Being far from any kind of activism you might dismiss "The People vs. Agent Orange" as only for "Tree-Huggers" and related types. Within a couple of minutes, however, you sense the worst of corporate and government malfeasance. I'm not talking about government waste of our tax dollars - I'm talking about the government using and allowing the use of a known toxic substance. And yes, there was a big chemical giant corporation receiving large sums of "blood money" which certainly included our taxes in order to push the use of this killer chemical.
Our story begins in Vietnam in the early sixties with a program ran by The Air Force called "Operation Ranchhand". To defoiliate the dense vegetation used by enemy snipers as cover a chemical compuund began to be liberally sprayed non-stop in Vietnam. It was quite early on in this on-going operation serious side-effects on humans, animals, and living organisms began to show up. The armed forces couldn't get enough of the stuff and by 1971 it was known over 11 million gallons (undiluted) had covered vast areas of Vietnam.
Under the guise of getting the upper hand in the war the government exercised almost no due dilegence in the use of so-called Agent Orange. Dow Chemical actually knew early on that the compound posed health risks yet to meet the demand fast tracked a particularly nasty version in order to make massive profits and meet the government's huge demand. By the late sixties it was apparent, however, that there were grave health risks. In '71 they sent Air Force scientist Dr. James Clary to conduct an investigation. He just barely beat the mass destruction of all records of the operation and compiled a very e "smoking gun" report of the array of side-effects that coincided the program. As such his report was immediately classified as top secret. The damning report was immediately classified and spraying was stopped around 1971. This should have been the end of the use of the dioxin laced compound, but it wasn't. The death chemical then came home to the US being used by The Department of Agriculture and the logging industry. This time it was liberally sprayed in the Western United States. This begs the question: why? Greed and profiteering is the logical only take-away.
This pans out to be the most toxic chemical ever devised by humanity being on the level of plutonium for deadly side-effects It doesn't go away either. It keeps being toxic for an unbelivable million year half-life. The whole mess defies moral judgement as this film certainly scrapes the surface of.
Everyone needs to see this film. This is the worst case of malefeasance of world health by any government. Broadly speaking all herbicides are poisonous and in particular those related to Agent Orange being the worst or a truly horrible lot. One cannot help but be appauled by the deliberate poisoning of our world. It must be noted there is a woman in this doc that has suffered the worst from related events and instead of folding she found exceptional courage as you will see here. She is a fighter and along with another exceptional French Vietnamese woman a real profile in courage. I advise you to watch.
Our story begins in Vietnam in the early sixties with a program ran by The Air Force called "Operation Ranchhand". To defoiliate the dense vegetation used by enemy snipers as cover a chemical compuund began to be liberally sprayed non-stop in Vietnam. It was quite early on in this on-going operation serious side-effects on humans, animals, and living organisms began to show up. The armed forces couldn't get enough of the stuff and by 1971 it was known over 11 million gallons (undiluted) had covered vast areas of Vietnam.
Under the guise of getting the upper hand in the war the government exercised almost no due dilegence in the use of so-called Agent Orange. Dow Chemical actually knew early on that the compound posed health risks yet to meet the demand fast tracked a particularly nasty version in order to make massive profits and meet the government's huge demand. By the late sixties it was apparent, however, that there were grave health risks. In '71 they sent Air Force scientist Dr. James Clary to conduct an investigation. He just barely beat the mass destruction of all records of the operation and compiled a very e "smoking gun" report of the array of side-effects that coincided the program. As such his report was immediately classified as top secret. The damning report was immediately classified and spraying was stopped around 1971. This should have been the end of the use of the dioxin laced compound, but it wasn't. The death chemical then came home to the US being used by The Department of Agriculture and the logging industry. This time it was liberally sprayed in the Western United States. This begs the question: why? Greed and profiteering is the logical only take-away.
This pans out to be the most toxic chemical ever devised by humanity being on the level of plutonium for deadly side-effects It doesn't go away either. It keeps being toxic for an unbelivable million year half-life. The whole mess defies moral judgement as this film certainly scrapes the surface of.
Everyone needs to see this film. This is the worst case of malefeasance of world health by any government. Broadly speaking all herbicides are poisonous and in particular those related to Agent Orange being the worst or a truly horrible lot. One cannot help but be appauled by the deliberate poisoning of our world. It must be noted there is a woman in this doc that has suffered the worst from related events and instead of folding she found exceptional courage as you will see here. She is a fighter and along with another exceptional French Vietnamese woman a real profile in courage. I advise you to watch.