defoliant

Over the decades, the U.S. military has conducted numerous programs of breathtaking stupidity: the above-ground nuclear tests of the 1950s that exposed draftees to atomic radiation, dumping thousands of tons of Agent Orange defoliant over Indochina during the 1960s, the toxic burn pits of the Iraq war.

When the Bulgarian-born Mr. Popoff was named Dow’s president and chief executive in 1987, the company had begun trying to shed its image as a pugnacious chemical giant that had manufactured napalm and the defoliant Agent Orange for the U.S. military during the Vietnam War; released toxic waste, like dioxins, into the Tittabawassee River from its plant in Midland; and fought the Environmental Protection Agency to prevent flyover inspections of its emissions.

The cause was Parkinson’s disease, which his family said resulted from exposure to Agent Orange, the toxic chemical sprayed by American aircraft as a defoliant in Vietnam.

Some deforestation can be traced back to the Vietnam War, when forests were sprayed with the toxic defoliant known as Agent Orange.

Parkinson’s disease, an inner ear disorder and other neurological problems, all likely caused by the Vietnam vet’s exposure to the infamous defoliant Agent Orange, made it difficult for him to move.