‘People vs Agent Orange’ tackles effects of infamous herbicide
Both horrifying and depressing “The People vs Agent Orange,” now streaming until July 5 on PBS’ Independent Lens, tells how the malignant herbicide known as Agent Orange and used notoriously in Vietnam, has been raining its poisons on Americans since the 1970s.
In 1962 the then-South Vietnamese president requested the U.S. military to aerial spray the North Vietnamese with a killer herbicide, Agent Orange, hoping that by destroying their crops they would give up.
In 1972 Agent Orange was banned in Vietnam. Four generations later its terrifying, deforming birth defects continue. Those children are in Agent Orange care centers all over Vietnam today.
Seeing them in “Agent Orange” is to wonder why herbicides with 2,4-D, one of the two active ingredients in Agent Orange are right now being used all around America.
“Originally the entire production was going to the military. When it was banned there, they promoted it for forestry,” said lifelong environmental Oregon activist Carol Van Strum whose book “A Bitter Fog” is the basis for the doc.
“All of a sudden there’s this big new tool of agriculture and forestry — and the USDA (Dept. of Agriculture) went right along promoting it.
“It all comes down to money,” Strum said. “They made huge profits off it. That can blind people to what was happening. People didn’t know aerial spraying is so indiscriminate.
“It goes everywhere. Blows for miles and miles. And of course gets in the water.”
Its effects were seen immediately: poisoned creeks, sick kids, deformed, dying animals.
“In our valley where we were being sprayed,” Strum said, “42 horses died. Also elk. Ducks, chickens and geese were hatched with feet on backwards and no beaks.
“We said, there’s something wrong and the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) would not listen.”
“Outside of the Pacific Northwest states,” added codirector Alan Adelson, “American citizens have no idea that these contaminating herbicides are being dispersed aerially over such a broad range of territory. Or that the contamination and health hazards they convey affect so many innocent people.”
Change is coming, Adelson added. “There was an amazing newsbreak this week. The Maine legislation banned aerial spraying of herbicides. Maine is the only state that has adopted such a ban.
“The hope is it will spread everywhere. Because it’s not just in the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest that herbicides are being used and sprayed aerially.
“It’s being done in the Midwest, in cornfields, wheat, rice, soybeans. Down in Florida they’re spraying herbicides on inland waterways in order to kill invasive weeds. In turn they are killing fish.”
In 1972 Agent Orange was banned in Vietnam. Four generations later its terrifying, deforming birth defects continue.