Agent Orange Information

In my effort to help with the Vietnam vets and their families. I have created this web site filled with information about agent orange. For help obtaining information about how you file your claim for agent orange. This site is for that purpose. This site is not however, the end result of studies that are currently being done. So no information here in, is final nor absolute .Please consider, contacting your local V. A., Office in your area for more information. Have all needed records of your time spent in service, and medical records of any health issue you feel is cause for your claim.

Agent Orange was an herbicide employed during the Second Indochina War commonly referred to as the Vietnam War. Agent Orange was not the only herbicide sprayed in Vietnam although, due to its intensified usage, it is the herbicide most commonly mentioned and blamed for health problems in connection with that period in history. There were two other herbicides, an insecticide and a chemical irritant used during the Second Indochina War. They each were called by code names: Agent Blue, Agent Orange, Agent White, CS and Malathion. Agent Blue: code name for cacodylic acid (dimethyl arsenic acid; 371.5 km/m3) Agent Orange: code name for mixture of 2,4,5-T (2,4,5.-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid; 545.4 Kg/m3) and 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid; 485.1 kg/m3), altogether weighing 1 285 kg/m3; a herbicide; associated with the (2,4,5-T moiety is the impurity dioxin (2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p- dioxin). Agent White: code name for a mixture of an approximate ratio of 4:1 of 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid; 239.7 kg/m3) and picloram (4-amino-3,5,6-trichloropicolinic acid; 64.7 kg/m3) CS (o -chlorobenzalmalonitrile), an anti-personnel (harassing) agent, was used as an irritant from 1964 to 1970. Malathion (S-(1,2-dicarbethoxyethyl)-0, 0-dimethyldithiophosphate), an insecticide, was sprayed from 1967 to 1972.

Agent Orange (A-O) and Agent White (A-W) contain mixtures of plant hormone mimicking compounds which destroy plants by interfering with their normal metabolism. Agent Blue (A-B) destroys vegetation by preventing plants from retaining moisture. These chemical products were used in Vietnam during the years 1961 to 1971. The three year period from 1967 to 1969 herbicide usage was at its heaviest. A-O (61% usage) and A-W were effective against dicotyledonous plants (two leaves emerging from seed) and A-B (11% usage) was used for monocotyledonous plants (single leaf emerging from seed). A-W and A-O were used to destroy the forests of South Viet Vietnam while A-B was mainly used for the destruction of grain crops, particularly the staple crop of rice. The levels of usage for military operations was 20 to 40 times greater than for normal agricultural usages. These chemicals were dispensed by fixed-wing aircraft and ground troops.