What is the legacy of Agent Orange, the defoliant that was manufactured by Monsanto and Dow Chemical and was sprayed over 6 million acres of Vietnam’s forest during the Vietnam War? As U.S. veterans of the Vietnam War and the Vietnamese victims of the Agent Orange sprayings die, new research shows that the children and grandchildren – basically the 3rd generation of the victims and war veterans – show birth defects even though they were never exposed to the defoliant.
Effects of Agent Orange
The “Agent Orange Curse”, as people associated with the Vietnam War fondly called it, spans generations according to research. Aside from cancer (all types), it includes birth defects like missing limbs, malformed limbs, extra limbs, cleft lip palates, crooked fingers, speech difficulties, webbed toes, fibromyalgia, spinal problems, inflammatory bowel disease, heart disease, arthritis, and autism.
Unfortunately, the U.S. government is not just trying to cover up these birth defects in the Vietnamese side but also the effects it generated on the U.S. War Veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. What could be the reason for the cover-up?
Billions of Dollars at Stake with U.S. Veterans’ Claims against Agent Orange
Firstly, compensating the U.S. veterans for all their health problems generated by the indiscriminate spraying of toxic pesticides across acres of Vietnam for several years will cost the government billions of dollars. This compensation does not even cover the effect of the defoliant on their kids and grandchildren.
Unfortunately, Agent Orange is a toxic defoliant; studies of it since way back in the 1980s indicate that the long-term impact affects our DNA. Of course, there is no lack of scientific studies that clearly shows the link between Agent Orange and the children’s conditions. But these claims and studies have a formidable opponent in the government.
“Dr. Orange” or The Guardian at the Gates of the Agent Orange Issue
For decades, there is one man who has been put in the payroll of U.S. Veterans Affairs and the military to stop, quell, or destroy any rational evidence about Agent Orange and its connection to aircraft previously used for spreading the defoliant and veterans’ sicknesses. This guy is a man named Alvin L. Young, who acted as a consultant and expert on herbicides for the military and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Now that the dangerous effects of Agent Orange extends also to the veterans’ children and grandchildren, Young has been kept busy fighting and eliminating any evidence up to now.
Until one day, Young met his match in Wes Carter, a military aeromedical technician and flight instructor, who flew for six years as a crew member on a C-123 plane as part of his reserve duty at Westover Air Reserve Base in Massachusetts. Carter recalled later that the plane they flew always had a foul odor, but their commander reassured them that it was fairly safe.
Years later when Carter and six of his crew mates came down with prostate cancer and other debilitating diseases did they piece and connect together the health effects of that foul odor to Agent Orange. Apparently, the C-123 they rode on was used to carry Agent Orange through several places and bases in Asia.
What was Young’s take in this case? He persistently and repeatedly claimed that few veterans were exposed to the defoliant and that the doses were too small to harm them. He even said on record that some veterans were “freeloaders” who were making up all the ailments to “cash in” on the veterans’ compensation program.
Carter fought Young in court for years regarding his and his crew mates exposure to dioxin, a component of Agent Orange in the C-123. Finally, his efforts were paid off when in January 2015, after years of battling it out with scientific information regarding the effects of Agent Orange on his crew mates, Carter and his team mates were given disability benefits by Veterans Affairs.
What Chemicals of Monsanto and Dow do you think are in our Food today?
The legacy of Agent Orange is among us. Unknown to a lot of people today, GMO food contains a small amount of Agent Orange ingredients that enters your bloodstream and mutates your cells over a prolonged period of time. The mutation of cells can overwhelm one of your important organs and may deprive your lungs and brain of oxygen and blood depending on how much and how long you’ve been consuming it.
Glyphosate, the active ingredient of the world-infamous herbicide Roundup manufactured by Monsanto, causes horrible tumors and other cancers in laboratory rats in one famous study. Likewise, the herbicide 2, 4, 5-T (the principal ingredient of Agent Orange, which contains traces of dioxin), can also be found in some popular GM foods like corn and soy, and sprayed with Monsanto’s and Dow Chemical’s herbicides.
So do you still want to eat GM crops and crops endlessly sprayed with Monsanto’s Roundup? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
