The Vietnamese Plaintiffs: Searching for a Remedy after Agent Orange
![handle is hein.journals/tclj21 and id is 481 raw text is: THE VIETNAMESE PLAINTIFFS:
SEARCHING FOR A REMEDY AFTER AGENT ORANGE
I. INTRODUCTION
As part of Operation Ranch Hand, the counterinsurgency strategy
commenced by the Kennedy administration at the beginning of the Vietnam War,
the U.S. military sprayed an estimated 19.3 million gallons of chemical herbicides
over South Vietnam and other areas of Indochina from 1961-1971.1 Statistics
show that Agent Orange was the most 'widely sprayed herbicide in Vietnam.2 The
military's purpose in using herbicides included protecting its troops from ambush
by defoliating certain areas of land to deprive the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
(DRVN or North Vietnam) and the National Liberation Front (NLF or
Vietcong) enemy forces of food and jungle cover. Despite opposition to the
military use of herbicides in war, the U.S. government interpreted the international
laws of war to permit its use of herbicides in Vietnam.
The U.S. government considered Agent Orange safe for human exposure at
the time it used the herbicides.4 One Pentagon advisor stated that military
application of herbicides in Vietnam leads to no long-term effects.5 But as early
as 1964, several members of the scientific community opposed the use of
herbicides as a tactical weapon of war because of the unknown consequences of
exposure to human health and the environmental impact of the application of large
1. Vietnam Ass'n for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin v. Dow Chem. Co. (In re Agent
Orange Prod. Liab. Litig.), 373 F. Supp. 2d 7, 20 tbl. I (E.D.N.Y. 2005) (citation omitted)
(excluding various indeterminate amounts sprayed for Agents Pink, Orange I1, and Green). The
Vietnamese plaintiffs have claimed that approximately twenty million gallons of various
herbicides, including Agent Orange, were sprayed by American forces until 1971 and by the
South Vietnamese government until 1975. Complaint, para. 57, In re Agent Orange Prod. Liab.
Litig., 373 F. Supp. 2d 7 (No. 04-CV-0400) (claiming seventy-six million liters).
2. Dow Chemical, Background on Agent Orange (on file with author). According to Dow
Chemical, one of the major industrial manufacturers of the chemical herbicides, Agent Orange is
a 50/50 mixture of the herbicides 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D. The company states that much of the
source of the resulting public controversy over Agent Orange is dioxin, an unavoidable
manufacturing process contaminant in the 2,4,5-T process. Id. There were other color-coded
herbicidal agents composed of different chemical combinations, such as Agents Purple, Pink,
Green, Blue, and White. The different herbicides were identified by the colored band around the
storage drum. Id.
3. In re Agent Orange Prod. Liab. Litig., 373 F. Supp. 2d at 30; STOCKHOLM INT'L
PEACE RESEARCH INSTITUTE [SIPRI], ECOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE SECOND
INDOCHINA WAR 9 (1976).
4. Thomas O'Toole, Pentagon Defends Use of Herbicide on Vietcong Rice Crops, WASH.
POST, Aug. 8, 1968, at E6; Walter Sullivan, Use of Herbicides by US. in Vietnam Defended, N.Y.
TIMES, Jan. 4, 1968, at A2.
5. See Sullivan, supra note 4 (noting Dr. Charles E. Minarik, M.D.'s defense of the U.S.
military's defoliation counterinsurgency program). Dr. Minarik was the director of the Plant
Science Laboratory at Fort Detrick, MD. Id.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/tclj21&div=19&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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The Vietnamese Plaintiffs: Searching for a Remedy after Agent Orange
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