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Monsanto's Agent Orange "caused gene damage" (29/7/2006)

1.Monsanto's Agent Orange 'caused gene damage'
2.New Zealand Study Links Agent Orange to Genetic Damage in Troops

EXCERPTS: ...as might be expected, Dow Chemical and Monsanto, the two companies mainly responsible for creating Agent Orange, have consistently denied that Agent Orange is responsible for these health problems.  

...The struggle by Dow and Monsanto to hold onto their billions - they long since lost their good name - has been going on for decades.  This new study may be exactly what is needed to pry that blood money out of their greedy little fingers. (item 2)
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1.Agent Orange 'caused gene damage' 
BBC NEWS, 28 July 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5224690.stm 
 
[IMAGE CAPTION: Agent Orange has been linked to disabilities in children]
 
New Zealand troops who served in the Vietnam War suffered significant genetic damage from exposure to Agent Orange, a study suggests.

The chemical was used by the US military in Vietnam in the 1960s.

It has been blamed for a variety of medical conditions suffered by soldiers and up to four million Vietnamese.

The study by New Zealand's scientists could have a big effect on campaigners' efforts to sue major chemical firms and the US government, correspondents say.

Highly toxic

The US military sprayed some 80m litres of Agent Orange on North and South Vietnam.

The aim was to destroy jungle foliage in order to find communist fighters more easily.

Agent Orange contained highly toxic dioxins which have since been blamed for causing cancers and other illnesses.

They have also been blamed for birth defects suffered by the children and even grandchildren of Vietnam veterans and Vietnamese civilians.

This has been strongly contested by the two main companies which made it - Dow and Monsanto - and the US government, the BBC's Bill Hayton in Hanoi says.

A team from New Zealand's Massey University has now shown that the group of 24 Vietnam veterans it tested suffered significant genetic damage, compared with a similar sized group of soldiers who did not serve in Vietnam, our correspondent says.

This may be crucial evidence in the lengthy legal battles still being waged in courts in the US and other countries to prove or disprove the link between Agent Orange and a legacy of illness across three continents, our correspondent says.
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2.New Zealand Study Links Agent Orange to Genetic Damage in Troops
Associated Content, 29 July 2006
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/48556/new_zealand_study_links_agent_orange.html

Agent Orange, the incredibly toxic substance used by the US during the Vietnam War, has resulted in genetic damage described as 'significant.'

Now here's the kicker: the people suffering this genetic damage in this new study are not members of the Viet Cong, but rather New Zealand troops who were assisting the US in that hopeless quagmire that was instituted with the purpose of bringing democracy to a foreign country in the hands of a despot. 

While it is true that millions of Vietnamese people have blamed Agent Orange for a multitude of medical problems, it may take the scientific evidence that damage was done to our allies to finally bring about action in suits made against the US companies and government who were responsible.  

Agent Orange was used with the purpose in mind of clearing out the jungle so that communist soldiers could more easily be found and fought.   It didn't take long to find out that the toxic dioxins contained in Agent Orange were correlating very highly with the incidence of cancer and other health problems in areas where it was sprayed. 

Nonetheless, as might be expected, Dow Chemical and Monsanto, the two companies mainly responsible for creating Agent Orange, have consistently denied that Agent Orange is responsible for these health problems.  The US government, also not surprisingly, has backed Dow and Monsanto in their ballsy denials.  

The New Zealand scientific report on Agent Orange specifically compared 24 soldiers who served in Vietnam and were exposed to Agent Orange with a similarly sized group of soldiers who didn't serve.    The soldiers who did serve experienced far more genetic damage.

The struggle by Dow and Monsanto to hold onto their billions - they long since lost their good name - has been going on for decades.  This new study may be exactly what is needed to pry that blood money out of their greedy little fingers.

 


 
 

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