I agree with Ken Hirsch that Agent Orange is not a weapon, provided you are
not a leafy plant. However, Agent Orange may be a product whose use falls
under the concept of gross criminal negligence. Culpa lata, criminal
negligence, is defined: Any action or an omission in reckless disregard of
the consequences to the safety or property of another. I will leave it to
legal scholars as to whether we can jump from criminal negligence to
depraved indifference. Knowing what we now know about Agent Orange, if it
were used today it probably would be considered homicide.

(Hopefully the government will never use Agent Orange again. Agent Orange is
probably a thing of the past anyway. Government scientists have recently
developed Agent Orange-Lite, Diet Agent Orange and Agent Grape. :^) )

The medical issue caused by Agent Orange is due to the dioxins it contains.
Dioxins are highly carcinogenic. The also have been shown to cause
reproductive and immune disorders. The good news is most medical scholars
believe that dioxins are a threat only at high levels of exposure. The bad
news is that they disagree on the definition of "high levels of exposure."

Ken Hirsh also writes that Agent Orange is not linked to any disease but
skin cancer. I am positive that he can cite the authorities that back up
that assessment. I have found some that believe that Agent Orange poses a
larger health threat than skin cancer alone. As much as I hate debating
through urls here goes:

The Veterans Administration:
<http://www.vba.va.gov/bln/21/benefits/Herbicide/>
<http://www.va.gov/agentorange/>

Using their own form of governmental double-speak the EPA:
<http://www.epa.gov/ncea/pdfs/dioxin/factsheets/dioxin_long2.pdf>

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NEIGHS):
<http://www.niehs.nih.gov/oc/factsheets/dioxin.htm>

The courts in the Love Canal case:
<http://www.epa.gov/region02/superfund/npl/0201290c.htm>
<http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/lovecanal/>

For those of you younger folks out there in 3000-l-land here is a brief
history of Love Canal:
<http://www.globalserve.net/~spinc/atomcc/history.htm>

Let Peace be the maxim by which we act because we will Peace to become a
universal law.
Work For Peace
The opinions expressed herein are my own and not necessarily those of my
employer.
Yosef Rosenblatt

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