Project Agent Orange — The Agent Orange | projectagentorange.com
The health conditions tied to Agent Orange are conditions tied to TCDD dioxin — the contaminant that entered the mixture through 2,4,5-T production and persists in tropical soil for an estimated 9 to 15 years.
Agent Orange itself was a 50/50 mixture by weight of two herbicides, 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. The lasting health concern comes from TCDD, a dioxin produced as a contaminant during 2,4,5-T manufacture; 2,4-D, the other half of the mixture, was not associated with TCDD contamination and remains in registered use today.
Cancers form the largest group of associated diagnoses: Hodgkin's disease, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, multiple myeloma, chronic B-cell leukemias, soft tissue sarcomas, respiratory cancers of the lung, larynx, trachea and bronchus, prostate cancer and bladder cancer.
A second group is systemic and neurological: type 2 diabetes mellitus, ischemic heart disease, AL amyloidosis and Parkinson's disease.
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Latency varies widely by condition. Skin and nerve conditions — chloracne, porphyria cutanea tarda, early-onset peripheral neuropathy — appear relatively soon after exposure, and VA rules require them to have manifested within one year for presumption. Cancers on the list may be diagnosed decades after service and still qualify.
Population-level estimates are broad: surveys place the number of affected Vietnamese at roughly 3 million to 4.8 million people, while about 2.7 to 3.0 million US veterans served in Vietnam during the relevant period.
For the claim mechanics that use this list, see Agent Orange Presumptive Conditions and Claims (/presumptive-conditions); for the campaign that caused the exposure, see the Agent Orange Spraying Timeline 1962-1971 (/spraying-timeline).
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