Agent Orange Kept Killing Long After the War Ended

America's deadliest weapon in Vietnam wasn't a bomb, and it kept killing for decades after the war ended.

It was a chemical called Agent Orange. To expose enemy fighters hiding in the jungle, US planes sprayed it to strip the leaves off entire forests.

Over nine years, the military doused Vietnam with roughly twenty million gallons of herbicides. But Agent Orange was contaminated with dioxin, one of the most toxic substances ever made. It seeped into the soil, the water, and the food chain, and it does not break down for generations.

The result was a slow-motion catastrophe. Dioxin has been linked to cancers, and to severe birth defects in children born long after the fighting stopped. It struck Vietnamese civilians and American veterans alike, many of whom fought for years to get their illnesses recognized.

The guns went silent in 1975, but for countless families, Agent Orange never stopped firing.

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