The "Was This An Evil Experiment With Known Results?" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading a story I posted on Tuesday, June 23, 2015 which tells the story of my neighbor and friend Tom who told a group of sophomore high school students about his experiences as a soldier in the United States Army during the Vietnam War.  Told them about having to pull his poncho over his head to avoid getting covered with Agent Orange that was dropping from the sky during the middle of the night from U.S. military planes.  Tom died about a year ago from complications associated with that Agent Orange which was dropped on him those fateful evenings in 1968 in Vietnam.  It was said that the Agent Orange was used to defoliate the countryside to make it easier for our troops to see the enemy soldiers.  The chemical was called Agent Orange since it was made and shipped by Monsanto and Dow in orange-striped barrels.  Back in 2015, Tom was telling me these stories to help me understand the Vietnam War so I could write about his experiences during the war.

Tom shared his stories about Vietnam
and the chemical Agent Orange with me.

 Well, since Tom's death I have often thought about the story he told me and the use of Agent Orange that was dropped night after night on top of the troops.  I recently read a rather disturbing story telling about a $10,000 grant that dermatologist Dr. Albert Kligman got in 1965 to study various chemicals on behalf of Dow Corning, Johnson & Johnson and the U.S. Army.  His testing was done to observe how human skin reacts to harsh chemicals, a process known as "hardening".  The chemicals he was to test as well as the details of his work seem to have been lost to history.  In 1981 it was found that all his notes and records had somehow been destroyed.  It was known though that one of the chemicals that Dr. Kligman was testing was dioxin which just so happens to be the active ingredient in Agent Orange.  Then I read that at the time of the testing, the military was crop dusting half of Vietnam with the stuff, and people in the spray zones were exposed over and over to dioxin.  Seems the Pentagon was interested in what would happen to them, as was Dow, the manufacturer of Agent Orange.  During some of Dr. Kligman experiments, he injected his victims with a reported 468 times the recommended "safe" dose of dioxin, which was known to work as a blister agent and systemic toxin.  Somehow the good Doctor just happened to conveniently lose, or perhaps destroy, his findings.  Funny how all this happened and then he died ... allegedly from natural causes.  After some more searching I found that about one million of those, both residents as well as troops, exposed to Agent Orange suffered, or are now suffering, serious health problems.  I now wonder if Dr. Kligman knew this was going to happen even before my friend Tom was deployed to Vietnam.  Or even worse, did our government know and still used Agent Orange!  And, who is ever going to disclose the results of the tests?  I believe this is a well-kept secret that we will never know!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.