Speaker 1: Oh, man.
Speaker 2: So it turns out, back in the day in the
Speaker 2: Vietnam Wars, the US call it, a lot of people
Speaker 2: got sick, didn't understand why, and allegations about poisoning continue today.
Speaker 2: This is a heck of a classic episode, dude.
Speaker 3: Have either of you guys seen the movie Jacob's Ladder
Speaker 3: starring what is it?
Speaker 4: No? Geez? Who's in that? Tim Robbins.
Speaker 3: It's a very very cool, kind of psychedelic, kind of
Speaker 3: messed up actually, a sci fi movie about Vietnam and
Speaker 3: some potential Agent Orange esque experiments that take place and
Speaker 3: lead to some pretty messed up things happening in the
Speaker 3: lives of these individuals. But oftentimes, you know, reality is
Speaker 3: stranger than fiction and and scarier because yeah, this was
Speaker 3: a thing, man.
Speaker 4: It was just a set of herbicides. Guys, what's the
Speaker 4: big deal?
Speaker 2: Yeah? What's a neo nikotinoid ever done wrong? Aside from
Speaker 2: killing all the bees? We were right about that part too.
Speaker 2: What's going on on with depleted uranium? Right, what's the
Speaker 2: deal with white phosphorus? What's the deal with Agent Worrinch?
Speaker 4: Let's find out.
Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 4: Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 4: my name is Noah.
Speaker 2: They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
Speaker 2: our super producer Paul Decant. Most importantly, you are you,
Speaker 2: and you are here, and that makes this stuff they
Speaker 2: don't want you to know. We can open with a
Speaker 2: question today, I guess for the table. Have any of
Speaker 2: us had relatives involved in the Vietnam War?
Speaker 4: I do not believe I did. Honestly, If I do,
Speaker 4: I am unaware of it.
Speaker 2: Paul, do you have any relatives in that conflict? Also?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: Three nos. That's interesting, Ben, Yeah, Well, being from a
Speaker 2: military background, it's somebody, yeah, yeah, multiple members of my family.
Speaker 2: The reason we open this episode today with this question
Speaker 2: is because our episode touches on the Vietnam War. It's
Speaker 2: not really just about the war, it's about something different.
Speaker 2: The Vietnam War is the last conflict in which Uncle
Speaker 2: Sam conscripted actual civilians. So some of us listening to
Speaker 2: the show today may have at some point been drafted,
Speaker 2: sent to a country that you were radically unfamiliar with,
Speaker 2: and told that you were playing a vital part, if
Speaker 2: a small part, a vital part in a greater fight.
Speaker 2: We our country intervened in the activities of foreign nations
Speaker 2: to support a larger geo political war against communism.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was that one time we interfered with another
Speaker 4: country's inner workings.
Speaker 2: At one time.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: And the thing about modern war is that it drives
Speaker 2: technological innovation. There's no two ways about it, and the
Speaker 2: Vietnam War was no exception to this rule. During this conflict,
Speaker 2: the US pioneered numerous pieces of technology that we now
Speaker 2: see today in the civilian sphere. Some of these innovations
Speaker 2: were entirely innocuous. They were medical breakthroughs, right, And some
Speaker 2: were really far out things that even today sound like
Speaker 2: crazy science fiction novel ideas far out, like Surfer far out, yeah,
Speaker 2: even further, even further from sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And weather manipulation is one of those things.
Speaker 2: Right, which we talked about, which was surprisingly a real thing.
Speaker 2: I think that baffled all of us. There was another
Speaker 2: innovation in this war which might surprise some people. It
Speaker 2: was the widespread use of herbicide as a weapon, which
Speaker 2: which is nuts. Right. Planes swept across the Mekong Delta
Speaker 2: dropping weed killer instead of bombs.
Speaker 4: Oh there were bombs too, There were also bombs, but
Speaker 4: there was a lot of weed killer.
Speaker 2: And this weed killer is known today by the name
Speaker 2: agent Orange. In decades and decades after it was deployed
Speaker 2: there in Southeast Asia, we as a species are still
Speaker 2: trying to figure out exactly how it affected us. But
Speaker 2: let's start with the facts here. They are. What is
Speaker 2: agent orange?
Speaker 3: Oh, man, I'm gonna butcher this pronunciation, but I'm gonna
Speaker 3: try it is something called a defolian, A defoliant nailed. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I guess it wasn't as hard as I made it
Speaker 3: out to be.
Speaker 4: Thanks for the ataboy, though, guys, I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: So yeah, a plant killer, like you said, so, this
Speaker 3: is a combination of various herbicides, but it was the
Speaker 3: most famous used in the Vietnam War, when the US
Speaker 3: dispersed it across entire areas of the country in order
Speaker 3: to remove plant cover.
Speaker 4: You know those tree lines.
Speaker 5: They're always talking about Charlie's hiding in the tree line.
Speaker 3: And all that.
Speaker 4: You know. I remember hearing that movies. That's in movies.
Speaker 4: They wanted to get rid of that.
Speaker 3: I guess, so they had more visibility of the potential
Speaker 3: awaiting enemies.
Speaker 4: Yea. And there are big problems with naval ships where
Speaker 4: there would be tree lines right along the water and
Speaker 4: combatants would hide there with various munitions, and this was
Speaker 4: one of the reasons, one of the main reasons they
Speaker 4: wanted to use Asian orange or any of the herbicides.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, good point met, because that's scene in Apocalypse
Speaker 2: Now where the boat is going up the river. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff really did happen. And you make
Speaker 2: an excellent point about the other herbicides because we always
Speaker 2: hear about agent orange. Agent orange was called this or
Speaker 2: sometimes called orange too.
Speaker 4: That whole family.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it had a whole family, a whole spectrum
Speaker 2: of colors. It was called agent orange due to the
Speaker 2: orange markings on the barrels it was shipped in. But
Speaker 2: there were other colors too. There was Agent blue, denoted
Speaker 2: by the blue markings. Still a herbicide, a little bit different,
Speaker 2: But we can get into the chemistry of agent orangetty
Speaker 2: pretty easily. We can do a high level. Look, we're
Speaker 2: not chemist.
Speaker 3: Do you guys know why they called the Vietcong Charlie.
Speaker 3: I just looked this up to make sure I wasn't
Speaker 3: accidentally being racist. Please tell us VC Victor Charlie Viet
Speaker 3: comm Charlie.
Speaker 5: There you go, boom today innocuous AF.
Speaker 4: So that's really interesting. Had no idea. Oh no, that's great.
Speaker 4: So let's get into what exactly this stuff is. Agent
Speaker 4: orange is equal parts to chemicals, and these are both herbicides.
Speaker 4: The first one you can just call it T four
Speaker 4: dash D and that's T comma four dash D that's
Speaker 4: dichlora finoxy acidic acid. And the second one is T
Speaker 4: comma four comma fivesh T or T four five T
Speaker 4: that's trichloro finoxy acidic acid. Now, so it's just two
Speaker 4: of these orbicides equal parts mixed together you get agent orange.
Speaker 2: And were these were these common beforehand?
Speaker 4: Yeah? These were pretty common in the United States. They
Speaker 4: were used the separate chemicals, not agent orange itself, the
Speaker 4: combination of them. But yeah, the separate chemicals were common
Speaker 4: in the United States.
Speaker 2: And during the manufacture of what which one of these ingredients,
Speaker 2: it's the T four five T okay, the trichloral yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: so during the manufacture of that, another chemical is produced.
Speaker 4: Right, Yes, small amounts of something called TCDD. You're ready
Speaker 4: for this, here's the last one.
Speaker 2: You got it?
Speaker 4: Two three seven eight tetrachloro divenzo dioxin. And it's also
Speaker 4: referred to as.
Speaker 2: Dioxin dioxin, and it's formed as a byproduct. It's considered
Speaker 2: a contamination in its own way. It is an unwanted growth,
Speaker 2: very similar to a weed.
Speaker 4: There you go, oh, a weed within the herbicide.
Speaker 2: But what is it really? I'm so glad you asked.
Speaker 2: It's crazy. So it's what. It's a kind of thing
Speaker 2: called a persistent organic pollutant. There are multiple forms of dioxin.
Speaker 2: When we say persistent organic pollutant, the key word there
Speaker 2: is persistent. Once these things get into something, they tend
Speaker 2: to stay. According to the EPA, dioxins are not made commercially,
Speaker 2: nor are they sold in the US, at least they're
Speaker 2: not supposed to be. There are several hundred different versions
Speaker 2: of this substance we call dioxin, but they generally fall
Speaker 2: under the same three chemical families. Oh no, it's my
Speaker 2: turn now, is okay?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 2: Chlorinated die benzo p dioxians. There you go, chlorinated die
Speaker 2: benzofurans or CDFs and some polychlorinated bifenels PCBs, which you
Speaker 2: may have heard a long time ago on a previous episode.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, you've almost certainly heard of PCBs before. That's
Speaker 4: one of those common chemical compounds. You actually hear PCBs, Like,
Speaker 4: this is without PCBs. We stopped using.
Speaker 2: Those, do health concerns, right exactly? A little bit of foreshadow?
Speaker 3: Is that the stuff that's an im thinking of BPA?
Speaker 4: Yeah, different, but only the crinkly ones.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I remember peak behind the curtain, folks. I
Speaker 2: remember a few years ago, Matt, you first told me
Speaker 2: about BPAs. I was microwaving something in a plastic like
Speaker 2: a plastic container, a TopWare kind of thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it was one that you generally put
Speaker 4: in a microwave.
Speaker 2: And then when I was convinced that I was going
Speaker 2: to it, I was convinced it was all over for me.
Speaker 2: It's like, here comes the cancer.
Speaker 4: I mean, we're all full of it already. There's nothing
Speaker 4: you can do. We exist in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're riddled with it. In the nineteen seventies, we
Speaker 2: didn't have the same awareness of what the consequences of
Speaker 2: exposure to these sorts of chemicals could be and dioxin
Speaker 2: in particular, which on its own looks like these little
Speaker 2: white crystalline needles, is chemically speaking, a Samuel L. Jackson
Speaker 2: level bad. I mean, we're a family show. What should
Speaker 2: I say, guys?
Speaker 5: M Murpher Murpher nailed it.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's a bad Murpher it because the accent can
Speaker 2: cause cancer, reproductive problems, developmental disorders. It can also wreak
Speaker 2: just train wrecked levels of damage on hormones and the
Speaker 2: immune system. Agent Orange was meant to be what's called
Speaker 2: a rainbow defoliant, meaning that it didn't specifically target get
Speaker 2: one type of plant. It targeted everything. Yes, and this
Speaker 2: means that as a weapon of war, Agent Orange was
Speaker 2: from the get go, from deployment, meant to do more
Speaker 2: than I think the American public believed. We were told.
Speaker 2: It was to increase visibility, as you said, Noel, and
Speaker 2: to remove undergrowth in which the enemy forces could hide.
Speaker 2: But it's behind the curtain use, which was sort of
Speaker 2: an open secret that unfortunately a lot of voters did
Speaker 2: not know at the time. It's behind the curtain use
Speaker 2: was much more sinister. It was meant to destroy crops,
Speaker 2: depriving enemy combatants and civilians of food, and a lot
Speaker 2: of these people at that time, in the rural parts
Speaker 2: of the country are subsistence farmers.
Speaker 4: It was a tactic to starve everybody out.
Speaker 2: And we started tracing the evolution of agent orange from
Speaker 2: its orangein point Oh God, I'm so sorry to its deployment.
Speaker 2: The US exhibited interest in this concept weaponized herbicides way
Speaker 2: way before the Vietnam War. In nineteen forty three, the
Speaker 2: Army contacted the University of Chicago and asked them for
Speaker 2: some data on the potential of herbicides too. It is important.
Speaker 2: This was their original question to the University of Chicago. Specifically,
Speaker 2: they asked for data to prove whether or not herbicides
Speaker 2: could destroy enemy crops. Yeah, that less sinister idea about
Speaker 2: removing forest cover.
Speaker 4: That comes later, Yeah, I mean it is. It's interesting
Speaker 4: how there was such a problem with forest cover during
Speaker 4: the Vietnam conflict that it also made sense to use
Speaker 4: this product that destroyed crops. And wonder if that was
Speaker 4: just I was getting knuck. I was gonna say, happy
Speaker 4: accident is not a happy accident. But they just happened
Speaker 4: to coincide with what they needed. But that's really messed up,
Speaker 4: So that's nineteen forty three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they continued. They moved pretty quickly on the concept.
Speaker 2: They first tested the idea of weaponized herbicides in nineteen
Speaker 2: forty four in Orlando, Florida.
Speaker 3: I have to say, this idea of herbicidal warfare is
Speaker 3: fascinating to me and not something I would typically think
Speaker 3: of as weaponized herbicides.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's strange, isn't it. And they tested at first,
Speaker 2: they were just seeing what sort of poisonous stuff could
Speaker 2: do the job, So they tested ammonium thiosinate, zinc chloride,
Speaker 2: sodium nitrate, sodium rsenate, and sodium fluoride, which I we know,
Speaker 2: fellow conspiracy realists will already make some people's years per cup.
Speaker 2: But the tipping point doesn't her until nineteen forty five
Speaker 2: during something called Project Sphinx.
Speaker 5: So Project Sphinx was conducted at Fort Knox.
Speaker 3: That Fort Knox and the United States government investigated the
Speaker 3: use of chemical agents in making vegetation more flammable.
Speaker 4: It seems like it would be flammable enough as it is, but.
Speaker 3: Before a flame attack and agent orange and napalm. Napalm's
Speaker 3: a scary one. Are the descendants of this particular research.
Speaker 3: So the US continued to develop and test Agent orange
Speaker 3: from forty six to fifty one domestically.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the first use of this crazy cocka made.
Speaker 2: The idea of herbicidal warfare comes from Britain in the
Speaker 2: nineteen fifties. They cleared areas of the jungle in Malaysia
Speaker 2: of vegetation if they were close to roadways. They wanted
Speaker 2: to prevent ambushes by well, they called them communist guerrillas.
Speaker 2: Other people called them freedom fighters. And many of the
Speaker 2: people there just saw themselves as locals.
Speaker 4: Yeah, or your family and friends. Also, the Britain didn't
Speaker 4: call that a war. No, it's kind of familiar for
Speaker 4: you know, for a long time it was the Vietnam conflict.
Speaker 4: Or I guess that's kind of changed the Vietnam conflict.
Speaker 4: It's been the Vietnam War, but he was never declared
Speaker 4: a war by Congress.
Speaker 2: True True Facts. In an internal memo from nineteen fifty two,
Speaker 2: the agricultural giant Monsanto informed the US Army Chemical Corps
Speaker 2: that the herbicide that you had mentioned earlier MATT two
Speaker 2: four five T the try one, the try one, the
Speaker 2: trichloral one, was contaminated with dioxin during the production process.
Speaker 4: So nineteen fifty two they knew, they knew.
Speaker 2: And accidental overheating of the reaction mixture caused this product,
Speaker 2: this herbicide to condense into this dioxin. Dioxen, just for
Speaker 2: a frame of difference, is one hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 2: times more toxic than arsenic, the poison arsenic, the very
Speaker 2: famous poison arsenic. Jeez, yep, sorry.
Speaker 3: I'm just making big googly eyes right now. You can't
Speaker 3: hear because this is an audio show. But I just
Speaker 3: that is an insane number to be more toxic than
Speaker 3: the thing that we already know is being quite bloody toxic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, more toxic than possibly the most famous poison in history.
Speaker 2: The US began using herb besides in what nineteen sixty
Speaker 2: one and something that was originally named Operation Hades but
Speaker 2: got changed to a less sinister sounding.
Speaker 4: Name, Operation ranch Hand.
Speaker 5: Ah, that sounds like some good old corn fat operation.
Speaker 4: There, boys, I'm just a ranch hand, you know. I
Speaker 4: get the horses all, you know, get them back around.
Speaker 4: That's pretty much what I do take care of. Do
Speaker 4: you hit them up? Hitch up horses to the post,
Speaker 4: feeding bags you know.
Speaker 3: Now, well that seems a lot more innocuous than Operation
Speaker 3: Hell on Earth.
Speaker 4: And also drop a ton of stuff on the viet CONK.
Speaker 2: Sorry, we're not gonna use it was a dramatic reenact,
Speaker 2: but I think the soul of it is completely accurate.
Speaker 2: Over twenty million gallons of these herbicides, these various agents
Speaker 2: were sprayed across Vietnam but also across Cambodia and Laos,
Speaker 2: and for most of the war, Operation Ranch Hand was
Speaker 2: based at the Bingha Air Base, which I am surely mispronouncing.
Speaker 2: Apologies to all Vietnamese speakers. They were using this airbase
Speaker 2: because they wanted to mainly conduct spraying operations across the
Speaker 2: Mekong Delta because, as we have mentioned earlier, patrol boats
Speaker 2: were vulnerable to attacks from the undergrowth, and the primary
Speaker 2: aircraft used for this were C one two threes. That'll
Speaker 2: be important later because we'll have to ask ourselves what
Speaker 2: happened to those planes?
Speaker 4: Yeah one O. Their just little side note there is
Speaker 4: that Asian orange was also common or these these agents
Speaker 4: were common to be sprayed around military bases and outposts,
Speaker 4: and you'll see images online if you search for it
Speaker 4: of soldiers in these trucks that are just spraying. You
Speaker 4: can see them just spraying these huge swaths of this.
Speaker 4: It looks like it looks orange, but I think some
Speaker 4: of them have maybe been doctored a little bit. But
Speaker 4: it's just it's a chemical agent. They're spraying everywhere around
Speaker 4: the bases.
Speaker 2: Sure, just like you know, just like an exterminator or
Speaker 2: someone applying pesticide with those little buckets and those spray nozzles,
Speaker 2: you guys remember those.
Speaker 3: Yeah, is not a much much much larger scale, exactly.
Speaker 2: And so here we are with Vietnam and with the
Speaker 2: use of this herbicide, not just on enemy vegetation, but
Speaker 2: on vegetation, as you said, surrounding military bases post. But
Speaker 2: as we mentioned before, agent Orange is not the only
Speaker 2: crayon in the box. We'll tell you a little bit
Speaker 2: more about the other agents in the field after a
Speaker 2: word from our sponsor.
Speaker 4: And we're back. So we got orange in one corner.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about the rest of the group that we've
Speaker 4: got here. The agent Orange, that name is just a
Speaker 4: code name referring to the color of the band that's
Speaker 4: around this giant fifty five gallon drum that contained the
Speaker 4: chemical and when it was shipped over to Laos or
Speaker 4: Vietnam or Cambodia wherever they were in these giant drums,
Speaker 4: and they would sit somewhere and then until they get
Speaker 4: loaded up onto whatever plane they're going to be on
Speaker 4: or truck. And the other code names were Agent, white, blue, purple, pink,
Speaker 4: and green.
Speaker 2: Sounded more and more like reservoir dogs.
Speaker 4: That's exactly what it sounds like to me. Dude, does
Speaker 4: anybody listening out there? Do you know if that was
Speaker 4: a reference the reservoir dogs was actually a reference to
Speaker 4: these agents, That would be fascinating to know, because it
Speaker 4: sounds very similar. I don't know what we're missing here,
Speaker 4: which color we're missing, But anyway, I left to ask Chuck.
Speaker 4: He just did an episode with Broken Lizard about reservoir dogs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's Chuck Charles W. Bryant from Stuff you Should Know,
Speaker 2: who is also the host of movie Crush, where you
Speaker 2: can hear our compatriot Noll popping in.
Speaker 4: That's right, I do do the occasional pop in.
Speaker 3: Internet says no Ah, all right, Internet.
Speaker 4: No connect, thanks thanks a lot.
Speaker 2: We'll have to text Quinton and ask him. So. From
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty two to sixty five, they actually were not
Speaker 2: using Agent orange, is that correct?
Speaker 4: Correct? They started out with purple, pink, and green. Here's
Speaker 4: the deal, the problem. All three of these were contaminated
Speaker 4: with what are they called tcdds or dioxin.
Speaker 2: Right, and these were supply by Monsanto and the Dow
Speaker 2: Chemical Company. And let's take a second to talk about
Speaker 2: Agent purple. Okay, Agent purple was sprayed just indiscriminately across
Speaker 2: the area. One point nine million leaders were sprayed between
Speaker 2: that period we mentioned sixty two to sixty five. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: it was later determined that Agent Purple had the highest
Speaker 2: concentration of dioxin in comparison to the other these other
Speaker 2: mixtures pink and green.
Speaker 4: Wow, so really this episode should be called Agent Purple. Well, no,
Speaker 4: it's not true because Agent orange was sprayed a whole
Speaker 4: lot more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing. From sixty five to seventy they
Speaker 2: switched to Agent's orange, white and blue, and then in
Speaker 2: what was it, nineteen seventy, they stopped using agent orange.
Speaker 4: Yes, and we'll get into why they stopped using Agent
Speaker 4: orange a little bit later on the show. But that's
Speaker 4: that's around the time seventy to seventy one, all right.
Speaker 2: Still, the facts are the facts, and the facts do
Speaker 2: not have opinions. Chemicals contaminated with this substance dioxin were
Speaker 2: used in the area from sixty two to nineteen seventy,
Speaker 2: and they sprayed a bunch of it everywhere.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, the estimates and these might have changed by now.
Speaker 4: The research we got from this is several years old.
Speaker 4: But the estimated amount of dioxin sprayed over Vietnam and
Speaker 4: all of that time was around three hundred and sixty
Speaker 4: eight pounds of it. Wow. Now, I know that sounds
Speaker 4: like a kind of low number, three hundred and sixty
Speaker 4: eight pounds overall if you're talking about these large land
Speaker 4: masses and everything. But when you realize that agent orange,
Speaker 4: the dioxin contamination within it was only zero point zero
Speaker 4: five to fifty parts per million, that's pretty much the
Speaker 4: range that you got in parts per million. And they
Speaker 4: sprayed twenty million gallons. It's kind of crazy. Twenty million
Speaker 4: gallons of herbicide. It doesn't necessarily mean agent orange.
Speaker 2: I see what you're saying. It's important. But even if
Speaker 2: we say, okay, it's not like they were spraying pure dioxin, right.
Speaker 2: The point is that Overall, over four million soldiers had
Speaker 2: some kind of contact with this substance, specifically with agent orange,
Speaker 2: and this number is only for the US side. When
Speaker 2: we were doing research on this, one thing that we
Speaker 2: found to be strange was that a lot of the
Speaker 2: emphasis on exposure to this only follow the US side.
Speaker 2: They don't follow the millions of civilians who were affected
Speaker 2: by this spray and were almost certainly not informed of
Speaker 2: it before or after.
Speaker 4: When you think about if they're targeting crops and that
Speaker 4: land that would eventually in the future be used to
Speaker 4: plant crops again that now has this persistent chemical in
Speaker 4: the soil, it's no good.
Speaker 2: And the government knew, at least the US knew. By
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty three, the US Army and President Kennedy, the
Speaker 2: Kennedy administration knew this stuff was capable of screwing up
Speaker 2: humans just as much as plants. The Dow Chemical Company
Speaker 2: wrote to the Secretary of Defense at the time and
Speaker 2: assured him that's Robert McNamara assured him that two four
Speaker 2: five T that's the trichloral one. That's the one, that's
Speaker 2: the one was safe for use.
Speaker 4: So nice things.
Speaker 2: Dal don't worry about this data.
Speaker 4: We assure you our government contract stands.
Speaker 2: Everything is fine.
Speaker 3: And then in nineteen sixty seven, the Department of Defense
Speaker 3: set up a contract with Kansas City based Midwest Research
Speaker 3: Institute to dig a little deeper and give a comprehensive
Speaker 3: analysis of extensive or repeated uses of herbicides.
Speaker 4: Herbicides.
Speaker 2: Is it a hard Ah, I go with herbicides.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's better. I'm not English, you know.
Speaker 5: Heubsibs, and phillots.
Speaker 4: Here's what they found.
Speaker 3: And now will quote if I may, the possibility of
Speaker 3: lethal toxicity to humans is highly unlikely and should not
Speaker 3: be a matter of deep concern.
Speaker 4: Now that quote is there's some ellipses in there. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but still that's the main point. Don't matter.
Speaker 2: Hey, hey, it's cool.
Speaker 4: It's cool. Chill, And hence the cover up.
Speaker 5: There's always a cover up.
Speaker 2: The cover up begins nowadays. It's no secret that these
Speaker 2: substances are harmful to human beings. People exposed to agent
Speaker 2: orange or any of those other color coded agents will
Speaker 2: have a higher risk of exhibiting the symptoms we had
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, some of the symptoms of exposure. But there
Speaker 2: is something else in play. The cover up didn't stop
Speaker 2: in the fifties while they were developing this and in
Speaker 2: the seventies when they were deploying it. The cover up
Speaker 2: continues some we'll say, because there's something else to agent orange,
Speaker 2: something that could affect you, Yes, specifically you today if
Speaker 2: you are descended from anyone who is exposed to herbicides
Speaker 2: like agent orange in the past. Agent Orange, you see,
Speaker 2: has left the legacy. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 4: This substance doesn't just affect the people that actually got
Speaker 4: exposed to it, whether it was in the field that
Speaker 4: they used to grow crops or on the battlefield. It
Speaker 4: affects their descendants as well. Well.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, okay, hard pause, Let's take a second to
Speaker 2: think about just how insane that is. So that means
Speaker 2: that if the four of us and if you listening,
Speaker 2: were in Vietnam during this time, or you were exposed
Speaker 2: to the substance somehow, we might not exhibit crazy symptoms,
Speaker 2: but our kids and our grandkids very well could. Yeah,
Speaker 2: which is insidious, you know. And in June and July
Speaker 2: of nineteen sixty nine, Vietnamese newspapers began reporting on a
Speaker 2: spike in birth defects. They specifically cited Sigon. Yeah, birth
Speaker 2: defects in Saigon, and they blamed the deployment of Agent
Speaker 2: Orange and the other members of the color coded poison pantheon.
Speaker 2: Critics of the time say that Sigon couldn't have been
Speaker 2: associated because Sigon was not directly sprayed.
Speaker 4: Yeah it's way over here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is true. But they failed to consider the
Speaker 2: flood of refugees that moved into the city after their
Speaker 2: crops were destroyed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can no longer live on this land. I
Speaker 4: have to go somewhere else. Now you're in Saigon, a
Speaker 4: big city, and now all of your descendants are coming
Speaker 4: down with problems. Right, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the consequences of exposure to agent orange no ideological boundary.
Speaker 2: Children of veterans in the Vietnam conflict on the US side,
Speaker 2: that were you know, the veterans that we're exposed to
Speaker 2: this stuff, their kids have a thirty percent higher chance
Speaker 2: of birth defects. And we're not talking you know, we're
Speaker 2: not talking like a weird mole or something. We're talking
Speaker 2: about things like leukemia. Yeah, extra limbs, life threatening stuff, Yeah,
Speaker 2: missing limbs. And for decades, the Department of Veterans Affairs,
Speaker 2: which for anyone outside of the US, it's commonly called
Speaker 2: the VA here. That is a government organization which is
Speaker 2: charged with healthcare, psychological care, job assistance, or employment assistance,
Speaker 2: I guess, for veterans after they return from a conflict.
Speaker 2: And it's a pretty controversial place. There are a lot
Speaker 2: of concerns here in the States about how its affairs
Speaker 2: are handled, how it is helping or neglecting to help
Speaker 2: veterans after they leave military surface.
Speaker 4: If you somehow have not seen them yet, you can
Speaker 4: watch various episodes of The Daily Show and John Stewart
Speaker 4: was helming it, or John Oliver's New Show on HBO
Speaker 4: to really get into the nitty gritty of the VA issues.
Speaker 2: Now, the VA has very high quality people working there,
Speaker 2: many of whom are themselves veterans, right and they have
Speaker 2: been collecting information from the veterans for years, even specific
Speaker 2: questions about birth defects for decades. You can look at
Speaker 2: a nineteen eighty two form from the VA where they
Speaker 2: have a question that reads the following, is there evidence
Speaker 2: of birth defects among veterans' children? The answers are one no,
Speaker 2: two yes conceived after Vietnam service, three yes conceived before
Speaker 2: Vietnam service.
Speaker 4: Four.
Speaker 2: Yes, both before and after Vietnam service.
Speaker 4: They don't have any for a conceived while in Vietnam service.
Speaker 2: That is true. That gets you know again, and that
Speaker 2: gets to the more myopic US centric focus of the
Speaker 2: agent orange problem here in the US at least. So
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen, Pro Publica and a paper called The
Speaker 2: Virginian Pilot obtained this information from the VA, and they
Speaker 2: made the problem public. Originally, government studies concluded that while
Speaker 2: veterans in the war did have a higher chance of
Speaker 2: bearing children with birth defects, herbicide exposure was somehow not
Speaker 2: the cause. Oh, like you said earlier in all, ah,
Speaker 2: don't worry nothing, she is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, here we go. Yeah. If something like that came
Speaker 4: out as public, it would not be good for anybody involved,
Speaker 4: except for the victims.
Speaker 2: Rights and the VA responded to this twenty sixteen analysis.
Speaker 2: They said it was quote interesting and quote a step
Speaker 2: in the right direction. They added that the VA believes
Speaker 2: the research to understand the relationship between exposure and intergenerational
Speaker 2: transmission of disease, if conducted, should be done where scientists
Speaker 2: with expertise in the relevant fields of inquiry can provide leadership.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry I fell asleep during that. What was the huh?
Speaker 2: It means they said, we don't have a department that
Speaker 2: is capable of studying this.
Speaker 4: Oh, well, isn't that convenient?
Speaker 2: They did say they would play a supporting role in
Speaker 2: further investigation.
Speaker 4: They did. Now we need to take one more quick
Speaker 4: break from our sponsor. But when we get back, we're
Speaker 4: going to talk about the full legacy of dioxin and
Speaker 4: agent orange.
Speaker 2: And we're back. It's still twenty eighteen, which means it
Speaker 2: has been almost fifty years since the weaponized herbicides were
Speaker 2: sprayed across this region. In those intervening years, veterans reported
Speaker 2: some of the defects that we have mentioned earlier, missing limbs,
Speaker 2: extra limbs, as you said, no life threatening conditions like leukemia,
Speaker 2: and they furthermore said that these conditions did not occur
Speaker 2: in their family before. You know, some some diseases or
Speaker 2: conditions can run in certain families, not the case with
Speaker 2: this stuff. And given our species new understanding of epigenetics,
Speaker 2: the fascinating, somewhat disturbing realm.
Speaker 4: Of stuff, fairly new field, fairly.
Speaker 2: New field too. What is epigenetics, Well, it's the idea that.
Speaker 4: Again I think we covered this before and didn't we
Speaker 4: decide that it was there. There are several studies out
Speaker 4: there about it, but it's not a conclusive thing yet.
Speaker 4: But what we do have this understanding that when let's
Speaker 4: say a mother goes through trauma at some point in
Speaker 4: her life and then gives birth to a baby, that
Speaker 4: trauma can somehow affect the way genes are expressed in
Speaker 4: the baby. That's the idea, right right.
Speaker 2: It affects what genetic expressions manifest, which genes are switched
Speaker 2: on or off. And we saw some studies about the
Speaker 2: descendants of people who were starved during World War Two.
Speaker 2: That's what it was, yeah, And how that and it
Speaker 2: has a measurable effect. There is a compelling case, I
Speaker 2: want to be careful here that it has a measurable
Speaker 2: and significant effect on descendants. It appears that agent orange
Speaker 2: may also be functioning under the same rules. The survivors
Speaker 2: of the war can trace dioxin exposure to birth effects
Speaker 2: in later generations. Again, this is sort of controversial. There
Speaker 2: are researchers on the other side of the argument saying
Speaker 2: that this is overblown, or even saying that it is
Speaker 2: a cynical attempt to grab some cash on the part
Speaker 2: of relatives of veterans or veterans themselves. Really, those are statements, Yeah,
Speaker 2: those are statements that people are making. I mean, I
Speaker 2: personally don't agree. That seems like a very roundabout way
Speaker 2: to try to get federal money.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think the position of defensive has kind of
Speaker 4: just been the standard for anyone involved with the manufacturer
Speaker 4: or deployment these things.
Speaker 2: And Vietnam veterans and their families attempted several times to
Speaker 2: take this issue to court, but the case is eventually
Speaker 2: lost momentum.
Speaker 4: It's like a class action lawsuit at one point.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, And arguably the research has yet
Speaker 2: to bear a definitive link, but critics of those findings
Speaker 2: think that there's something else to play. A brutal calculation,
Speaker 2: that's right.
Speaker 3: The va already spends billions of dollars on veterans, so
Speaker 3: should it also pay for the medical needs of kids
Speaker 3: bearing the scars of this war?
Speaker 4: That's the question they're asking.
Speaker 3: I suppose Mike Ryan, who's a Vietnam vet whose grandchildren
Speaker 3: suffer from the effects of this exposure.
Speaker 4: He believes that the.
Speaker 3: Government will never admit the relationship between Asian orange and
Speaker 3: these birth the effects because quote, if they do, then
Speaker 3: America is admitting to drafting the unborn.
Speaker 2: That is I think the most powerful line in there.
Speaker 2: And it's true. I mean, you can accuse the guy
Speaker 2: of waxing poetic if you want, but it is accurate.
Speaker 2: If these people who have no role in a war
Speaker 2: that occurred before they were born, are suffering the consequences
Speaker 2: of this right on both sides, both sides of the Pacific,
Speaker 2: then aren't they How are they not being drafted? Yeah,
Speaker 2: and there is, of course, of course, there's a very
Speaker 2: strong argument to make that people just didn't know what
Speaker 2: would happen. But it's pretty compelling evidence that multiple researchers
Speaker 2: knew this stuff was dangerous. Even if they did not
Speaker 2: know how it could affect descendants of people exposed, they
Speaker 2: did know that it had deletorious effects on people who
Speaker 2: were directly exposed, and dioxin affected the US in other
Speaker 2: ways as well. In nineteen eighty five, there was a
Speaker 2: small town called Times Beach, Missouri. The roads were sprayed
Speaker 2: with hexachlorophine that contained dioxin, and the town was disincorporated
Speaker 2: because of the extremely dangerous amounts of dioxin that they
Speaker 2: were exposed to. This stuff makes people obliterate towns. There's
Speaker 2: no Times Beach, Missouri anymore. There's Route sixty six State
Speaker 2: Park where it used to be. So by the way,
Speaker 2: folks watch where you picnic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, please don't eat any stres rawberries, even if they
Speaker 4: look delicious and wild and you're like, oh man, those awesome.
Speaker 4: I got to get some strawberries. Don't do it. Just
Speaker 4: don't do it. I don't know if strawberries grow out there.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a good idea just to donate anything out
Speaker 2: there if you find it growing. And now, as we
Speaker 2: as we conclude this episode, we unfortunately don't have a
Speaker 2: happy ending. We have to quote the VA steps in
Speaker 2: the right direction. Yeah, but we still don't know what
Speaker 2: is going to happen to people who are exhibiting symptoms
Speaker 2: based on their parents' exposure to these substances. And the
Speaker 2: government here in the States continually says there will be
Speaker 2: a serious investigation of the phenomenon, and a lot of
Speaker 2: scientists are working ardently on investigating it. But veterans in
Speaker 2: their families feel there's little real progress toward admitting and
Speaker 2: addressing the effects of this herbicide. And you can't really
Speaker 2: blame them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm having such a hard time with this one.
Speaker 4: You guys, let me she if I can work something
Speaker 4: out here in my head while we just discuss it.
Speaker 4: I want to hear your thoughts. So it is so horrifying,
Speaker 4: I think, I mean, horrifying just encapsulates everything about this.
Speaker 4: But the thought that a country outside of an internal conflict,
Speaker 4: which you know, the the Vietnam War, which was fought
Speaker 4: between South Vietnam and North Vietnam over ideological differences, was
Speaker 4: kind of their own battle. It was a battle that
Speaker 4: was being fought way way over there. If you're sitting
Speaker 4: in the continuous United States, and we intervened, and in
Speaker 4: doing so, we caused horrors to generations to come for
Speaker 4: people in South and North Vietnam. It's it's almost I'm
Speaker 4: trying to imagine what it would be like. I'm making
Speaker 4: some connection between France coming to the aid of the
Speaker 4: United States during the Revolutionary War in some ways, but
Speaker 4: if France had come over and like sprayed chemicals all
Speaker 4: across different fronts and then for generations, even though we
Speaker 4: have in America now, it's just got it's just got
Speaker 4: birth effects all across it. I don't know. I don't
Speaker 4: know if there's any connection there. I'm just it's just
Speaker 4: it's horrifying to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good point. Would what would a similar
Speaker 2: comparison be, I don't know, And let us know if
Speaker 2: there's a real life analog that you can recall, folks. Additionally,
Speaker 2: it's important for us to say that it's incorrect and
Speaker 2: it's missing the point to vilify people who were in
Speaker 2: the service at this time because these people, well, these
Speaker 2: military members were out there risking their lives right for
Speaker 2: their country for a greater good, and they were often
Speaker 2: just as exposed to the substance, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Oh, if not more, having to load the stuff and
Speaker 4: then get nozzles ready and get it in the planes.
Speaker 4: And the people who are on the planes actually doing
Speaker 4: the spraying are not the people who are going to understand,
Speaker 4: you know, exactly what the health effects are of the substance.
Speaker 4: It's just not how it's going to be.
Speaker 2: And one more thing, those planes that we mentioned, the
Speaker 2: C one two threes were destroyed shortly afterward, Oh to
Speaker 2: remove the Well, people who think there was a cover
Speaker 2: up would say they were destroyed to remove the evidence
Speaker 2: of the event, but you can't remove it from people's
Speaker 2: genetic expression, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the you know the other thing, these see
Speaker 4: one threes or whatever they are. If they had the
Speaker 4: agent orange just all over it and inside of it
Speaker 4: and going through the systems of the plane, would you
Speaker 4: have to destroy it to not expose anybody else who's
Speaker 4: going to be on that plane to dioxon? Because it
Speaker 4: seems like it's the stuff is so persistent. It might
Speaker 4: just be within that structure. I don't know the decay
Speaker 4: factor or anything.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay, So maybe it's not a cover up.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's just a health risk. Perhaps maybe it's both.
Speaker 2: It's like asbestos planes. Asbestos planes. Yes, and now our
Speaker 2: story turns to you. Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 2: Do you have personal experience with agent orange? Do you
Speaker 2: have a relative who was exposed whether or not in
Speaker 2: the Vietnam War? Let us know, and most importantly, let
Speaker 2: us know if you think there is any sand to
Speaker 2: this idea. Is there a cover up on the effects
Speaker 2: of agent orange? Is it somehow a cynical grap for money?
Speaker 2: We want to hear your stories. You can find Noel, Matt,
Speaker 2: Paul and I all over the internet. Yeah, weren Here's
Speaker 2: where it gets crazy on Facebook, right.
Speaker 4: That's our Facebook group that you have to answer a
Speaker 4: question to join, and you better get it right or
Speaker 4: else you're not coming in.
Speaker 3: I screenshot at a couple of really good ones.
Speaker 4: Hang on and while while Noel is pulling those up.
Speaker 4: Also right to us. If you are a veteran or
Speaker 4: a member of the VA and you have experience with
Speaker 4: that with the VA, or maybe you work for them,
Speaker 4: and you want to just give us some insider information
Speaker 4: about like what is actually going on with regards to
Speaker 4: Agent orange or maybe depleted uranium another thing we've talked
Speaker 4: about before. Yeah, just right in. We'd love to hear
Speaker 4: your story.
Speaker 3: So spoiler alert the question and joined the Facebook group
Speaker 3: pretty easy.
Speaker 4: Who are the hosts of the podcast? Stuff that I
Speaker 4: want you to know?
Speaker 3: And typically we get you know, one of us, or
Speaker 3: three of us, or a couple of us, or usually
Speaker 3: my name is spelled wrong or Ben's last name is
Speaker 3: butchered in some way. Josh and Ben. I've seen Josh
Speaker 3: and Ben. That's a popular version of this show in
Speaker 3: bizarro world. But this is this is this guy, says
Speaker 3: Irwin D says uh Hurricane, Matthew, Dollar, Dollar, Bill, Benjamin
Speaker 3: and Evolved.
Speaker 2: Super ruler of producers Noel, Wow did that make your day?
Speaker 4: Yeah? It was pretty nice.
Speaker 5: Guys like Pokemon rules like evolved.
Speaker 2: Have you retained your final four?
Speaker 4: Got? I hope not? Well?
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, man it thanks for screeched that. I
Speaker 2: didn't see that.
Speaker 4: One another one, said Matt and some other guys.
Speaker 2: All right, that's why we were walking around smug yesterday. We,
Speaker 2: of course, are ourselves big fans of Here's where it
Speaker 2: gets crazy. It's where we can hear from what we
Speaker 2: consider the most important part of the show. You and
Speaker 2: We've we've seen some fantastic suggestions for episodes. Received a
Speaker 2: message recently that I thought the three of us would
Speaker 2: find interesting for another episode, which was memory technology. Remember
Speaker 2: that Black Mirror episode with the grains that can replay
Speaker 2: your memories? Yeah, so what if we do an episode
Speaker 2: where we explore whether or not something like that could
Speaker 2: actually happen?
Speaker 4: Okay, I mean.
Speaker 2: I feel like every episode of Black Mirror has a
Speaker 2: wealth of potential topics.
Speaker 4: Big time.
Speaker 2: What was that one that broke everybody's heart?
Speaker 4: San Jiniparo?
Speaker 3: Oh man, yeah, no spoilers, just watch that one beautiful.
Speaker 3: I watched it with my mom.
Speaker 4: Oh dude, are you telling me that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, did.
Speaker 4: You know what it was before you watch it with her?
Speaker 4: I'd seen it before.
Speaker 2: Okay, well check it out if you haven't yet. This
Speaker 2: one we actually will not spoil. I think the story
Speaker 2: is strong enough that you should experience it for yourself.
Speaker 4: Shouldn't spoil any Black Mirror Superior show, I would say,
Speaker 4: And that's the end of this classic episode. If you
Speaker 4: have any thoughts or questions about this episode, you can
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Speaker 4: One of the best is to give us a call.
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Speaker 4: us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 2: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
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