The legacy of the human misery caused by the application of the herbicides including Agent Purple and Agent Orange contaminated with unknown amounts of dioxin TCDD and Agent Blue, the arsenic-based herbicide, sprayed ...The legacy of the human misery caused by the application of the herbicides including Agent Purple and Agent Orange contaminated with unknown amounts of dioxin TCDD and Agent Blue, the arsenic-based herbicide, sprayed over the jungles, rice fields, and hamlets of Vietnam is still haunting us today. Why did this happen? Could it have been prevented? Was it necessary United States military strategy? Was it an intentional decision to inflict this blight on the enemy soldiers and the Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian civilians, to poison their land and cause generations of harm? Alternatively, was it an unpreventable accident in the march of military history? What patterns in the U.S. government’s thought process could be identified as the cause, which led to the decision to use these herbicides as tactical chemical weapons? If the introduction of herbicide (chemical) weapons had not been made, would the outcome of the Vietnam War and the Secret Wars in Laos and Cambodia have been any different? The objective of this treatise is to outline the role of world events and backgrounds and the role of the leaders, U.S. military, CIA, USDA, U.S. State Department, the U.S. President appointed Ambassadors to Vietnam and Laos, chemical companies, and President Diệm’s Republic of Vietnam (RVN) government and military. Their collective advice led to the decision to use herbicides as military and environmental chemical weapons in the Second Indochina War. Were the National interests achieved by U.S. military strategy in the RVN using herbicide weapons worth the long-term environmental and human health consequences in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos? Did it impact the outcome of the Second Indochina War?展开更多
In 1959, the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation, against the Pathet Lao insurgences and Viet Mien military troops and supply route, began. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was developed after the North Vie...In 1959, the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation, against the Pathet Lao insurgences and Viet Mien military troops and supply route, began. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was developed after the North Vietnam government and military decided to reunify South and North Vietnam. The People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) then connected the old trails leading from North Vietnam panhandle southward into eastern Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam. Starting from Hanoi, the primary trail turned southwest into Laos and eastern Cambodia before branching into South Vietnam. Beginning in 1960s, the volume of traffic on the network of trails expanded significantly, but it still took more than a month’s march, by foot and bicycle, to travel from North to South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh Trail traffic was impacted by repeatedly by Royal Laotian Air Force (RLAF), which was supported by US Air Force tactical herbicide spraying (Operation Ranch Hand program), and US Air Force bombing runs. By the late 1960s, the trail was improved and could accommodate heavy trucks in some sections and was used to supply the annual needs of over one hundred thousand regular PAVN troops active in South Vietnam. By 1974, the trail was a well-marked series of jungle roads (some of them paved) with underground support facilities such as hospitals, fuel-storage tanks, and supply caches with weapons. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was the major supply route for PAVN forces that overran Republic of Vietnam (RV) forces in 1975 and unified Vietnam. The primary objective of this paper is to determine the environmental and human health impacts of RLAF and US Air Force secret spraying of tactical herbicides on Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos.展开更多
The 84 km Panama Canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans has historically been a strategic waterway for shipping and the location of United States (US) military bases. Since the construction of Lake Gatun res...The 84 km Panama Canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans has historically been a strategic waterway for shipping and the location of United States (US) military bases. Since the construction of Lake Gatun reservoir, canal locks and navigation channel through the Isthmus of Panama tropical forests in the 1910s, chemicals, pesticides, and herbicides have been essential for controlling upland and wetland vegetation as well as managing mosquito-borne diseases. Chemicals and pesticides flowed into Lake Gatun via land surface runoff and subsurface drainage either attached to the sediment or in solution during the rainy season. Lake Gatun and the Panama Canal was the drinking water source for most of the civilian and military population living in the Panama Canal Zone. Between 1948 and 1999, US military base commanders had the ability to order, from the Federal Supply Catalog, commercially available herbicide 2,4,5-T with unknown amounts of dioxin TCDD for use on the military base grounds in the Panama Canal Zone. The herbicide 2,4,5-T was transported to Panama Canal Zone ports, including the ports Cristobal on the Caribbean and Balboa on the Pacific, and distributed to the US military bases in Panama by rail or truck. The US National Toxicology Program and the International Agency for the Research on Cancer listed dioxin and TCDD as known human carcinogens. Dioxins are endocrine disrupters and can cause certain chloracne, cancers, developmental and reproductive effects. In 1985, the United States government banned the manufacture of the herbicide 2,4,5-T, with unknown amounts of dioxin TCDD, after it was shown to cause cancer in animals. The objectives of this study are to determine: 1) the fate of dioxin TCDD, a contaminant in the herbicide 2,4,5-T, sprayed on the US military base vegetation in the Panama Canal Zone from 1948 to 1999, 2) the transport of dioxin TCDD rich sediment via soil erosion and overland flow into Lake Gatun and Panama Canal waterways and 3) the human health impacts of dioxin TCDD, a known carcinogen, on US military and Panamanian civilians exposed to dioxin TCDD in the Panama Canal Zone.展开更多
文摘The legacy of the human misery caused by the application of the herbicides including Agent Purple and Agent Orange contaminated with unknown amounts of dioxin TCDD and Agent Blue, the arsenic-based herbicide, sprayed over the jungles, rice fields, and hamlets of Vietnam is still haunting us today. Why did this happen? Could it have been prevented? Was it necessary United States military strategy? Was it an intentional decision to inflict this blight on the enemy soldiers and the Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian civilians, to poison their land and cause generations of harm? Alternatively, was it an unpreventable accident in the march of military history? What patterns in the U.S. government’s thought process could be identified as the cause, which led to the decision to use these herbicides as tactical chemical weapons? If the introduction of herbicide (chemical) weapons had not been made, would the outcome of the Vietnam War and the Secret Wars in Laos and Cambodia have been any different? The objective of this treatise is to outline the role of world events and backgrounds and the role of the leaders, U.S. military, CIA, USDA, U.S. State Department, the U.S. President appointed Ambassadors to Vietnam and Laos, chemical companies, and President Diệm’s Republic of Vietnam (RVN) government and military. Their collective advice led to the decision to use herbicides as military and environmental chemical weapons in the Second Indochina War. Were the National interests achieved by U.S. military strategy in the RVN using herbicide weapons worth the long-term environmental and human health consequences in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos? Did it impact the outcome of the Second Indochina War?
文摘In 1959, the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation, against the Pathet Lao insurgences and Viet Mien military troops and supply route, began. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was developed after the North Vietnam government and military decided to reunify South and North Vietnam. The People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) then connected the old trails leading from North Vietnam panhandle southward into eastern Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam. Starting from Hanoi, the primary trail turned southwest into Laos and eastern Cambodia before branching into South Vietnam. Beginning in 1960s, the volume of traffic on the network of trails expanded significantly, but it still took more than a month’s march, by foot and bicycle, to travel from North to South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh Trail traffic was impacted by repeatedly by Royal Laotian Air Force (RLAF), which was supported by US Air Force tactical herbicide spraying (Operation Ranch Hand program), and US Air Force bombing runs. By the late 1960s, the trail was improved and could accommodate heavy trucks in some sections and was used to supply the annual needs of over one hundred thousand regular PAVN troops active in South Vietnam. By 1974, the trail was a well-marked series of jungle roads (some of them paved) with underground support facilities such as hospitals, fuel-storage tanks, and supply caches with weapons. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was the major supply route for PAVN forces that overran Republic of Vietnam (RV) forces in 1975 and unified Vietnam. The primary objective of this paper is to determine the environmental and human health impacts of RLAF and US Air Force secret spraying of tactical herbicides on Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos.
文摘The 84 km Panama Canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans has historically been a strategic waterway for shipping and the location of United States (US) military bases. Since the construction of Lake Gatun reservoir, canal locks and navigation channel through the Isthmus of Panama tropical forests in the 1910s, chemicals, pesticides, and herbicides have been essential for controlling upland and wetland vegetation as well as managing mosquito-borne diseases. Chemicals and pesticides flowed into Lake Gatun via land surface runoff and subsurface drainage either attached to the sediment or in solution during the rainy season. Lake Gatun and the Panama Canal was the drinking water source for most of the civilian and military population living in the Panama Canal Zone. Between 1948 and 1999, US military base commanders had the ability to order, from the Federal Supply Catalog, commercially available herbicide 2,4,5-T with unknown amounts of dioxin TCDD for use on the military base grounds in the Panama Canal Zone. The herbicide 2,4,5-T was transported to Panama Canal Zone ports, including the ports Cristobal on the Caribbean and Balboa on the Pacific, and distributed to the US military bases in Panama by rail or truck. The US National Toxicology Program and the International Agency for the Research on Cancer listed dioxin and TCDD as known human carcinogens. Dioxins are endocrine disrupters and can cause certain chloracne, cancers, developmental and reproductive effects. In 1985, the United States government banned the manufacture of the herbicide 2,4,5-T, with unknown amounts of dioxin TCDD, after it was shown to cause cancer in animals. The objectives of this study are to determine: 1) the fate of dioxin TCDD, a contaminant in the herbicide 2,4,5-T, sprayed on the US military base vegetation in the Panama Canal Zone from 1948 to 1999, 2) the transport of dioxin TCDD rich sediment via soil erosion and overland flow into Lake Gatun and Panama Canal waterways and 3) the human health impacts of dioxin TCDD, a known carcinogen, on US military and Panamanian civilians exposed to dioxin TCDD in the Panama Canal Zone.
