Paloh is a mukim in Kluang District , Johor , Malaysia .
99-539: During the Malayan Emergency (1948–1960) the town was considered a "black area" of communist terrorists and sympathizers. The mukim spans over an area of 429 km. There are 9083 males and 7337 females living in Paloh (16,420 total). There are about 5824 houses. The town's main activity is the cultivation of oil palms and rubber trees. A KTM Intercity railway station is located in this town, and it
198-925: A November 2004 Zogby International poll of 987 people, 79% of respondents thought the U.S. chemical companies which produced Agent Orange defoliant should compensate U.S. soldiers who were affected by the toxic chemical used during the war in Vietnam and 51% said they supported compensation for Vietnamese Agent Orange victims. Several official investigations in Australia failed to prove otherwise even though extant American investigations had already established that defoliants were sprayed at U.S. airbases including Bien Hoa Air Base where Australian and New Zealand forces first served before being given their own Tactical area of responsibility (TAOR.) Even then, Australian and New Zealand non-military and military contributions saw personnel from both countries spread over Vietnam such as
297-525: A Sinologist who as early as 1954 claimed that Templer merely continued policies begun by his predecessors. At all levels of the Malayan government (national, state, and district levels), the military and civil authority was assumed by a committee of military, police and civilian administration officials. This allowed intelligence from all sources to be rapidly evaluated and disseminated and also allowed all anti-guerrilla measures to be co-ordinated. Each of
396-441: A chemical means to make soybeans flower and fruit earlier. He discovered both that 2,3,5- triiodobenzoic acid (TIBA) would speed up the flowering of soybeans and that in higher concentrations it would defoliate the soybeans. From these studies arose the concept of using aerial applications of herbicides to destroy enemy crops to disrupt their food supply. In early 1945, the U.S. Army ran tests of various 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T mixtures at
495-726: A critical analysis of these studies and 35 others consistently found that there was no significant increase in prostate cancer incidence or mortality in those exposed to Agent Orange or 2,3,7,8-tetracholorodibenzo- p -dioxin. During the Vietnam War, the United States fought the North Vietnamese , and their allies, in Laos and Cambodia , including heavy bombing campaigns. They also sprayed large quantities of Agent Orange in each of those countries. According to one estimate,
594-453: A dual threat: the MNLA guerrillas and the silent network in villages who supported them. British troops often described the terror of jungle patrols. In addition to watching out for MNLA guerrillas, they had to navigate difficult terrain and avoid dangerous animals and insects. Many patrols would stay in the jungle for days, even weeks, without encountering the MNLA guerrillas. That strategy led to
693-656: A government which would be subservient to Britain and allow British businesses to keep control of Malaya's natural resources. The first shots of the Malayan Emergency were fired during the Sungai Siput incident , on June 17, 1948, in the office of the Elphil Estate near the town of Sungai Siput . Three European plantation managers were killed by three young Chinese men suspected to have been communists. The deaths of these European plantation managers
792-558: A lack of consensus on the issue. Despite this, statistical analysis of the studies they examined resulted in data that the increase in birth defects/ relative risk (RR) from exposure to agent orange/dioxin "appears" to be on the order of 3 in Vietnamese-funded studies, but 1.29 in the rest of the world. There is data near the threshold of statistical significance suggesting Agent Orange contributes to still-births, cleft palate, and neural tube defects , with spina bifida being
891-645: A result of exposure to Agent Orange there. One noteworthy exception, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, is a claim filed with the CIA by an employee of "a self-insured contractor to the CIA that was no longer in business." The CIA advised the Department of Labor that it "had no objections" to paying the claim and Labor accepted the claim for payment: Civilian Exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam: GAO-05-371 April 2005.Figure 3: Overview of
990-418: A study by Dr. Nguyen Viet Nhan, children in the areas where Agent Orange was used have been affected and have multiple health problems, including cleft palate, mental disabilities, hernias, and extra fingers and toes . In the 1970s, high levels of dioxin were found in the breast milk of South Vietnamese women, and in the blood of U.S. military personnel who had served in Vietnam. The most affected zones are
1089-453: A variety of cancers in the lungs, larynx, and prostate. While in Vietnam, U.S. and Free World Military Assistance Forces soldiers were told not to worry about Agent Orange and were persuaded the chemical was harmless. After returning home, Vietnam veterans from all countries that served began to suspect their ill health or the instances of their wives having miscarriages or children born with birth defects might be related to Agent Orange and
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#17327831386341188-464: A weapon, by definition, is any device used to injure, defeat, or destroy living beings, structures, or systems, and Agent Orange did not qualify under that definition. It also argued that if the U.S. were to be charged for using Agent Orange, then the United Kingdom and its Commonwealth nations should be charged since they also used it widely during the Malayan Emergency in the 1950s. In 1969,
1287-914: Is linked to Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru via the North South Line. 2°25′N 111°15′E / 2.417°N 111.250°E / 2.417; 111.250 This Johor location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Malayan Emergency British Commonwealth victory British Commonwealth forces: [REDACTED] United Kingdom Communist forces: [REDACTED] Malayan Communist Party [REDACTED] United Kingdom [REDACTED] Malaya [REDACTED] Singapore [REDACTED] Australia [REDACTED] New Zealand [REDACTED] Malayan Communist Party [REDACTED] Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) Over 451,000 troops Over 7,000 troops 1950 1951 1954 1956 The Malayan Emergency (1948–1960)
1386-475: Is no longer harmful. Several herbicides were developed as part of efforts by the United States and the United Kingdom to create herbicidal weapons for use during World War II . These included 2,4-D, 2,4,5-T, MCPA (2-methyl-4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid, 1414B and 1414A, recoded LN-8 and LN-32), and isopropyl phenylcarbamate (1313, recoded LN-33). In 1943, the United States Department of
1485-639: Is sharply reduced in contrast with unsprayed areas. The environmental destruction caused by this defoliation has been described by Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme , lawyers, historians and other academics as an ecocide . The use of Agent Orange in Vietnam resulted in numerous legal actions. The United Nations ratified United Nations General Assembly Resolution 31/72 and the Environmental Modification Convention . Lawsuits filed on behalf of both U.S. and Vietnamese veterans sought compensation for damages. Agent Orange
1584-570: Is the Batang Kali massacre , which the press has referred to as "Britain's My Lai ". The Briggs Plan forcibly relocated between 400,000 and 1,000,000 civilians into concentration camps called " new villages ". Many Orang Asli indigenous communities were also targeted for internment because the British believed that they were supporting the communists. The widespread use of decapitations on people suspected to have been guerrillas, led to
1683-1100: The Americal Division in the summer of 1970 continued to use Agent Orange for crop destruction in violation of the suspension. An investigation led to disciplinary action against the brigade and division commanders because they had falsified reports to hide its use. Defoliation and crop destruction were completely stopped by June 30, 1971. There are various types of cancer associated with Agent Orange, including chronic B-cell leukemia, Hodgkin's lymphoma, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, prostate cancer, respiratory cancer, lung cancer, and soft tissue sarcomas. The government of Vietnam states that 4 million of its citizens were exposed to Agent Orange, and as many as 3 million have suffered illnesses because of it; these figures include their children who were exposed. The Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that up to 1 million people are disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange contamination. The United States government has challenged these figures as being unreliable. According to
1782-604: The Briggs Plan , was appointed to Malaya. The central tenet of the Briggs Plan was to segregate MNLA guerrillas from their supporters among the population. A major component of the Briggs Plan involved targeting the MNLA's food supplies, which were supplied from three main sources: food grown by the MNLA in the jungle, food supplied by the Orang Asli aboriginal people living in the deep jungle, and MNLA supporters within
1881-630: The Bushnell Army Airfield in Florida. As a result, the U.S. began a full-scale production of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T and would have used it against Japan in 1946 during Operation Downfall if the war had continued. In the years after the war, the U.S. tested 1,100 compounds, and field trials of the more promising ones were done at British stations in India and Australia, in order to establish their effects in tropical conditions, as well as at
1980-553: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that there was an increase in the rate of birth defects of the children of military personnel as a result of Agent Orange. Agent Orange has also caused enormous environmental damage in Vietnam. Over 3,100,000 ha (7,700,000 acres) or 31,000 km (12,000 sq mi) of forest were defoliated. Defoliants eroded tree cover and seedling forest stock, making reforestation difficult in numerous areas. Animal species diversity
2079-527: The Kuala Langat swamp is described in The Guerrilla – and how to Fight Him ): On 7 July, two additional companies were assigned to the area; patrolling and harassing fires were intensified. Three terrorists surrendered and one of them led a platoon patrol to the terrorist leader's camp. The patrol attacked the camp, killing four, including the leader. Other patrols accounted for four more; by
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#17327831386342178-730: The U.S. Congress were told, "crop destruction is understood to be the more important purpose ... but the emphasis is usually given to the jungle defoliation in public mention of the program." The first official acknowledgment of the programs came from the State Department in March 1966. When crops were destroyed, the Viet Cong would compensate for the loss of food by confiscating more food from local villages. Some military personnel reported being told they were destroying crops used to feed guerrillas, only to later discover, most of
2277-534: The Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. The U.S. was strongly influenced by the British who used Agent Orange during the Malayan Emergency . It is a mixture of equal parts of two herbicides, 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D . In addition to its damaging environmental effects, traces of dioxin (mainly TCDD , the most toxic of its type) found in the mixture have caused major health problems and deformities for many individuals who were exposed and for their children. Agent Orange
2376-655: The White House and the State and Defense Departments . Many U.S. officials supported herbicide operations, pointing out that the British had already used herbicides and defoliants in Malaya during the 1950s. In November 1961, Kennedy authorized the start of Operation Ranch Hand , the codename for the United States Air Force 's herbicide program in Vietnam. The herbicide operations were formally directed by
2475-453: The dioxin 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo- p -dioxin (TCDD). TCDD was a trace (typically 2–3 ppm , ranging from 50 ppb to 50 ppm) - but significant - contaminant of Agent Orange. TCDD is the most toxic of the dioxins and is classified as a human carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The fat-soluble nature of TCDD causes it to enter the body readily through physical contact or ingestion. Dioxins accumulate easily in
2574-416: The 'squatter' communities on the jungle fringes. The Briggs Plan also included the forced relocation of some 500,000 rural Malayans, including 400,000 Chinese civilians, into internment camps called " new villages ". These internment camps were surrounded by barbed wire, police posts, and floodlit areas, all designed to stop the inmates from contacting and supplying MNLA guerrillas in the jungles, segregating
2673-637: The 1952 British Malayan headhunting scandal . Similar scandals relating to atrocities committed by British forces included the public display of corpses. Although the emergency was declared over in 1960, communist leader Chin Peng renewed the insurgency against the Malaysian government in 1968. This second phase of the insurgency lasted until 1989. The economic disruption of World War II (WWII) on British Malaya led to widespread unemployment, low wages, and high levels of food price inflation. The weak economy
2772-588: The Army contracted botanist (and later bioethicist) Arthur Galston , who discovered the defoliants later used in Agent Orange, and his employer University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to study the effects of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T on cereal grains (including rice) and broadleaf crops. While a graduate and post-graduate student at the University of Illinois, Galston's research and dissertation focused on finding
2871-627: The Bionetic Research Laboratories between 1965 and 1968 found malformations in test animals caused by 2,4,5-T, a component of Agent Orange. The study was later brought to the attention of the White House in October 1969. Other studies reported similar results and the Department of Defense began to reduce the herbicide operation. On April 15, 1970, it was announced that the use of Agent Orange was suspended. Two brigades of
2970-666: The British Empire by targeting the colonial resource extraction industries, namely the tin mines and rubber plantations which were the main sources of income for the British occupation of Malaya. The MNLA attacked these industries in the hopes of bankrupting the British and winning independence by making the colonial administration too expensive to maintain. The Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) employed guerrilla tactics, attacking military and police outposts, sabotaging rubber plantations and tin mines, while also destroying transport and communication infrastructure. Support for
3069-547: The British colonial occupation banned the PMFTU, Malaya's largest trade union. Malaya's rubber and tin resources were used by the British to pay war debts to the United States and to recover from the damage of WWII. Malaysian rubber exports to the United States were of greater value than all domestic exports from Britain to America, causing Malaya to be viewed by the British as a vital asset. Britain had prepared for Malaya to become an independent state, but only by handing power to
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3168-421: The British did in Malaya, the goal of the U.S. was to defoliate rural/forested land, depriving guerrillas of food and concealment and clearing sensitive areas such as around base perimeters and possible ambush sites along roads and canals. Samuel P. Huntington argued that the program was also a part of a policy of forced draft urbanization , which aimed to destroy the ability of peasants to support themselves in
3267-458: The British had established a precedent for warfare with herbicides in Malaya. In mid-1961, President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam asked the United States to help defoliate the lush jungle that was providing cover to his Communist enemies. In August of that year, the Republic of Vietnam Air Force conducted herbicide operations with American help. Diem's request launched a policy debate in
3366-457: The British military's widespread destruction of farmland and burning of homes belonging to villagers rumoured to be helping communists, led to a sharp increase in civilians joining the MNLA and communist movement. However, these tactics also prevented the communists from establishing liberated areas (the MCPs first, and foremost objective), successfully broke up larger guerrilla formations, and shifted
3465-560: The CIA--acting in the role of the employer and the insurance carrier--stated that it "had no objections" to paying the claim. Labor reviewed the claim and accepted it for payment." About 17.8% or 3,100,000 hectares (31,000 km ; 12,000 sq mi) of the total forested area of Vietnam was sprayed during the war, which disrupted the ecological equilibrium. The persistent nature of dioxins, erosion caused by loss of tree cover, and loss of seedling forest stock meant that reforestation
3564-570: The Chinese community. The communists' belief in class consciousness , and both ethnic and gender equality, inspired many women and indigenous people to join both the MNLA and its undercover supply network the Min Yuen . Additionally, hundreds of former Japanese soldiers joined the MNLA. After establishing a series of jungle bases the MNLA began raiding British colonial police and military installations. Mines, plantations, and trains were attacked by
3663-600: The Institute of Medicine (IOM), now known as the National Academy of Medicine , to issue reports every 2 years on the health effects of Agent Orange and similar herbicides. First published in 1994 and titled Veterans and Agent Orange , the IOM reports assess the risk of both cancer and non-cancer health effects. Each health effect is categorized by evidence of association based on available research data. The last update
3762-560: The MNLA mainly came from the 3.12 million ethnic Chinese living in Malaya, many of whom were farmers living on the edges of the Malayan jungles and had been politically influenced by both the Chinese Communist Revolution and the resistance against Japan during WWII. Their support allowed the MNLA to supply themselves with food, medicine, information, and provided a source of new recruits. The ethnic Malay population supported them in smaller numbers. The MNLA gained
3861-475: The MNLA with the goal of gaining independence for Malaya by bankrupting the British occupation. The British attempted to starve the MNLA using scorched earth policies through food rationing, killing livestock, and aerial spraying of the herbicide Agent Orange . The British engaged in extrajudicial killings of unarmed villagers, in violation of the Geneva Conventions . The most infamous example
3960-553: The MNLA's plan of securing territory, to one of widespread sabotage. Commonwealth forces struggled to fight guerrillas who moved freely in the jungle and enjoyed support from rural Chinese populations. British planters and miners, who bore the brunt of the communist attacks, began to talk about government incompetence and being betrayed by Whitehall. The initial government strategy was primarily to guard important economic targets, such as mines and plantation estates. In April 1950, General Sir Harold Briggs , most famous for implementing
4059-679: The Malay states had a State War Executive Committee which included the State Chief Minister as chairman, the Chief Police Officer, the senior military commander, state home guard officer, state financial officer, state information officer, executive secretary, and up to six selected community leaders. The Police, Military, and Home Guard representatives and the Secretary formed the operations sub-committee responsible for
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4158-475: The New Zealand government finally admitted that New Zealanders had in fact been exposed to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam and the experience was responsible for detrimental health conditions in veterans and their children. Amendments to the memorandum made in 2021 meant that more veterans were eligible for an ex gratia payment of NZ$ 40,000. Starting in the early 1990s, the federal government directed
4257-522: The Pacific fought on the side of the British backed Federation of Malaya during the Malayan Emergency. These forces included troops from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Kenya, Nyasaland , Northern and Southern Rhodesia . Agent Orange Agent Orange is a chemical herbicide and defoliant , one of the tactical use Rainbow Herbicides . It was used by the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand , during
4356-674: The U.S. dropped 475,500 U.S. gal (1,800,000 L; 395,900 imp gal) in Laos and 40,900 U.S. gal (155,000 L; 34,100 imp gal) in Cambodia. Because Laos and Cambodia were both officially neutral during the Vietnam War, the U.S. attempted to keep secret its military operations in those countries, from the American population and has largely avoided compensating American veterans and CIA personnel stationed in Cambodia and Laos who suffered permanent injuries as
4455-556: The U.S. testing ground in Florida. Between 1950 and 1952, trials were conducted in Tanganyika , at Kikore and Stunyansa, to test arboricides and defoliants under tropical conditions. The chemicals involved were 2,4-D, 2,4,5-T, and endothall (3,6-endoxohexahydrophthalic acid). During 1952–53, the unit supervised the aerial spraying of 2,4,5-T in Kenya to assess the value of defoliants in the eradication of tsetse fly . In Malaya ,
4554-462: The U.S. was violating the 1925 Geneva Protocol , which regulated the use of chemical and biological weapons in international conflicts. The U.S. defeated most of the resolutions, arguing that Agent Orange was not a chemical or a biological weapon as it was considered a herbicide and a defoliant and it was used in effort to destroy plant crops and to deprive the enemy of concealment and not meant to target human beings. The U.S. delegation argued that
4653-452: The United Kingdom commented on the draft Resolution 2603 (XXIV): The evidence seems to us to be notably inadequate for the assertion that the use in war of chemical substances specifically toxic to plants is prohibited by international law . The environmental destruction caused by this defoliation has been described by Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme , lawyers, historians and other academics as an ecocide . A study carried out by
4752-459: The Workers' Compensation Claims Process for Contract Employees: " ... Of the 20 claims filed by contract employees [of the united States government], 9 were initially denied by the insurance carriers and 1 was approved for payment. ... The claim that was approved by Labor for payment involved a self-insured contractor to the CIA that was no longer in business. Absent an employer or insurance carrier,
4851-406: The aforementioned herbicides, were sprayed along a number of key roads. From June to October 1952, 510 hectares (1,250 acres) of roadside vegetation at possible ambush points were sprayed with defoliant, described as a policy of "national importance". The experts advised that the use of herbicides and defoliants for clearing the roadside could be effectively replaced by removing vegetation by hand and
4950-669: The camps, the soldiers attended lectures on Marxism–Leninism , and produced political newsletters to be distributed to civilians. In the early stages of the conflict, the guerrillas envisaged establishing control in "liberated areas" from which the government forces had been driven, but did not succeed in this. During the first two years of the Emergency, British forces conducted a 'counter-terror,' characterised by high levels of state coercion against civilian populations; including sweeps, cordons, large-scale deportation, and capital charges against suspected guerrillas. Police corruption and
5049-506: The chemicals in the presence of personnel that the Australian government was forced to change their stance. Only in 1994 did the Australian government finally admit that it was true that defoliants had been used in areas of Vietnam where Australian forces operated and the effects of these may have been detrimental to some Vietnam veterans and their children. It was only in 2015 that the official Australian War Memorial accepted rewriting
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#17327831386345148-706: The communists from their civilian supporters. In 1948 the British had 13 infantry battalions in Malaya, including seven partly formed Gurkha battalions, three British battalions, two battalions of the Royal Malay Regiment and a Royal Artillery Regiment being used as infantry. The Permanent Secretary of Defence for Malaya , Sir Robert Grainger Ker Thompson , had served in the Chindits in Burma during World War II. Thompson's in-depth experience of jungle warfare proved invaluable during this period as he
5247-568: The conflict suffered from serious exposure to dioxin and Trioxone. An estimated 10,000 civilians and guerrilla in Malaya also suffered from the effects of the defoliant, but many historians think that the number is much larger since Trioxone was used on a large scale in the Malayan conflict and, unlike the US, the British government limited information about its use to avoid negative global public opinion. The prolonged absence of vegetation caused by defoliation also resulted in major soil erosion . Following
5346-604: The conflict when de Havilland Vampires replaced Spitfires of No. 60 Squadron RAF in 1950 and were used for ground attack. Jet bombers came with the English Electric Canberra in 1955 The Casualty Evacuation Flight was formed in early 1953 to bring the wounded out of the jungles; it used early helicopters such as the Westland Dragonfly , landing in small clearings The RAF progressed to using Westland Whirlwind helicopters to deploy troops in
5445-592: The countryside, forcing them to flee to the U.S.-dominated cities, depriving the guerrillas of their rural support base. Agent Orange was usually sprayed from helicopters or from low-flying C-123 Provider aircraft, fitted with sprayers and "MC-1 Hourglass" pump systems and 1,000 U.S. gal (3,800 L; 830 imp gal) chemical tanks. Spray runs were also conducted from trucks, boats, and backpack sprayers. Altogether, over 80,000,000 L (18,000,000 imp gal; 21,000,000 US gal) of Agent Orange were applied. The first batch of herbicides
5544-469: The day-to-day direction of emergency operations. The operations subcommittees as a whole made joint decisions. During the Malayan Emergency, Britain became the first nation in history to make use of herbicides and defoliants as a military weapon. It was used to destroy bushes, food crops, and trees to deprive the guerrillas of both food and cover, playing a role in Britain's food denial campaign during
5643-552: The defoliant, and as many as three million people have suffered illness because of Agent Orange, while the Vietnamese Red Cross estimates that up to one million people were disabled or have health problems as a result of exposure to Agent Orange. The United States government has described these figures as unreliable, while documenting cases of leukemia , Hodgkin's lymphoma , and various kinds of cancer in exposed U.S. military veterans. An epidemiological study done by
5742-615: The destroyed food was actually produced to support the local civilian population. For example, according to Wil Verwey, 85% of the crop lands in Quang Ngai province were scheduled to be destroyed in 1970 alone. He estimated this would have caused famine and left hundreds of thousands of people without food or malnourished in the province. According to a report by the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
5841-452: The early 1950s. A variety of herbicides were used to clear lines of communication and destroy food crops as part of this strategy. One of the herbicides, was a 50:50 mixture of butyl esters of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D with the brand name brand name Trioxone. This mixture was virtually identical to the later Agent Orange, though Trioxone likely had a heavier contamination of the health-damaging dioxin impurity. In 1952, Trioxone and mixtures of
5940-413: The emergency was one step nearer. MNLA guerrillas had numerous advantages over Commonwealth forces since they lived in closer proximity to villagers, they sometimes had relatives or close friends in the village, and they were not afraid to threaten violence or torture and murder village leaders as an example to the others, which forced them to assist them with food and information. British forces thus faced
6039-399: The end of July, twenty-three terrorists remained in the swamp with no food or communications with the outside world. This was the nature of operations: 60,000 artillery shells, 30,000 rounds of mortar ammunition, and 2,000 aircraft bombs for 35 terrorists killed or captured. Each one represented 1,500 man-days of patrolling or waiting in ambushes. "Nassau" was considered a success for the end of
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#17327831386346138-645: The end of the Emergency, US Secretary of State Dean Rusk advised US President John F. Kennedy that the precedent of using herbicide in warfare had been established by the British through their use of aircraft to spray herbicide and thus destroy enemy crops and thin the thick jungle of northern Malaya. The British Army soon realised that clumsy sweeps by large formations were unproductive. Instead, platoons or sections carried out patrols and laid ambushes, based on intelligence from various sources, including informers, surrendered MNLA personnel, aerial reconnaissance and so on. An operation named "Nassau", carried out in
6237-423: The exception of liver cancer, these are the same conditions the U.S. Veterans Administration has determined may be associated with exposure to Agent Orange/dioxin and are on the list of conditions eligible for compensation and treatment. Military personnel who were involved in storage, mixture and transportation (including aircraft mechanics), and actual use of the chemicals were probably among those who received
6336-467: The food chain. Dioxin enters the body by attaching to a protein called the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), a transcription factor . When TCDD binds to AhR, the protein moves to the cell nucleus , where it influences gene expression. According to U.S. government reports, if not bound chemically to a biological surface such as soil, leaves or grass, Agent Orange dries quickly after spraying and breaks down within hours to days when exposed to sunlight and
6435-503: The former U.S. airbases in Da Nang , Phù Cát District and Biên Hòa . Some of the soil and sediment on the bases have extremely high levels of dioxin requiring remediation. The Da Nang Air Base has dioxin contamination up to 350 times higher than international recommendations for action. The contaminated soil and sediment continue to affect the citizens of Vietnam, poisoning their food chain and causing illnesses, serious skin diseases and
6534-535: The government of South Vietnam. During the Vietnam War, between 1962 and 1971, the United States military sprayed nearly 20,000,000 U.S. gal (76,000,000 L; 17,000,000 imp gal) of various chemicals – the " rainbow herbicides " and defoliants – in Vietnam, eastern Laos, and parts of Cambodia as part of Operation Ranch Hand, reaching its peak from 1967 to 1969. For comparison purposes, an olympic size pool holds approximately 660,000 U.S. gal (2,500,000 L; 550,000 imp gal). As
6633-404: The heaviest exposures. Military members who served on Okinawa also claim to have been exposed to the chemical, but there is no verifiable evidence to corroborate these claims. Some studies have suggested that veterans exposed to Agent Orange may be more at risk of developing prostate cancer and potentially more than twice as likely to develop higher-grade, more lethal prostate cancers. However,
6732-492: The herbicide campaign had disrupted the food supply of more than 600,000 people by 1970. Many experts at the time, including plant physiologist and bioethicist Arthur Galston , opposed herbicidal warfare because of concerns about the side effects to humans and the environment by indiscriminately spraying the chemical over a wide area. As early as 1966, resolutions were introduced to the United Nations charging that
6831-486: The hospitals at Bong Son and Qui Nhon , on secondments at various bases, and as flight crew and ground crew for flights into and out of Da Nang Air Base - all areas that were well-documented as having been sprayed. It wasn't until a group of Australian veterans produced official military records, maps, and mission data as proof that the TAOR controlled by Australian and New Zealand forces in Vietnam had been sprayed with
6930-432: The inaccessible tropical jungle and had limited infrastructure. Almost 90% of MNLA guerrillas were ethnic Chinese, though there were some Malays, Indonesians and Indians among its members. The MNLA was organised into regiments, although these had no fixed establishments and each included all communist forces operating in a particular region. The regiments had political sections, commissars , instructors and secret service. In
7029-419: The incident rate fell from 500 to less than 100 per month and the civilian and security force casualties from 200 to less than 40." Orthodox historiography suggests that Templer changed the situation in the Emergency and his actions and policies were a major part of British success during his period in command. Revisionist historians have challenged this view and frequently support the ideas of Victor Purcell ,
7128-401: The infamous Batang Kali massacre in which 24 unarmed villagers were executed by British troops. Royal Air Force activities, grouped under "Operation Firedog" included ground attacks in support of troops and the transport of supplies. The RAF used a wide mixture of aircraft to attack MNLA positions: from the new Avro Lincoln heavy bomber to Short Sunderland flying boats. Jets were used in
7227-589: The jungle. The MNLA was vastly outnumbered by the British forces and their Commonwealth and colonial allies in terms of regular full-time soldiers. Siding with the British occupation were a maximum of 40,000 British and other Commonwealth troops, 250,000 Home Guard members, and 66,000 police agents. Supporting the communists were 7,000+ communist guerrillas (1951 peak), an estimated 1,000,000 sympathisers, and an unknown number of civilian Min Yuen supporters and Orang Asli sympathisers. Commonwealth forces from Africa and
7326-645: The killing of left-wing activists. Leader of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) Chin Peng and his allies fled into the jungles and formed the MNLA to wage a war for national liberation against British colonial rule. Many MNLA fighters were veterans of the Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), a communist guerrilla army previously trained, armed and funded by the British to fight against Japan during World War II . The communists gained support from many civilians, mainly those from
7425-586: The local unit of Imperial Chemical Industries researched defoliants as weed killers for rubber plantations . Roadside ambushes by the Malayan National Liberation Army were a danger to the British Commonwealth forces during the Malayan Emergency , several trials were made to defoliate vegetation that might hide ambush sites, but hand removal was found cheaper. A detailed account of how the British experimented with
7524-584: The most statistically significant defect. The large discrepancy in RR between Vietnamese studies and those in the rest of the world has been ascribed to bias in the Vietnamese studies. Twenty-eight of the former U.S. military bases in Vietnam where the herbicides were stored and loaded onto airplanes may still have high levels of dioxins in the soil, posing a health threat to the surrounding communities. Extensive testing for dioxin contamination has been conducted at
7623-477: The mountainous area along Truong Son (Long Mountains) and the border between Vietnam and Cambodia. The affected residents are living in substandard conditions with many genetic diseases . In 2006, Anh Duc Ngo and colleagues of the University of Texas Health Science Center published a meta-analysis that exposed a large amount of heterogeneity (different findings) between studies, a finding consistent with
7722-468: The official history of Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War to acknowledge that Australian soldiers were exposed to defoliants used in Vietnam. New Zealand was even slower to correct their error, with the government going as far as to deny the legitimacy of the Australian reports in a report called the "McLeod Report" published by Veterans Affairs NZ in 2001 thus infuriating New Zealand veterans and those associated with their cause. In 2006 progress
7821-581: The other toxic herbicides to which they had been exposed in Vietnam. U.S. Veterans began to file claims in 1977 to the Department of Veterans Affairs for disability payments for health care for conditions they believed were associated with exposure to Agent Orange, or more specifically, dioxin, but their claims were denied unless they could prove the condition began when they were in the service or within one year of their discharge. In order to qualify for compensation, U.S. veterans must have served on or near
7920-654: The perimeters of military bases in Thailand during the Vietnam Era, where herbicides were tested and stored outside of Vietnam, veterans who were crew members on C-123 planes flown after the Vietnam War, or were associated with Department of Defense (DoD) projects to test, dispose of, or store herbicides in the U.S. By April 1993, the Department of Veterans Affairs had compensated only 486 victims, although it had received disability claims from 39,419 soldiers who had been exposed to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam. In
8019-535: The remaining Malayan communists retreated to rural areas and formed the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) on 1 February 1949. The MNLA was partly a re-formation of the Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), the communist guerrilla force which had been the principal resistance in Malaya against the Japanese occupation during WWII. The British had secretly helped form the MPAJA in 1942 and trained them in
8118-1186: The request of the Veterans Administration, the Institute Of Medicine evaluated whether service in these C-123 aircraft could have plausibly exposed soldiers and been detrimental to their health. Their report Post-Vietnam Dioxin Exposure in Agent Orange-Contaminated C-123 Aircraft confirmed it. Publications by the United States Public Health Service have shown that Vietnam veterans, overall, have increased rates of cancer, and nerve, digestive, skin, and respiratory disorders. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that in particular, there are higher rates of acute/chronic leukemia, Hodgkin's lymphoma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, throat cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, Ischemic heart disease , soft tissue sarcoma, and liver cancer. With
8217-427: The spraying of herbicides was written by two scientists, E. K. Woodford of Agricultural Research Council 's Unit of Experimental Agronomy and H. G. H. Kearns of the University of Bristol . After the Malayan Emergency ended in 1960, the U.S. considered the British precedent in deciding that the use of defoliants was a legal tactic of warfare . Secretary of State Dean Rusk advised President John F. Kennedy that
8316-620: The spraying was stopped. However, after that strategy failed, the use of herbicides and defoliants in effort to fight the guerrillas was restarted under the command of Gerald Templer in February 1953 as a means of destroying food crops grown by communist forces in jungle clearings. Helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft despatched sodium trichloroacetate and Trioxone, along with pellets of chlorophenyl N,N-dimethyl-1-naphthylamine onto crops such as sweet potatoes and maize . Many Commonwealth personnel who handled and/or used Trioxone during
8415-444: The support of the Chinese because the Chinese were denied the equal right to vote in elections, had no land rights to speak of, and were usually very poor. The MNLA's supply organisation was called the Min Yuen (People's Movement). It had a network of contacts within the general population. Besides supplying material, especially food, it was also important to the MNLA as a source of intelligence. The MNLA's camps and hideouts were in
8514-690: The use of explosives, firearms and radios. Chin Peng was a veteran anti-fascist and trade unionist who had played an integral role in the MPAJA's resistance. Disbanded in December 1945, the MPAJA officially turned in its weapons to the British Military Administration , although many MPAJA soldiers secretly hid stockpiles of weapons in jungle hideouts. Members who agreed to disband were offered economic incentives. Around 4,000 members rejected these incentives and went underground. The MNLA began their war for Malayan independence from
8613-421: The wages of their workers. Colonial police responded to rising trade union activity through arrests, deportations, and beating striking workers to death. Responding to the attacks against trade unions, communist militants began assassinating strikebreakers , and attacking anti-union estates. These attacks were used by the colonial occupation as a pretext to conduct mass arrests of left-wing activists. On 12 June
8712-674: Was a guerrilla war fought in Malaya between communist pro-independence fighters of the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) and the military forces of the Federation of Malaya and Commonwealth ( British Empire ). The communists fought to win independence for Malaya from the British Empire and to establish a communist state, while the Malayan Federation and Commonwealth forces fought to combat communism and protect British economic and colonial interests. The term "Emergency"
8811-548: Was a factor in the growth of trade union movements and caused a rise in communist party membership, with considerable labour unrest and a large number of strikes occurring between 1946 and 1948. Malayan communists organised a successful 24-hour general strike on 29 January 1946, before organising 300 strikes in 1947. To combat rising trade union activity the British used police and soldiers as strikebreakers, and employers enacted mass dismissals, forced evictions of striking workers from their homes, legal harassment, and began cutting
8910-597: Was able to build effective civil-military relations and was one of the chief architects of the counter-insurgency plan in Malaya. In 1951, the British High Commissioner in Malaya, Sir Henry Gurney , was killed near Fraser's Hill during an MNLA ambush. General Gerald Templer was chosen to become the new High Commissioner in January 1952. During Templer's two-year command, "two-thirds of the guerrillas were wiped out and lost over half their strength,
9009-545: Was first used by British Commonwealth forces in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency . It was also used by the U.S. military in Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War because forests near the border with Vietnam were used by the Viet Cong . The active ingredient of Agent Orange was an equal mixture of two phenoxy herbicides – 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T) – in iso-octyl ester form, which contained traces of
9108-588: Was made in the form of a Memorandum of Understanding signed between the New Zealand government, representatives of New Zealand Vietnam veterans, and the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services' Association (RSA) for monetary compensation for New Zealand Vietnam veterans who have conditions as evidence of association with exposure to Agent Orange, as determined by the United States National Academy of Sciences. In 2008
9207-771: Was produced in the United States beginning in the late 1940s and was used in industrial agriculture, and was also sprayed along railroads and power lines to control undergrowth in forests. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military procured over 20,000,000 U.S. gal (76,000,000 L; 17,000,000 imp gal), consisting of a fifty-fifty mixture of 2,4-D and dioxin-contaminated 2,4,5-T. Nine chemical companies produced it: Dow Chemical Company , Monsanto Company , Diamond Shamrock Corporation , Hercules Inc. , Thompson Hayward Chemical Co., United States Rubber Company (Uniroyal), Thompson Chemical Co., Hoffman-Taff Chemicals, Inc. , and Agriselect. The government of Vietnam says that up to four million people in Vietnam were exposed to
9306-834: Was published in 2016, entitled Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 2014 . The report shows sufficient evidence of an association with soft tissue sarcoma; non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL); Hodgkin disease; Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL); including hairy cell leukemia and other chronic B-cell leukemias. Limited or suggested evidence of an association was linked with respiratory cancers (lung, bronchus, trachea, larynx); prostate cancer; multiple myeloma; and bladder cancer. Numerous other cancers were determined to have inadequate or insufficient evidence of links to Agent Orange. The National Academy of Medicine has repeatedly concluded that any evidence suggestive of an association between Agent Orange and prostate cancer is, "limited because chance, bias, and confounding could not be ruled out with confidence." At
9405-433: Was sprayed at least once between 1965 and 1971. 90% of herbicide use was directed at defoliation. The U.S. military began targeting food crops in October 1962, primarily using Agent Blue ; the American public was not made aware of the crop destruction programs until 1965 (and it was then believed that crop spraying had begun that spring). In 1965, 42% of all herbicide spraying was dedicated to food crops. In 1965, members of
9504-493: Was ultimately destroyed. In some areas, TCDD concentrations in soil and water were hundreds of times greater than the levels considered safe by the EPA. The campaign destroyed 20,000 km (7,700 sq mi) of upland and mangrove forests and thousands of square kilometres of crops. Overall, more than 20% of South Vietnam's forests were sprayed at least once over the nine-year period. 3.2% of South Vietnam's cultivated land
9603-580: Was unloaded at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in South Vietnam, on January 9, 1962. U.S. Air Force records show at least 6,542 spraying missions took place over the course of Operation Ranch Hand. By 1971, 12 percent of the total area of South Vietnam had been sprayed with defoliating chemicals, at an average concentration of 13 times the recommended U.S. Department of Agriculture application rate for domestic use. In South Vietnam alone, an estimated 39,000 sq mi (100,000 km ) of agricultural land
9702-462: Was used by the British colonial occupation to either arrest or kill many of Malaya's communist and trade union leaders. These mass arrests and killings saw many left-wing activists going into hiding and fleeing into the Malayan jungles. Although the Malayan communists had begun preparations for a guerrilla war against the British, the emergency measures and mass arrest of communists and left-wing activists in 1948 took them by surprise. Led by Chin Peng
9801-508: Was used by the British to characterise the conflict in order to avoid referring to it as a war, because London-based insurers would not pay out in instances of civil wars. The MNLA referred to the conflict as the Anti-British National Liberation War . The war began on 17 June 1948, after Britain declared a state of emergency in Malaya following attacks on plantations , which had been revenge attacks for
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