated between 19.3 million and 20.3 million gallons of herbicide were used in Vietnam, of which up to 12.1 million gallons were Agent Orange.

Use of herbicides in Vietnam began as early as 1961 at the request of the South Vietnamese government.

Nga suffers from type 2 diabetes and an extremely rare insulin allergy, which she argued were symptomatic of exposure to Agent Orange.

She said she also contracted tuberculosis twice and developed cancer, and one of her daughters died of a malformation of the heart.

I’m not fighting for myself, but for my children and the millions of victims