WEBVTT - How Agent Orange Worked 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.600 It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know? 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:16.479 From how Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:20.160 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. I thought you were gonna 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:24.079 say I'm Radius and this is almah. Let's try that again. Shoh. Okay, Hey, 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:27.000 and welcome to the podcast. Charles W. Bryant is here, 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:29.280 and so am I. I'm Josh Clark and this is 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:31.920 stuff you should know. I thought you were gonna say, 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:37.240 I'm Radius and this is almah. Wow. Okay, okay, so olmah, 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:40.600 how are you doing, Radius? I'm doing fine. That's fantastic. 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:45.040 That good? Um, Chuck, Sorry, what I'm just gonna say? 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:47.000 You know, I'm just doing the wrist bond thing. Are 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:52.040 you metacarpal? Yeah? Um? Okay, so we start over. I 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:55.240 don't care. Okay, Yeah, we're gonna leave it in because 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:58.480 our producer Jerry loves this kind of stuff. Uh, and 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:02.320 we're gonna go forward about that, Chuck. Um, you served 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:05.200 in the Vietnam War, correct? That is correct? That is 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:09.080 not correct. That was not even born yet, are you sure, jerk? Yeah? 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:13.119 When did Vietnam? And oh well, sure I was born, 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:17.520 then I wasn't born. Then good for you. Um well, chuck, surely. 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:20.640 Growing up in the eighties, you heard of Agent Orange, 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:25.680 remember the skateboard company? Absolutely yeah, so, um that just 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:28.120 really attracted me. I never had an Agent Orange skateboard. 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:30.240 I was more of a Powell per Alta fan, Mike 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:34.600 McGill specifically. Um, but I always thought Asian Orange just cool. 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:37.080 It just had the coolest name. Yeah. And then I 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:39.760 came to find find out that it was actually an herbicide, 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:42.320 and it's not that cool. Yeah. I used to get 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:45.080 it confused with the napalm. Yeah. I knew there were 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:47.320 different things, but I would napalm was orange, and so 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:49.800 it would kind of confuse me. Have you ever made 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:54.120 napalm at home? No? I haven't, Okay. Um well, once 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:57.360 I came to find out that Agent Orange was an herbicide, um, 0:01:57.760 --> 0:01:59.840 I kind of lost interest in it. And then now 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:04.560 here we are, what ten, twelve, fifteen years later, and 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:07.640 my interest is once again peaked because Agent Orange was 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:12.280 about the baddest mofo that the US Army deployed against 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:15.239 the Vietnamese. Right now, actually Agent Purple may have been, 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:18.200 but we'll get into that. Okay, well let's talk about it. 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:20.840 Agent Orange. Let's let's give a little background and just 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:22.800 how much agent orange is used. As we said, it 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:28.120 was an herbicide now, very very potent herbicide acting and um, 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:31.520 you want to do the stats, buddy, that's my deal. 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:36.760 It is a defoliant. And we used about eleven million 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:42.360 gallons of specifically of agent orange alone forty two million leaders, yes, 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:46.040 from January of sixty five April nineteen seventy and about 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:50.880 twenty million gallons, which is uh, that is about oh, 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:53.160 I don't know, somewhere in the neighborhood is seventy six 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:59.600 million leaders, very good total herbicides altogether from seventy one right, 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:01.560 it was that's a lot. As a matter of fact, 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:05.120 I think, um over the course of six thousand missions 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.560 spraying missions, because it was all aerial as far as 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:14.640 I know, um, about uh of Vietnam was sprayed with 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:18.600 agient orange alone. That is a lot of herbicide. Yeah, 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:21.400 and that's a substantial portion of a country to be 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:25.640 infected with a harmful, dangerous killer. Yeah. Now, anybody who's 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:28.560 sprayed like ground up or some other herbicide around the garden, 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:31.760 you kind of almost have this uh this natural inclination 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:34.120 to keep it away from you as much as possible, 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:36.360 and when some gets on your fingers, you like run 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:38.880 inside and wash your hands fifty times. Right. I can't 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:41.280 use any of that stuff because the animals and you know, 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:44.360 it's it's rough stuff. It can be, right, but it 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:48.800 does kill the grass, as did agent orange. But not 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:52.360 only did agent orange killed grass, it killed everything. And 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:55.920 what's ironic about it is that it's actually it was 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:59.880 it's actually a growth regulator, meaning that it stimulates growth 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.920 and plants. That shocked me, Yeah, it was shocking. I 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:04.640 thought it was a flat out killer. But apparently what 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:07.480 it does is it if it's used too much, then 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:10.600 they grow to the point where it dries out and dies. Yeah, 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:13.320 it grows so fast that the water depletes its water 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:16.240 supply very quickly. And that's that crazy. Never knew that. 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:20.120 But there's this guy, a botanist named Dr Arthur W. Galston, 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:24.560 and he actually created agent orange, and he did create 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:27.880 it as a growth regulator to boost plant growth. Um 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:31.200 And after the military got ahold of it, yeah, he 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:35.719 started to realize that his his invention was being used 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:39.440 in a really horrible way. And actually campaigned against it. Yeah, 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:41.160 I feel I felt bad for that guy, but that's 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:43.360 his legacy. And well, did you read that quote from him? 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:45.560 And I agree with it? Yeah, you want to you 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:48.320 want to read it? Uh? Yeah, Josh. The quote is 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:51.239 nothing that you do in science is guaranteed to result 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:55.120 in benefits for mankind. Any discovery, I believe is morally neutral, 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:58.400 and it can be turned either to constructive or destructive ends. 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:00.880 That's not the fault of science, right, And I agree 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:03.920 with that. Yeah, And I'm sure Philip Oppenheimer would agree 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:06.640 with that as well. You know, I mean he created 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:13.120 nuclear vision I'm pretty sure he created nuclear vision um 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:16.880 and it was used in a catastrophic manner to kill 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:22.279 hundreds of thousands, millions probably people. He didn't create it 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:24.720 for that, and it was just he created something and 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:27.920 basically open Pandora's box and there you go. So I 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:32.359 agree with Galston's um assessment as well. But still the 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:34.520 fact remains the U. S. Military got ahold of this 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:39.840 and they sprayed it everywhere they could. So chuck um, 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:42.080 what's the problem with it? I mean, aside from the 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:45.119 fact that you know, if you're living in Vietnam, in 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:47.960 in you know, between nine and seventy and they come 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:50.880 over your village and spray that stuff. Number one, it's 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:54.279 probably going to stink, which it did. Number two, you're 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.479 covered in herbicide. Number three, all of your trees are 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.479 suddenly leafless. What are some other problems that it posed, well, 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:02.520 not only trees, buddy, Well, we should point out that 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:05.520 the reason they did this was because of the thick 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.880 jungle cover in Vietnam made it very difficult for snipers 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:12.240 and uh air squadrons to see what's going on, not 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:14.640 to mention the guys in the jungle, so they would 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:17.560 use this herbicide to just wipe it out completely and 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:21.039 make it like a barren black landscape, so you know, 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:24.640 the enemy could be seen. So um, not only did 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:28.160 it kill the vegetation, but it also killed crops, and 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:32.800 it also destroys the roots system and really completely. I 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:35.480 mean it gets into the soil, so nothing would grow 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.599 there afterward either, I mean that would eventually if you eradicated, 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:42.640 but sure well, and also without um roots systems, then 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:46.760 your soil structure is messed up. And so apparently you know, 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:52.120 Vietnam's monsoons carried much of the top soil away the right, 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:56.000 which also, um, then that the the the agent orange 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:59.840 entered the water, right, yeah, polluted that, and then you 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:02.520 have a big problem with cropland so we've got the 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:05.320 polluted water supply. So even if you do have crops, 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:08.000 and you're just spraying more agent orange on when you 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:10.440 irrigate it. So it's it's kind of a vicious cycle. 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:13.760 At the time, though, Yeah, you're getting rid of snipers, 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.640 which were a huge problem in Vietnam. And also supposedly 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:19.280 this the US government secretly sprayed the Ho Chiumn trail 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:24.080 in Cambodia, which they were definitely not supposed to, and 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:28.120 that was a key supply route into Vietnam. So yeah, 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.200 there there was a reason. This wasn't just like, hey, 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:32.960 we're over here, and why don't we just get rid 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:36.400 of all the vegetation you know. Um. But again, Chuck, 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:41.200 I repose my question, what's the Actually no, you did 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:43.840 answer it. But I think the problem is, Okay, so 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:46.720 most of the stuff has grown back, right, we're talking 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:49.600 like almost forty years ago. More, Yeah, we're talking almost 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:52.760 forty years ago. The trees have grown back, the vegetations 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:55.680 grown back. What's the problem. Why are we still talking 0:07:55.720 --> 0:08:00.080 about agian orange. Well, because it um it's been care 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:04.920 down through uh genetics essentially right through through families. Well, 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:08.920 what's the active ingredient that's that's so nefarious? Are you 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.920 talking about the dioxin? I am indeed my friend. Yeah, 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:15.240 the docks and is the trouble. Now, you may have 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:20.040 heard of dioxins, uh with with that whole tupperware thing, 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:22.040 that tupperware I'm sorry tupperware. I don't know if you 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:24.600 use it or not, but some of these um food 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:30.360 storage containers. I think dioxin is a softener that that's 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:33.600 used in plastics to make them keep them from snapping, 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:36.520 being very brittle and snapping. The problem is as they 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:40.000 can considerably leach out and you're not supposed to have 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:43.560 dioxins in them there, but curin disruptors. We everyone has 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:45.440 a little bit of docks and in our system. Well, yeah, 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:48.400 aren't they naturally occurring in to some degree? Yeah? And 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:50.480 and but beyond that, the fact that it's used in 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:52.920 things like those kind of plastic small amounts of docks 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:54.640 and are present and pretty much all of us. Plus 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:58.600 also when you burn trash, I believe dioxin are created 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:01.120 or released it's usually a by product I think of 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:04.360 some other which I know you do on the weekend, 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:06.520 so you should probably go get checked from a big 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.040 copper smelter. But yeah, but we can, we can deal 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:11.240 with some level of die ox. And the problem is 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:14.439 is Agent Orange that had such high concentrations of dioxins 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:18.680 in them that there were some serious health effects, right, 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:21.680 And the Department of Veterans Affairs actually claimed that it 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:25.440 only had minute traces of docks and initially and uh 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:27.559 for agent Orange it was t C d D. It 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:31.120 was was the specific docks. And but that's just not 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:34.760 true because people in Vietnam, in some areas have blood 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:38.360 levels up to ten times above normal for DOC containing 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:43.000 docks and today yeah, yeah, and uh, originally, like right 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:46.080 after the Vietnam War, even during I believe some people 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:50.160 had about two d times the normal level. Right, So yeah, 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:52.120 there's a lot of dios and flying around and these 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:55.120 were all in areas where agent Orange was being sprayed. 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:59.599 And we're talking cancer, we're talking births, birth defects, miscarriages. 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:01.280 You want to know how it gets in there and 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:05.400 screech things up? So bad school, Okay, So um, basically, 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:12.640 dioxins are capable of binding to um it's fat soluble, right, exactly, 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:17.920 they're capable of binding to hormone receptor sites, right. So 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:21.640 um it can also very easily get into the nucleus 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:25.560 of your cells. When that happens, my friend, your DNA 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:29.520 can be tampered with. Okay, So let's say you remember 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:31.400 that we were talking about the chicken or the egg, 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:35.040 and and mutations take place in the zygote stage. So 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:38.160 let's say a couple of parents of a child have 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:42.800 dioxins in their cells, in the nucleus of their cells, 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:46.000 and these cells are contributed to create the zygote. Well, 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:49.040 if the if the dioxin has managed to mess with 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.640 the d n A, it's going to send all sorts 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:55.640 of funky instructions. And that's how you get things like, um, 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:59.640 grossly misshapen heads. Yeah, you sent me some emails of 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:03.520 pictures of children, Vietnamese children. It's just awful. Yeah, it's amazing. 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.440 If you type in agent orange and go to search 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:09.880 image results in Google, it's startling some of the things 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:12.720 that happened. One one I saw it was a picture 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:15.000 of a five year old girl who didn't have eyes. 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:17.960 It was just skin and kind of a depression because 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:21.000 she still had the the ocular cavity in her skull, 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:23.320 but it was a skin grown over it, and I 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:25.520 was reading the caption next to it. They were saying 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:29.120 they think what happened was um the hormones that were 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:33.640 released that are supposed to instruct the cell to develop 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:37.840 eyes or to instruct the body to develop eyes failed 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:40.439 to do so because there was dioxen bound to these 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:43.280 receptor sites that should have gotten that hormone and taking 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:46.800 the information and created eyes. So it gets in there 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:49.000 pretty bad and it can be passed down and Vietnam 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:51.800 has a real problem right now. I think they estimate 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:54.760 as many as one million of the four million people 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:59.280 who live in Vietnam have been poisoned by agent orange. Yeah, yeah, 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:01.560 And you were said earlier that it's the worst, and 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.000 I brought up agent purple. They actually had a bunch 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:06.880 of agents with the colors, and evidently they were named 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:10.120 by the not by the color of the chemical, but 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:12.640 the color of the container that it came in. There 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:16.360 was an orange stripe on the container, so agent purple 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:18.920 and agent pink. They use millions of gallons of this 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:22.680 stuff too, and it's possibly even more deadly because agent 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:26.520 purple has three times as much docks and as agent orange. Yeah, 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:29.640 you don't hear much about agent pink or agent purple, No, 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:33.000 I think because agent orange was used in spades. So sure, 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:36.760 you know it's odd you said that cancer is a 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:40.120 is a result of agent orange or dioxen poisoning, right, 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:44.920 yeah about risk of an increased risk? Well, cancer is 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:49.079 uncontrolled cellular growth, right, that's it. Um. What's what's surprising 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:51.400 is that you remember we were talking about agent orange 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.360 being a growth regulator and that it causes plants to 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:58.240 grow rapidly. Interesting in humans, the exact opposite happens. In 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:04.080 small doses, dioxins actually keep cancer cells in check from growing, 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:08.280 but then in larger doses it promotes this uncontrolled growth. 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:11.240 So it has the the exact opposite effect on humans 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:14.040 as it does plants. It's weird, is that it's very weird. 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:16.560 And I know the w h O, the World Health Organization, 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:20.360 it's it's officially classified as a as a known carcinogen. 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:24.800 So yeah, there's no mistaking it. No, but there's still 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:27.160 a debate. Well, there's not much of a debate anymore, 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:31.520 but there has been um since the eighties. Well since 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:36.320 the seventies really about whether or not Asian orange caused 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:41.079 all these problems. Why why lawsuits? Yep, because no one 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:44.480 wants to pay and be responsible for this. No, and 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:47.000 certainly not the U. S Government, which has actually been 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:51.160 hiding behind um sovereign immunity. Yeah. That means the US 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:54.680 government cannot be sued. Yeah, it's as simple as that, 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:58.960 nicely done. Yeah. Basically, there's this it's a doctrine. Uh, 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.360 that's it's stablished, this international law. And you it says, 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:06.280 like Chuck said, you can't sue a government, right, So 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:11.080 everybody went after the chemical companies instead. And I think 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:13.840 it behooves us to mention some of these chemical companies 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:18.640 that created agent orange. Uh, Dow, Monsanto, Hercules, Diamond, Shamrock 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:21.040 were four the big ones, right, and they all say 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:23.000 that they were contracted out by the government to do 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:25.360 a job. So it's not our fault. Yeah, And the 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:29.480 Supreme Court, I believe upheld that, or at least tossed 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:32.560 out a lawsuit that challenged that. Uh that you know, 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:35.280 these companies were working as government contractors and were ordered 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:38.600 to produce agent orange for the government, so by default 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:42.760 they're protected by sovereign immunity, say, by proxy. Basically, it 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:44.880 seems like anytime there's been a big suit, it's kind 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:47.240 of resulted in a big, fat dead end. Yes, but 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:50.520 we should say that those four companies I mentioned, in 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:54.840 addition to I think three others, yes, seven total, um 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:58.400 ended up paying out two and forty million dollars class 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:01.720 actions too, Yeah, to two hun people. Right, and that 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:04.840 was a settlement to right. Yeah, that was a settlement. Sure, 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:08.200 but there's still plenty of other people who have lawsuits 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:10.920 pending or would like to sue, but it doesn't look 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:13.960 like it's going to be happening. There was an attorney 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:17.720 for Vietnamese a national who is trying to sue one 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:22.080 of the chemical companies, who said that the the ruling 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:26.840 that the government UH ordered or that because the government 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:30.480 ordered these chemical companies to produce agent orange, that they 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:34.640 were government contracts, and therefore, the lawyer said, that's pretty 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:36.800 much the end of agent orange lawsuits. Right. Did you 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:40.840 ever see The Fog of War? The documentary Errol Morris is, 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.160 you know, it's one of my heroes as a filmmaker. 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.160 You should check that out. It's it's it's an hour 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:49.360 and a half a long interview with Robert McNamara and 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:54.160 just hardcore, intense interview about the Vietnam War. I would 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:56.680 love to see that. It's it's really awesome fogg of war. 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:00.840 I'll check it out. So, Chuck, what all these lawsuits 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:03.760 are Some are being paid off, some aren't. There's still 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:07.200 a problem of dioxin poisoning in Vietnam. How do you 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:10.000 remediate this? Well, Josh, I have some numbers for you. 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:12.640 I think I know what you're getting at here. Uh, 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:16.160 just as an example, the town of Ben Trey has 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:18.720 one hundred and forty thousand people there and the Red 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:22.120 Cross estimates that fifty eight thousand of them have suffered 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:25.320 the effects of agent orange. That that's like more than 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:28.600 of the population and as you said, a million total 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:31.600 in the entire country. Right, But how do you how 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:33.000 do you clean this up? I mean this is a 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:36.560 I think Christopher Hitchens mentioned that it's been called an 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:40.160 eco side. Is that who said that? Yeah? So I 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:42.720 mean what do you do about this? Well? You clean 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.880 it up? Josh, Okay, Uh, there's well that's kind of 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:49.200 an expensive proposition. There is you know, ways that that 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:51.480 this can be cleaned up and and we said, a 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:54.400 lot of the um, A lot of the countryside has 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:57.400 been naturally reforested, right right, Are you talking about the 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:00.360 wall of trees? The wall of trees seems pretty cool. Yeah. 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:04.000 They planted essentially a barrier to protect people from this 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:08.520 in the form of trees. Yeah, which sounds I don't 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:11.520 know how that works. Actually, it probably leaches it out 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:16.560 of the soil eventually. UM that that or the um 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:20.119 the trees will hold the soil in place so it 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:22.919 won't be washed away, and then perhaps the soil can 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:25.399 act as a natural filter. We should also say that 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:29.840 UM dioxins appear to have about a half life of 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:33.720 seven years, but once they hit the top soil they 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:36.119 can actually they've been shown to to stick around a 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:39.560 lot longer. I think part of the problem is there's 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:42.520 a lot of people who have a lot of money, uh, 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:45.439 that don't want to part with it, who are saying, 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:47.840 you know what, this is just eventually going to work 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:50.760 itself out. Right, Well, they outlawed it, and Richard Nixon 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:54.119 actually outlawed it when they found conclusive test results and 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:57.520 lab rats. Yeah, but the damage was done, definitely, and 0:17:57.520 --> 0:17:59.720 it has been going on, and it may be going 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:02.920 on without some sort of large scale intervention. It doesn't 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:05.200 look like that's going to be happening anytime soon. Should 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:10.639 we talk about Victor Victor Yushenko. Yes, he's actually a 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:14.520 living case study in diox and poisoning unity. Yes, he's 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:17.679 a Ukrainian politician and many of you may know this. 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:21.240 He was poisoned with Dixon, but survived during the two 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:23.800 thousand four presidential election, which you want, so not too 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:27.480 long ago. And he thinks he was purposely poisoned and 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:30.639 they traced it back to a dinner he had and uh, 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:33.080 but no one, you know, there have no charges have 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:37.399 been filed. No one's claimed responsibility. But you saw the 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:41.800 before and after pictures. Yeah, this effect on him, Yeah, 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:44.199 he was. He was a good looking man, he was. 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.080 After the diox and poison he ain't pretty no more. No, 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:49.600 his face was. And you should look this up on 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:52.800 the internet as well, and the Google images. No, no, no, 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:58.320 our our loyal fan base. It's um it's startling pockmarked face. Um, 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:01.240 deeply sw yeah, deeply talk marked like you know, moon 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:06.000 crater type stuff. Um, swollen swollen up, big circles under 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:08.560 his eyes. I mean I think they said he he 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:13.119 had six thousand times the normal level of docks and 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:16.280 is that right, which is the highest second highest ever 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:19.760 recorded any human that lived. Yeah, and he looks a 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:22.359 little better now, he does. And he's still up and 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:26.440 walking around, which is miraculous. But yeah, they you can't 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:30.640 keep your shanko down. And should we talk about the veterans, yeah, 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:33.800 zoom walt, Well then yeah, we'll get to that in 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:37.040 a second. But um in the v A set up 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:41.440 a program to officially deal with this and conducted health 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:47.200 exams on three and fifteen thousand veterans and uh, basically 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:50.679 the presumption is if you were exposed to agent orange, 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:53.639 then you've got some trouble and you have v A 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:56.480 care the v A. UM, even before the lawsuits, any 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.480 lawsuits were settled, the v A was operating on the 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:02.280 premise that, um, yeah, there there was a huge link 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:06.359 between agent orange exposure and all of these problems. So 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:09.440 the v A actually has done a lot to help 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:13.040 out veterans from Vietnam and actually Korea. And I didn't 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:15.320 even know we're in Korean the late sixties. Yeah, and 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:19.440 they actually that was hand sprayed by people, but by Koreans. 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:21.919 I got you. Um, actually not hand sprayed, but the 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:24.679 Koreans did the spraying and they actually the v A 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:29.160 is also covering the children of soldiers because a lot 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:33.560 of times passed on down and potentially even to another generation. 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:37.080 Well that's the problem in Vietnam. It's sticking around, So 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:40.119 I mean, eventually it will be rinsed out. I guess 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:42.720 you could put it genetically speaking, but that's a pretty 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:45.120 sick way of dealing with the situation. But that looks 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:47.080 like the way it's being handled. So you want to 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:48.959 talk about zoom Walt, now, sure if you want to, 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:53.119 I think so. He was a Navy Admiral um Almo 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:57.120 zoom Walt, Jr. And he commanded naval forces in Vietnam, 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:01.160 and he now has a destroyer class named after him, 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:04.520 the zoom Walt Class destroyer. Didn't know that. Um. On 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:06.600 a positive note, he was credited with helping to end 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:09.280 race and ginger discrimination in the navy, so that's a 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:12.600 good thing. But during the war he was concerned about 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:15.920 snipers and the Mekong Delta. He ordered agan orange to 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:19.560 be sprayed there. He had a son, Elmo the Third 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:22.760 or zoom Walt the Third, and he was commanding a 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:25.040 boat that was in the Mekong Delta at the time. 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:28.720 So essentially what he did was ended up spraying his 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:31.280 own son, I mean, not by his own hand, but 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:33.720 he gave the order to have it sprayed right where 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:37.520 his son was, and he died of cancer. Zoom walt 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:41.440 the third did, and his son, Elmo the fourth, has 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:45.639 a severe learning disability, and zoom walt to this day says, 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:47.520 you know, it haunts him to this day. And then 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:51.960 later later on zoom walt Um advocated for compensation for victims. 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:54.960 He he tried to fight the good fight afterwards. So 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:58.800 that's Agent Orange really in a nutshell. Yeah, if you 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:00.919 want to learn more about it, you can type in 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:02.920 those two words in the handy search bar of how 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:05.560 stuff Works dot com. It will bring up a really 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:09.960 good article written by our former colleague now freelancer Jacob Silverman, 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:14.879 which I guess leads us to I would say, I 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:22.280 don't know, listener, mail time, maybe I've got a couple 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:24.200 of couple for you here jobs. Do they have anything 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:26.600 to do with high fruit toast corn, sir, No, they don't. 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:30.000 This is from a serviceman serving in Rome, Italy, Okay, 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:32.240