Monsanto's Involvement With Agent Orange - 48 Years After the Vietnam Conflict

Monsanto's Involvement With Agent Orange - 48 Years After the Vietnam Conflict

By Theodora Filis

Memorial Day - Originally called Decoration Day is a day of remembrance for those who have died in the United States nation's service. "If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future." Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965) What about the men and women who survived? The Vietnam Veterans who share in the pain and suffering caused by the shameful neglect and harassment by the same people whose lives they fought to protect?  One of the most disturbing and damaging legacies of the Vietnam War is Agent Orange. 48 years later, questions remain. The US military used Agent Orange from 1961 to 1971 to defoliate dense vegetation in the Vietnamese jungles to reduce the chances of an ambush. Seven major chemical companies were contracted under the Defense Production Act to obtain Agent Orange and other herbicides for use by US and Allied troops in Vietnam. Agent Orange was by far the most widely used of the so-called "Rainbow Herbicides" employed in the Herbicidal Warfare program of the Vietnam War. Dow Chemical and Monsanto were the two largest producers of Agent Orange for the US military.  According to the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in 400,000 deaths and disabilities, and 500,000 children born with birth defects. Monsanto's website had boasted (before it was absorbed into the Bayer family): “Monsanto is a relatively new company. While we share the name and history of a company that was founded in 1901, the Monsanto of today is focused on agriculture and supporting farmers around the world in their mission to produce more while conserving more. We’re an agricultural company.” In two decades, Monsanto’s “agricultural” GMO monopoly had grown so powerful that they control the genetics of nearly 90% of five major commodity crops including corn, soybeans, cotton, canola, and sugar beets. Monsanto is now primarily a seed and agricultural products company. Monsanto was responsible for more than 50 United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund sites. Monsanto's legacy included not only the production of Agent Orange, but DDT, PCBs, and dioxin. Now massive aerial spraying of Roundup in Colombia is being used by the US and the Colombian government as a counter-insurgency tactic, contaminating food crops and poisoning villagers. Of course, one naturally comes to the conclusion that Bayer AG (a German multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company - one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world - including, consumer healthcare products, agricultural chemicals, seeds, and biotechnology products) replaced/absorbed Monsanto name because it was getting too much "heat" from all the negative PR.