Study Shows Agent Orange Still Taints Aging C-123s

__roo writes "Herbicides used in Vietnam in the 1970s still pose a threat to servicemen, according to a study published Friday. The U.S. Air Force and Department of Veteran Affairs denied benefits to sick veterans, taking the position that any dioxin or other components of Agent Orange contaminating its fleet of C-123 cargo planes would have been 'dried residues' and unlikely to pose meaningful exposure risks. According to the lead researcher, 'The VA, whether out of ignorance or malice, has denied the entire existence of this entire branch of science. They have this preposterous idea that somehow there is this other kind of state of matter — a dried residue that is completely inert.' To show that such exposures happened, her research team had to be 'very clever.'"

For the want of editors

[wiredlogic]

Original article title:

Agent Orange Posed A Health Threat To Servicemen Long After Vietnam

Slashdot headline:

Herbicides used in Vietnam in the 1970s still pose a threat to servicemen

These planes were repurposed for other duties during the 70's. They went out of service in 1982. They don't "still" pose a threat because nobody is using them. The issue is for the servicemen who worked on them 40 years ago.

vietnamese

[BradMajors]

It is interesting everyone ignores the greater harm agent orange is doing to the Vietnamese servicemen.

Re:Just wondering

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, hundreds of thousands to millions of Vietnamese were harmed depending how you count - everythings from terrible birth defects to characteristic cancers.

And, of course, the main use of agent orange in Vietnam was to destroy the farm land so that the peasants would be forced, by starvation, to move to the cities (that happened to be controlled by the USA).

Re:Malice? I think not.

[sjames]

I find it truly amazing (in a bad way). They claim to know the mechanism for depression and even psychosis yet they just use trial and error with the drugs they prescribe. They have no idea why one 'works' and another doesn't nor why the one that works stops working and another that didn't work starts working. It's about as scientific as slapping the side of the TV until the picture stops rolling.

The so-called double-blind tests of psychiatric drugs are a farce since sugar pills have no side effect but the active drugs they test have clear and obvious side effects. I doubt any patient on the actual drug doesn't know it.

They actually think that if the patient isn't aware of memory loss, there isn't any. According to the best of their reasoning, a powerful seditive cures a broken leg since the patient no longer complains about it (or anything else, naturally) once the dose is high enough.

I get that it's a tough nut to crack, but that doesn't excuse pretending to know things they obviously don't have a clue about.

Longevity of Dioxin in Agent Orange.

[WebSorcerer]

I am an analytical chemist, and analyzed Agent Orange while employed by the Dow Chemical Company (one of the manufacturers of Agent Orange). The spraying apparatus in the planes in the C-123 sprayed out a side door, and Agent Orange filled the air inside the plane drenching the men who operated the sprayers, and coated everything in the interior. Agent Orange is not volatile, and evaporates extremely slowly. This combination of circumstances IMHO would cause a residue of Agent Orange inside the planes which could reasonably last for decades.