U.S. Tested Agent Orange in Panama in the 1960’s & 70's
Global Pesticide Campaigner (Volume 09, Number 2), August 1999.
Agent Orange in Panama
The Dallas Morning News recently reported that the U.S. military conducted secret tests of Agent Orange and other toxic herbicides in Panama in the 1960s and ’70s, potentially exposing civilians and soldiers to highly dangerous chemicals.
According to eyewitness accounts and documents, hundreds of barrels of Agent Orange were shipped to Panama during the Vietnam War to be tested in simulated tropical battlefield conditions of Southeast Asia. The chemical was a mixture of the herbicides 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T and also contained dioxin generated during formulation of 2,4,5-T. While the two herbicides break down in the environment rather quickly, dioxin is a highly persistent compound that remains in the environment for decades and can cause cancer, birth defects and other health and developmental problems.
The U.S. Southern Command, the operational authority in Panama, said it was not aware of any tests using Agent Orange that had taken place there. However, the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department acknowledged that use of Agent Orange or similar herbicides contributed to the deaths of at least three U.S. servicemen stationed in Panama in the 1960s and ’70s. In testimony at a Veterans Affairs hearing regarding one of these cases, a former operations officer for herbicide research at the Army biological research and development laboratories in Maryland stated that “several hundred drums” of Agent Orange were shipped to Panama in the late 1960s.
For years, the Panamanian government has been trying to find proof that the U.S. used chemical weapons and herbicides there in an effort to obtain compensation for cleanup costs as well as possible damages. Panama is already seeking as much as US$500 million from the U.S. military in damages and cleanup costs related to thousands of acres used for weapons tests since World War II.
Sources: “Report: U.S. Exposed Many in Panama to Agent Orange,” San Francisco Examiner, August 20, 1999.
“Report: Agent Orange in Panama,” Associated Press, August 20, 1999.
Agent Orange tested secretly in Panama
August 20, 1999
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1999/08/agent-orange-tested-secretly-panama/
The US military tested Agent Orange and other herbicides by secretly spraying them in Panama at the height of the Vietnam War, according to the DALLAS MORNING NEWS. Members of the U.S. military, as well as civilians, may have been exposed to the extremely toxic chemical. Though it says all reports are unproven, the military reportedly tested the chemical over Panama because its tropical forests are similar to those in Vietnam. In Vietnam, The US sprayed Agent Orange to rapidly kill the tropical forests in which they suspected Viet Cong guerrillas were hiding. According to one American veteran, the military sprayed Agent Orange near populated areas in Panama, including a beach, a club, and a lake from which Panama City gets its drinking water. In addition to those who may have been exposed to the chemical in the ’60s and ’70s, an environmental sciences expert said Agent Orange could last in the soil for decades. Panama is already seeking up to $500 million from the US for cleanup, and they expect claims of personal damages as well. Some point out that the US did not know how dangerous Agent Orange could be for those exposed. The Veterans Administration now recognizes nine diseases and disorders to be linked to Agent Orange exposure.
“Agent Orange Affects Soldiers’ Health” by John Lindsay-Poland
http://www.oldbluewater.com/general/panama1.htm
Chemical bomb shell on San Jose Island, Panama.
The United States conducted military tests with Agent Orange in Panama in the late 1960s, according to a former military officials and some veterans who now suffer from Agent Orange-related diseases. A veteran who has a medical claim before the Veterans Administration wrote to Panamá Update in June that he saw U.S. Special Forces drop Agent Orange onto Fort Sherman in 1969 or 1970 and “watched the jungle disappear over the next few days.” An Army engineer whose duty it was to take water samples, he also found high levels of Agent Orange in the coral reefs on Pacific side of the canal. Lake Gatun, where he witnessed the spraying, spills out of the canal into the Pacific reefs.
He now suffers from peripheral neuropathy, a disease common to veterans exposed to Agent Orange. In addition, Pamela Jones, the widow of another Army veteran who served in Panama, was awarded benefits in February by the Veterans Administration because of her husband’s exposure to Agent Orange in Panama in the early 1970s. At her benefits hearing, the government’s former head of the Agent Orange litigation project, Charles Bartlett, testified that several hundred barrels of Agent Orange had been shipped to Panama in the mid-1960s for tests. He said that after the tests the barrels remained in Panama for use in controlling weeds. At least nine witnesses have confirmed that the military sprayed heavily with Agent Orange in an area of Fort Sherman known as the “drop zone” in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The “drop zone” is located not far from a popular beach, recreation center and sporting club on the shores of Lake Gatun. The revelation is important because it establishes that Southeast Asia was not the only place where the United States exposed soldiers, and perhaps others, to Agent Orange.
Until Jones won her claim, the Veterans Administration had institutionalized Agent Orange-related benefits for those who fought in Vietnam, and excluded others from consideration for such benefits. One of the veterans awarded benefits because of his exposure to Agent Orange was Joseph Oppedisano, who served with the Army in Panama in 1956–58. Although Oppedisano’s documented exposure to Agent Orange occurred later, in Camp Drumm, New York, while in Panama he became very sick after training with chemical agents. On January 4, 1958, the entire island of Flamenco where he was stationed was defoliated, Oppedisano told Panamá Update. “We had about ten million fish die. They got stuck on the rocks and made a stink,” he said. He thought it was a secret military test. He and other soldiers on the island became violently ill and were hospitalized. One of those soldiers, Israel Jewetz, testified that “the areas where we were barracked were sprayed with chemicals every day to control insect populations and prevent malaria and yellow fever outbreaks.” Oppedisano developed hairy cell leukemia as a result of his exposures. The Dallas Morning News spoke to both the veteran and Ms. Jones, and published two stories on August 20 and 24 about the issue.
In the August 20 story, U.S. Southern Command spokesman Raul Duany said that if Agent Orange was sprayed, “it wouldn’t pose a threat today because it should have dissipated by now.” However, the dioxin contained in most Agent Orange — the toxin that causes disease — remains in the soil for decades. The retired officer who ordered the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam as a defoliant contradicted Duany’s claim. “It does not dissipate,” said Admiral Elmo R. Zumwault, Jr. “If it’s true that Agent Orange was tested in Panama, it is clear that the spokesman was wrong about the residual stuff.”
Pesticides May Be Affecting Health
New information is also emerging about the heavy use of other kinds of pesticides in military bases in Panama besides Agent Orange, such as DDT and Chlordane, which were sprayed in residential areas of the Canal Zone, often daily, against termites. Both pesticides are banned in the United States. According to a preliminary study commissioned by Panama, “Though there is not enough data to establish a concise exposure scenario, there are plenty of indicators that demonstrate a significant human health hazard exists.” The study, which took samples from Corozal and Clayton, concluded that “DDT, DDD, and DDE were all found in high quantities” on the two bases. But the United States has not given Panama information on the application rates of these pesticides, according to a consultant for the Panamanian government. This is forcing Panama to consider health studies that can demonstrate the ill effects of the pesticides on surrounding populations. An employee of Lockheed-Martin, which has been under contract to the Defense Department since 1996 to haul out toxic wastes from Panama, reported receiving a broad range of wastes.
“We were handling cyanides, asbestos, poisons, known carcinogens, herbicides, pesticides,” said Alfredo Smith, a supervisor at the Lockheed warehouse on Corozal base in Panama. “Some of this stuff had labels going back to the 1950s.” Smith told The Dallas Morning News that a Panamanian working under him began coughing up blood one day, after handling an unmarked barrel filled with a chemical powder. Smith himself experiences headaches, rashes, and other problems, and is suing Lockheed-Martin for lax safety procedures. Press reports on chemicals used in the canal area have stimulated a number of memories about problems in the past.
Former Canal Zone resident Don DeStaffino remembered a 10 or 12-year-old Panamanian child who died in the 1970s “in a jungle area of Howard AFB/Ft. Kobbe. The substance with which he came in contact that caused his death was in a 55 gallon barrel. I believe it was a yellow color, and a gel rather than a powder. I think the substance was claimed by the Air Force as a paint remover.”
Sources:
-Interview with Joseph Oppedisano, 9/6/99;
-brief supporting Oppedisano appeal to Board of Veterans Appeals, 9/21/92;
-“Exposure Scenario Characterization for Human Health Risk Assessment due to Pesticide Contamination in the Canal Area,” September 2, 1999;
-Dallas Morning News 8/20; 8/24; 10/11/99;
-Stars and Stripes 9/12/99;
-e-mails to FOR by veteran, 6/99;
-Don DeStaffino communication 10/12/99.
Petition to The United States House of Representatives & The United States Senate
https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/agent-orange-exposure-1
Military personnel and dependents seeking compensation for chemical exposure to the herbicidal chemicals 2,4-D & 2,4,5-T, commonly known as AGENT ORANGE. These chemicals were widely stored and used in The Canal Zone from the mid 1950’s up until the mid 70’s or 80's.
Agent Orange was used in Vietnam and veterans were compensated for being exposed to it. Same with Panama but the VA refuses to compensate all who were exposed in Panama. This is a petition to demand the VA take on the Panama Exposure cases and duly compensate those who were exposed.
Myron F.: “I was used in tests of agent orange type chemicals in Panama in 1967. I have related symptoms and filed on three different occasions for compensation. On each occasion I was turned down on the basis that our government denies that we did so. I believe that this constitutes our government telling those of us that were used in this capacity “Why don’t you just crawl off somewhere and die and quit bothering us?!”.
Thomas B. : “I wasn’t aware of Agent Orange use in Panama. Found this by accident looking at Google earth of Ft. Kobbe and saw all sorts of abandoned trailers! Diagnosed w prostate cancer in Oct 2019 and now (3/2020) going for second biopsy to determine how aggressive it is. Was at Ft Kobbe 1975–1976 then Ft. Clayton til early 77. Always in jungle and on “cleared” hills as radio re-trans operator for days.”
LaTesha B. : “My dad has parkinsons.”
Martin T. : “Curious as to findings. First born in 1673 was born with spina bifeda and other complications he passed away at 26 days old. Also in 2016 I had a liver transplant.”
https://www.va.gov/vetapp12/files6/1241466.txt
“U.S. exposed many in Panama to Agent Orange” by Tod Robberson
Dallas Morning News
Eyewitnesses back claim military tests were done in public. The United States military conducted secret tests of Agent Orange and other toxic herbicides in Panama during the 1960s and ’70s, potentially exposing many civilians and military personnel to lethal chemicals, according to documents and eyewitness accounts. According to these accounts, which the U.S. military says remain unproved, hundreds of barrels of Agent Orange were shipped to Panama at the height of the Vietnam War, then sprayed on jungle areas in an effort to simulate the tropical battlefield conditions of Southeast Asia.
In an effort to obtain compensation for cleanup costs as well as possible damages, the Panamanian government has, for years, attempted to obtain proof that the United States used lethal chemical weapons and herbicides there. Panama already is seeking as much as $500 million from the U.S. military in damages and cleanup costs related to thousands of acres of rangeland used for weapons and ammunition tests since World War I. Officials in Panama say the addition of claims for Agent Orange-related exposure could cause liability claims against the U.S. government to skyrocket.
The U.S. military will complete a scheduled withdrawal from Panama on Dec. 31, as required under the 1979 Panama Canal treaties. The U.S. Southern Command, the operational authority in Panama, said it was not aware of any tests involving Agent Orange in that country. “Our bottom line on our side is that we have no knowledge that it happened. We have no evidence that Agent Orange was actually sprayed in Panama,” said Raul Duany, a Southern Command spokesman.
Arnold Schecter, a University of Texas professor of environmental sciences and a leading authority on herbicides that employ the cancer-causing chemical dioxin, said the plant-killing component of Agent Orange would have dissipated quickly if applied in Panama’s rainy, tropical climate. But Agent Orange’s highly toxic dioxin component “lasts in soil and sediment for decades.’
“Agent Orange” is a nickname given to a particular chemical herbicide sent in 55-gallon drums to Vietnam in the 1960s and ’70s for use in defoliating forests to expose movements of Viet Cong guerrillas. The U.S. Veterans Affairs Department has acknowledged that the use of Agent Orange or similar toxic herbicides contributed to the deaths of at least three U.S. servicemen stationed in Panama in the 1960s and ’70s, said Bill Russo, an attorney for the Washington-based Vietnam Veterans of America. Their survivors, including a Texas woman, are receiving service-related death benefits as a result of their husbands’ exposure.
One such case was that of Donald Jones, an Army telecommunications specialist whose survivors say he was exposed to Agent Orange while serving in Panama from 1971 to 1974. He died in 1997 of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a cancerous condition typically linked to Agent Orange exposure When presented with the evidence, the VA agreed that Jones had been exposed to the herbicide, said his widow, Pamela Jones of Pleasanton, Texas.
His and other cases have set a rare precedent for the government, which until recently has granted benefits for Agent Orange exposure almost exclusively to veterans of the Vietnam War, Russo said. In testimony at a VA hearing regarding Jones’ case in November 1997, Charles M. Bartlett, former operations officer for herbicide research at the Army biological research and development laboratories at Fort Deitrich, Md., stated that “several hundred drums” of Agent Orange were shipped to Panama in the late 1960g for tests. “All of the material was originally shipped . . . to Fort Clayton in (the) Canal Zone. That was an area under U.S. control, and it was a safe area with vegetation similar to Vietnam, and so we wanted to test it there,” the transcript reports him as saying.
“We shipped it from Fort Deitrich. We shipped it to Panama, and it was in the typical black drum with the orange stripe,’ Bartlett said, according to a transcript of the November 1997 VA hearing. “And, so, we shipped Agent Orange to Panama.” Bartlett could not be reached for comment. Panamanians as well as Americans may have been exposed to Agent Orange sprayed on at least one test site in Panama, according to documents and eyewitness ac- counts obtained by the Dallas Morning News. “This is the strongest evidence to emerge that the chemical Agent Orange was tested here, said Fernando Manfredo, Panama’s liaison official in charge of investigating the environmental legacy of the century-long U.S. presence in the country. “We have asked repeatedly for information about U.S. chemical or weapons tests here,” he said. “We were always told that the information was classified and couldn’t be released, or we were told the information didn’t exist.’ An environmental activist said he would not be surprised by such a government reaction. “Because of its record, I would expect the United States to resist, particularly because of its record on veterans’ benefits,” said John Lindsay-Poland, director of the San Francisco-based environmental group Fellowship of Reconciliation.
