Exposure of US "Agent Blue" / What other crime was committed in Vietnam?

Pars Today - Vietnam War veterans, historians and researchers have collected information about the Agent Blue spray over farms and mangrove forests in Mekong River Delta and central heights by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam with the support of the US military, navy and the CIA.

According to Pars Today, Ken Olson-Bryan R. Higgins, in a research article, has reviewed the US' use of the weapons including Agent Blue during the Vietnam War, excerpts of which we have chosen here:

More than 50 years, the news of the US use of chemical weapons in the Vietnam War have mainly dedicated to Agent Orange and its lethal effects. However, during the Vietnam War, another devilish chemical compound was used widely in Vietnam by the name of Agent Blue. This toxic substance had been applied on the basis of arsenic and most people had little information about it. Indeed, the first reference to this chemical weapon was published in the form of a letter to the editor of New York Times by Arthur H. Wasting in 1971 under the heading, "Agent Blue in Vietnam".

This limited attention to Agent Blue was not pursued till 44 years, when Loana Hoelmann, published an article titled, "Blue Arsenic Today in Environment", on the veterans' magazine whose publishers were the "Veterans of the American Vietnam War".

Finally, in 2020, Kenneth R. Olson (one of the authors of the article) and Larry Cihacek published the first article of a valid scientific magazine titled, "The Fate of Agent Blue, the Arsenic Based Herbicide, Used in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War", on the Open Journal of Soil Science.

Using the data of new primary sources, this article revised the documents of this "made in the US" chemical weapons and presented them in an updated format for chemical research. International news media paid attention. Mike Tarp, a member of the "Happy Veterans Gang" (a group of military veterans working on this issue), wrote articles which were published by Asia Times. Mike died last year probably because of having been exposed to Dioxin TCDD and/or arsenic at Bien Hoa airbase in Vietnam.

Now the question is: How can the stealthy usage of Agent Blue for destroying food sources (rice) and centers of civilian agricultural production be ignored for 50 years by the American news organizations? This is an important question. Let us review this secret chemical war and its current effects.

Vietnam War veterans, historians and researchers have collected information about the Agent Blue spray over farms and mangrove forests in Mekong River Delta and central heights by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam with the support of the US military, navy and the CIA.

The medical institute estimated that 3.2 million liters (containing 468,000 kg arsenic) were sprayed during Khai Kuang (food deprivation) program of the Republic of Vietnam.

In addition, Operation Ranch Hand was another case in which the American air force sprayed Agent Blue mainly from C-123 aircraft. The Ranch Hand missions registered the place and amount of the sprayed herbicide (more than 4.712 million liters containing 664,392 kg of arsenic) in 1961-1971.

The medical institute has estimated that totally 7.8 million liters of Agent Blue (1,132,400 kg of arsenic) were sprayed in the south of Vietnam in 1962-1971. This included Khai Kuang program of the Republic of Vietnam in 1962-1965 and the part related to Operation Ranch Hand of the US air force in 1962-1971.

This huge scale of highly toxic chemicals was sprayed within a decade over the farms of Mekong Delta which is the major agricultural region in Vietnam. Thus, what has happened to this chemical war agent during 60 years?

Since the start of this chemical war in south Vietnam, the Vietnamese living in Mekong Delta have let this toxic substance enter their bodies through drinking water (underground water transferred via pipe wells) and their food sources; hence their risk of chronic toxicity has increased in the course of time. This toxin is soluble in water and has no half-life. In other words, this toxin continues toxicity.

The research article, "Secret Toxic Legacy of Chemical War: Usage of Agent Blue in the Second Indo-China War and Vietnam War (1961-1971)", which will be published on the November issue of Open Journal of Soil Science, has documented the role of the South Vietnam government and the American military in this field.

This has been published in detail on Asia Times.

RM/MG

Key phrases: What is Agent Blue? Vietnam War, risk of chemical weapons, US and Vietnam