Presidential Executive Orders Defense Production Act

The Position of Dow Chemical Company today remains that Agent Orange was never a health hazard and never posed a health risk. As a safe guard against any liable action. Dow notes that its chemical operation related to Agent Orange had been commandeered by the US federal government during Vietnam by Presidential executive order under the emergency powers of the Defense Production Act and that if anyone should be sued it would be the Federal Government, including the Pentagon, Department of the Army, and Department of the Air Force. As a nation at war, the U.S. government compelled a number of companies to produce Agent Orange under the Defense Production Act. The government specified how it would be produced and controlled its use.


Innovest group has advised both Dow Chemical of the investor risk related to Agent Orange use outside Vietnam, The Dow Chemical has never rebutted that notion other than claim Agent Orange was not a health risk during Vietnam. This documentation alone should suffice to give Veterans and effected residents outside Vietnam the benefit of a doubt, since the Department of Defense can neither confirm of deny Agent Orange was manufactured at Paritutu New Plymouth New Zealand or stored on Guam during the Vietnam War.

Even if there is not sufficient proof that Agent Orange was manufactured at Paritutu and shipped on to Guam during the Vietnam War, the chemical companies who produced it under orders from the DoD appear to believe it was. This should be good enough for the VA to add Paritutu and Guam to the list of presumed locations of Agent Orange use, storage, or trans shipment.
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The scientific investigation on Agent Orange has gone on since the Vietnam War and continues today. There have been extensive epidemiological studies of those veterans most exposed to Agent Orange. Today, the scientific consensus is that when the collective human evidence is reviewed, it doesn’t show that Agent Orange caused veteran’s illnesses.”

The same position paper in which Dow Chemical today claims that “the scientific consensus is that when the collective human evidence is reviewed, it doesn’t show that Agent Orange caused veteran’s illnesses” also has Dow Chemical coming across as if the chemical companies “federalized” by the U.S. government during Vietnam were also victims of the Agent Orange they claim that the US government produced.


In fact, in arguing its latest lawsuit filed by Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange use in Vietnam the chemical companies successfully argued right up to the Supreme Court that the governments involved in the Vietnam War must resolve the issues surrounding exposure to Agent Orange, for the chemical companies had no choice but to produce what DoD and the White House wanted under the Defense Production Act.

This view is reinforced by the position taken by Monsanto, “There have been other lawsuits since that time [the Agent Orange settlement]. In March of 2009, a key legal question was settled in the United States when the U.S. Supreme Court let stand unanimous lower court rulings disallowing recovery from lawsuits on the Agent Orange issue. The Supreme Court agreed that the companies were not responsible for the implications of military use of Agent Orange in Vietnam, because the manufacturers were government contractors, carrying out the instructions of government.”

Agent Orange use outside Vietnam

With one face the two faced Dow Chemical and Monsanto deny the health risk to Veterans of Agent Orange poisoning but are quick with their other face to be cautioned about the Corporate Investment Risk of future claims or lawsuits due to Agent Orange use on Guam and elsewhere outside Vietnam.

Their strategy tends to be placing the blame on the federal government. America’s Veterans need to ask this hard question could the chemical companies be right? History of the Agent Orange lawsuits tends to support their position. If not, how come Vets and lawyers were so willing to settle out of court, and how come the compensation and research aspects surrounding Agent Orange have been within the realm of the US government NOT the chemical companies. This includes US allied countries Governments outside the US involved in the Vietnam War.

The US Presidential Executive Order of the US Defense Production Act also applied to its US owned overseas chemical production plants, one being Ivon Watkins Dow Chemical Plant at Paritutu New Plymouth New Zealand in full cooperation and agreement with its Vietnam War allie the New Zealand Government.