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Agent Orange: a personal requiem
Content:Documentary Film
Available From:Icarus Films
Media Type:DVD
Release Date:2007
Audience:Higher Education
High School
Running Time:71 min.
Language:English
Author:a film by Masako Sakata : First Run/Icarus Films
Subject:History
Politics and Government
Science, Technology, & the Environment
Subheading:Military Conflict
Pollution
Public Health
Vietnam War
War & Weapons
Region:Southeast Asia
Country:Vietnam



Abstract:

"As a young man in the late Sixties, Greg Davis served for three years in the U.S. Army in Vietnam.  The area where he was stationed was one of many throughout the country sprayed by the military, as part of its counterinsurgency strategy, with millions of gallons of defoliants, including Agent Orange, which contains dioxin, the most toxic chemical known to man.

After his military service, Davis moved to Japan, married, and worked for decades as a photojournalist for Time and other publications worldwide.  In 2003, at the age of 54, he dided from liver cancer, believed to be the result of exposure to Agent Orange.  Made by Davis's widow, Agent Orange chronicles the history of this lethally toxic herbicide, tracing its effects not only on her husband and other U.S. servicemen but also on the environment and continuing generations of Vietnamese.

Davis's personal experience -- recounted through photos and audio recordings, archival footage, reminiscences by his widow and a fellow photographer -- are complemented by U.S. Army films declaring the defoliants to be 'harmless to man.'  Agent Orange also documents the broader human tragedy, featuring interviews with Vietnamese doctors, a U.S. Army veteran who has returned to do humanitarian work in Vietnam, and heartrending scenes of generations of Vietnames children with congenital disabilities or physical deformities.

More than three decades after the spraying of Agent Orange was discontinued, dioxin still contaminates the Vietnamese environment and its traces can now be found in the body of almost everyone living in the country.  Agent Orange concludes by discussing a 2005 lawsuit on behalf of Vietnames victims, naming Dow Chemical and Monsanto among 37 other firms, brought before a Federal Court in New York City."

~ product description






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