Agent Orange was one of many herbicides used by the U.S. army between 1961 and 1971 during the invasion of Vietnam. While the military produced a whole range of “rainbow herbicides”, Agent Orange was the most widely used, and its lasting effects are still being felt to this day by millions. The chemical ingredient of the herbicide, dioxin, is linked to cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma as well as causing psychological and neurological problems. The chemical compound also affects genes and hormones, causing birth defects in the descendants of those affected by the chemical. In South Vietnam alone, US forces sprayed over 25 million acres (39,000 square miles) with over 20 million gallons of the substance in an effort to clear the dense jungle and make it easier for the US military to fight the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese armies by clearing the natural cover and destroying food crops and fertile soil. An estimated 12% of the entire nation of Vietnam was sprayed with chemicals in up to 13 times the recommended concentration. Some areas have toxified soil with concentrations of the chemical hundreds of times higher than the maximum safe limit by US EPA standards, leaving 20% of the forest contaminated all these years later.
The damage was so great that the UN created new international laws prohibiting defoliation and environmental damage as a war tactic through the Convention of Environmental Modification resolution a few years after the war had ended.
However, while the actions of the US army have since been legislated against by the UN in an effort to prevent history repeating itself, the effects repeat themselves again and again in the steady stream of new victims being found and treated today. An estimated 3 million people, just over 3% of the country’s population, still suffer the effects of direct and indirect exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam, with 1 million of those people being disabled in some way.