Introduction Agent Orange used during the US war in Vietnam has sparked off interest from various stakeholders because of various reasons. These reasons have been expressed through questions such as ‘Did the government know short and long term effects of dioxin use and why did it continue to use it if it did?’, ‘Why did the government respond differently to the problem?’, ‘Were veterans’ litigations justified?’, ‘Was the justice system impartial to claims?’ and ‘Were veterans just as susceptible as Vietnamese citizens?’ the paper shall attempt to shed some light on these matters and many more surrounding the Agent Orange debate. Background information Agent Orange is a code for the chemical mixture of 2-4-5 trichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 2-4 dichlorophenoxyacetic acid in equal measure. During the manufacturing process, these chemicals produce a residue known as TCDD or dioxin and the latter is a highly toxic substance. The US military utilized herbicides such as Agent Orange to eliminate plant coverage (through defoliation or forcefully making leaves fall) in enemy territory to expose adversaries. Although some other toxic substances were used, Agent Orange by far has generated the most controversy because of both the long and short-term effects of its component chemical – dioxin. (Tuyet and Johnson, 156) In the lab, dioxin has been shown to affect the reproductive system and internal organs of animals. In Sweden, research has demonstrated that these lab findings can be generalized to cancerous and skin-related complications in humans. The Vietnam scenario is quite different from earlier researches on the latter herbicide because, at that time, the US military had requested large amounts of it. To meet this rising demand, chemical industries had to speed up the manufacturing process thus resulting in higher concentrations of the by-product dioxin. Reports assert that the concentration of dioxin that the Vietnamese and American veterans may have been exposed to was twenty-seven times more than usual agricultural uses. Consequently, the effects brought on by the sprays may have been more than had been anticipated. In fact, concerns raised by the Environmental protection agency in the 1970s assert certain mammals could be killed by moderate concentrations of dioxin such as mice. These concerns have now been accepted by the scientific community as factual. Furthermore, dioxin could get into the human body through inhalation, skin contact, or oral consumption. This implies that their penetration levels are very high. The controversy Government assertions and reactions As stated earlier, the late nineteen sixties witnessed unprecedented spraying of the toxic substance in Vietnam and these actions did not go unnoticed by the scientific community in the US. The Association of American Advancement of science prompted the US government to allow investigations into the effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam in 1968. In response, the US secretary of state and the US embassy in Vietnam hand-picked a scientist from the Department of Agriculture in that same year to carry out those investigations. Upon coming back, he reported that there were no long-term effects of the chemicals and that warm-blooded animals could not be affected by Agent Orange adversely. His report can be found in a 19