Agent Orange is a herbicide chemical that brings destruction to the environment. There is an ingredient inside called “dioxin” which forced plants to lose their leaves. Animals and humans can be affected with various diseases and disabilities. It was used for the U.S. government during the Vietnam War to kill crops so that it could reveal Vietnamese troops. There was approximately 20 million gallons of this chemical being used during Operation Ranch Hand. Many people were also affected by this chemical and brought many diseases such as cancer, miscarriages, and leukemia. There about 3 million reported people in Vietnam that were affected by Agent Orange and thousands of U.S. soldiers were affected as well. In fact, this chemical was so controversial that it made veterans file a lawsuit against the companies who made them. Vietnamese citizens also filed a lawsuit against these companies. Unfortunately, none of these people won any of these lawsuits; however, the companies agreed to pay a $180 million to compensate for them. Even more problems arose with this lawsuit as more veterans came up with the issue. The price of this compensation increased to a total of $240 million. In this lawsuit, Vietnamese citizens and American veterans both agreed that this issue was very injust and affected and were outraged in the end because of this settlement. A popular company that usually took the spotlight was Monsanto. This company tried to argue that it was the government’s fault and never took responsibility.
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| Agent Orange being spread into the air by planes. |
SOURCES:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange
Word Count: 285
Word Count: 285
Wow I didn't know there were lawsuits against this! But I know that there were a lot of people there were affected by orange agent. I remembered organizations coming to myself and asked for donations to support them since most of them weren't able to support themselves.
ReplyDeleteIt is very surprising to me that the American soldiers filed a lawsuit against the companies that made the gas even though they were the ones that made the decision to use it. I also find it surprising that the Vietnamese citizens filed a lawsuit against the companies as well instead of filing one against the American Government for using it on them.
ReplyDeleteI had heard of agent orange many times but I never knew much about it exactly. it is horrific that the military actually used this chemical mix. it destroyed so much! how was it even allowed? I am glad people filed lawsuits against this, justice was needed in this case.
ReplyDeleteI never knew that the original purpose of agent orange was to kill plants to reveal the soldiers. That makes sense but what doesn’t make sense to me is that the US military would still use it knowing its harmful properties, and then try to blame the government?
ReplyDeleteReading this, I instantly thought of Kiowa’s death in The Things They Carried. This was because after the event, everybody wanted to find someone to blame for it happening and I think that’s what happened here. All of these veterans and Vietnamese people want to find a single person (or company in this case) to put the blame on but I think were many steps leading up to this even where someone should’ve said no.
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