>>A federal judge in New York Thursday decided the suit had no basis in law, and the plaintiffs had failed to prove a clear link between Agent Orange and their illnesses
No link between agent orange and birth defects? WTF????????????????????????????????????????????????
Yes, no clear link... Dioxin (a contaminant found in some batches of Agent Orange at the parts-per-billion level) was once, around 35 years ago, suspected to be the most deadly toxin ever, based solely on its very strong ability to mutate bacterial DNA in the Ames Test. Yet in 1978, in (I think) Milan, Italy, there was an industrial accident where thousands of tons of dioxin were released from a plastics plant and rained down on the surrounding town. No one died from it directly, though lots of people got skin rashes, and in subsequent years, people who lived near the plant were somewhat more likely than the baseline average to get leukemia. As far as I am aware, no birth defects were proven to be caused by the dioxin released.
The Ames Test is a cheap, quick-n-dirty way of measuring mutagenic properties, but bacterial DNA doesn't always react the same way that animal (or human) DNA does, and vice versa.
Talk to a few chemists before you fly off the handle. Certain things that "everyone knows" about asbestos, lead, dioxin, etc. ain't necessarily so. I have never seen or heard of an environmentalist who had the scientific qualifications to make the unequivocal doomsday claims they're constantly making. If you heard about this from Greenpeace or Earth First, take what they said with a grain of salt.
Maybe your right, but reuters said "agent orange victims" in this coverage.
Also italy is a developed country where they can clean stuff up before it causes birth defects in kids way down the line. It takes alot of chemical to harm a person, but much less to cause harm to a developing fetus where development and dna replication is happening much faster.