[The Vietnam War ended, but the fight against the use of the
chemical compound Agent Orange is far from over. Two women from
opposite ends of the globe are united in their battle to hold the
manufacturers of the toxic defoliant accountable.]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

‘THE PEOPLE VS. AGENT ORANGE’ DOCUMENTARY CHRONICLES THE ONGOING
FIGHT  
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Robert Abele
March 4, 2021
LA Times
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_ The Vietnam War ended, but the fight against the use of the
chemical compound Agent Orange is far from over. Two women from
opposite ends of the globe are united in their battle to hold the
manufacturers of the toxic defoliant accountable. _

'The People vs. Agent Orange', warlegacies.org

 

The name Agent Orange has become synonymous with the destructive
legacy of the Vietnam War. The U.S. military’s
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(12 million gallons) of the toxic herbicide not only did lasting
ecological damage to a nation’s jungles and crops, but it left human
victims on both sides with corrosive health effects that have been
passed on to subsequent generations.

Accountability for its deployment — by our government and the
chemical companies (Dow, Monsanto
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that continue to spray one of Agent Orange’s key, still-dangerous
components as an approved defoliant in U.S. parks and forests — is
the animating thrust of the investigative documentary “The People
vs. Agent Orange,” from filmmakers Alan Adelson and Kate Taverna
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At the center of that push are two septuagenarian women presented by
the film as leading an uphill battle for truth and transparency. Since
the 1970s, Oregon activist Carol Van Strum has legally fought timber
companies’ spraying of poisonous defoliants, which has netted reams
of damning corporate documentation in the process. Meanwhile, Vietnam
War survivor Tran To Nga — whose post-war offspring live with
numerous biological hardships — has turned to French courts as a way
to sue the companies that made and marketed Agent Orange.

The film is a righteous but rough ride as far as activist docs go. The
filmmakers do a better job with the bigger picture of operation and
obfuscation of a deadly chemical under government, military and
commercial use than with their on-the-ground portraits of Van Strum,
Tran and others affected by it. We also get snippets of a timber
employee’s whistleblower videos from 2015 — showing indiscriminate
spraying in Oregon forests near water reservoirs, lax handling
protocol and his worsening health — that have an undeniable power,
but are never given explanatory detail or updated context.

Nevertheless, “The People vs. Agent Orange” has a gripping
urgency, especially as a reminder that the history of chemicals’
effects on our bodies is still being written and fought over, and that
what a secretive industry is allowed to cover up, it will.

THE PEOPLE VS. AGENT ORANGE WILL PREMIERE ON INDEPENDENT LENS (PBS) ON
JUNE 28TH._  _

_(Moderator Update - Yesterday, __May 10th, the French court threw
out Tra To NGa's law suit brought against more than a dozen
multinationals that produced and sold the toxic herbicide dubbed
"Agent Orange", used by U.S. troops during the war in Vietnam. Filed
in 2014, the case pitched Tran To Nga, a Vietnam war survivor, against
14 chemical firms, including U.S. companies Dow Chemical and Monsanto,
now owned by Germany's Bayer. Tran To Nga said yesterday she will
appeal.)_

 

 

 

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