We Couldn't Trust Washington Then, and We Can't Trust Washington Now
by James Glaser
June 3, 2010

I can still remember the dead jungle around Signal Hill, which was just above LZ Stud, and down the road from the Rock Pile on Highway 9 South of the DMZ in Vietnam. Everything was dead, like when you spray a dandelion with Roundup. The difference being, in Vietnam they sprayed the chemicals from airplanes, and drenched everything, and I mean everything. That would be us, the American troops, the rivers and streams, the Vietnamese's crops and their farm animals. I have read that we sprayed over seven million gallons of the stuff, but back then "it was safe."

The chemical was Agent Orange, and it was safe because our government told us it was safe. Thousands of American troops have died from their exposure to those safe chemicals, and after returning home, many of the children of American nurses stationed there were born with birth defects.

Relying on an independent study by the Institute of Medicine, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki has established a service-connection for Vietnam War veterans who have three specific illnesses that have an association with the herbicides referred to as Agent Orange.

The illnesses are: B-cell leukemias, such as hairy cell leukemia; Parkinson's disease; and ischemic heart disease. Other illnesses previously recognized as being caused by exposure to herbicides during the Vietnam War include: acute and subacute transient peripheral neuropathy; AL amyloidosis; chloracne; chronic lymphocytic leukemia; diabetes mellitus (Type 2); Hodgkin's disease; multiple myeloma; non-Hodgkin's lymphoma; porphyria cutanea tarda; prostate cancer; respiratory cancers; and soft tissue sarcoma (other than osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma, Kaposi's sarcoma, or mesothelioma).

So, here is the deal. The chemical companies told our government Agent Orange, along with a bunch of other chemical defoliants that were used during the Vietnam War, were safe. Years later we find out that the chemical companies lied, and that the government never checked out their claim of safety independently. Washington just believed them, and thousand of Vietnam vets have died, and scores of thousands of vets are sick and in the process of dieing.

Now we jump forward to 2010 and the oil spill in the Gulf. BP, the company whose oil well is responsible for the this "leak" of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, decided to use planes to spray chemicals to help break up the oil floating on the surface. They told Washington that these chemicals were safe, and Washington let them spray close to one million gallons of their dispersant chemicals. The chemicals BP used, Corexit 9500 and 9527, have been banned in the United Kingdom because that government didn't think they were safe enough to be used in the ocean. Washington never checked that out until environmental groups started shouting at them. Now, after a million gallons have been used, Washington has told BP to stop. Just as with Agent Orange, Washington trusted the corporation that the chemical was safe, but unlike Agent Orange, in 2010 there were other countries who had already studied the chemical and banned it.

Lawsuit Seeks Full Disclosure of Dispersant Impacts on Gulf's Endangered Wildlife
by Center for Biological Diversity

SAN FRANCISCO—The Center for Biological Diversity today filed an official notice of its intent to sue the Environmental Protection Agency for authorizing the use of toxic dispersants without ensuring that these chemicals would not harm endangered species and their habitats. The letter requests that the agency, along with the U.S. Coast Guard, immediately study the effects of dispersants on species such as sea turtles, sperm whales, piping plovers, and corals and incorporate this knowledge into oil-spill response efforts.

Studies have found that oil dispersed by Corexit 9527 damages the insulating properties of seabird feathers more than untreated oil, making the birds more susceptible to hypothermia and death. Studies have also found that dispersed oil is toxic to fish eggs, larvae, and adults, as well as to corals, and can harm sea turtles' ability to breathe and digest food. Formulations of the dispersants being used by BP, Corexit 9500 and 9527, have been banned in the United Kingdom due to concerns over their impacts on the marine environment.

We now know, all these years later what horrible things the defoliants we sprayed in Vietnam have done to our troops and the Vietnamese people. We learned from that experience that we can not take the word of the chemical companies or the corporations who use those chemicals. At least we should have learned that. However, we now know that the Obama administration fell into that same pattern of years ago of believing the chemical company and the corporation that used the chemical, and it might be years before we know the ramifications of that.

The really sick thing in this new use of chemicals with Washington's blessing is that these chemicals had already been banned by other governments. With just a little work, the Obama administration could have known that. But they didn't do that little bit of work, or they chose not to do it, for whatever reason. Bottom line, we couldn't trust Washington back when they were spraying defoliants in Vietnam , and we surely can't trust them spraying dispersants in the Gulf today. Actually, why are we trusting our Government with anything to do with our health and safety? When will we ever learn?

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