Environment: The Agent Orange Affair

The U.S. Army in Viet Nam long used a defoliant known as "Agent Orange" without qualms as a crop-killing spray. Purpose: to deny food to enemy forces. Last year a secret study sponsored by the National Cancer Institute raised grave doubts about a prime ingredient in Orange, the chemical compound 2,4,5-T. When the substance was fed in small doses to laboratory rats and mice, 80% of their offspring were stillborn, and 39% of the survivors were deformed.

Because Orange only reduces plant yield by two-thirds, individual plants, though tainted, often look edible. Therefore, the study clearly suggests, the Army was inadvertently poisoning...

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