Thursday, February 18, 2010

Soldiers trained at Gagetown may have been exposed to Agent Orange


http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/reports-rapports/defoliant/index-eng.asp
The Use of Herbicides at CFB Gagetown from 1952 to Present Day
For three days in June 1966 and four days in June 1967, Agent Orange, Agent Purple and other unregistered herbicides were tested at Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Gagetown in cooperation with the U.S. military to evaluate their effectiveness. These are the only known instances that these military test chemicals were used at CFB Gagetown. Agent Orange, Agent Purple and other unregistered herbicides are not used at the base today. The base uses only federally regulated herbicides for brush control during its annual vegetation management program.

http://www.maine.gov/dvem/bvs/CFB%20Gagetown%20Agent%20Orange%20Information%20Paper.pdf

CFB Gagetown & Agents Orange/Purple
Information Paper as of 28JUN05
The Canadian Department of National Defense (DND) announced that for three days in June 1966 (14-16) and four days in June 1967 (21-24), small-scale testing of various defoliants and desiccants, including Agent Orange and Agent Purple, took place over a small portion of the Canadian Forces Base (CFB), Gagetown, New Brunswick.
Based on current information, Canadian officials stated that the U.S. supplied only two barrels of the Agent Orange and Agent Purple defoliants for testing purposes. The testing did not involve wide-spread spraying. Controlled testing occurred under strict conditions, ensuring minimal drift, in an area difficult to access. The testing area was comprised of two small areas covering approximately 83 acres of the 180,000 plus acres of CFB Gagetown.


Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, referred to as CFB Gagetown is a large Canadian Forces Base located in southwestern New Brunswick.

1 comment:

  1. The above comments, while true, are incredibly misleading and self-serving!

    Over one billion grams of Agent Orange, Agent Purple and Agent White were sprayed by the Canadian Department of Defense on CFB Gagetown and surrounding communities from 1956 to 1984 consisting of 3.3 million litres and kilograms of Dioxin, Picloram, 2,4-D + 2,4,5-T, and Hexachlorobenzene.

    Document A-2004-00207 was obtained through the Access to Information Act from The Department of National Defense (DND) Freedom of Information Directorate in Ottawa.

    This document, authored by DND, - a collection of letters, emails, pictures, charts, diagrams and transcripts of briefings contained the decades-hidden truth about the severity of the sprayings on CFB Gagetown.

    The Agent Orange document, as it became known, showed the extent of the sprayings of Dioxin, Hexachlorobenzene and Picloram contaminated defoliants for a 28-year period over an area of 181,000 acres on CFB Gagetown.

    An estimated 1,000,000 people were exposed to the toxic chemicals including military personnel from other countries, Canadian military personnel and their families, as well as civilians who worked on the base and lived in the surrounding countryside. We suffer from the same illnesses and diseases as the Vietnamese, those of us still alive, that is. Many of our children and grandchildren also have birth defects, illnesses, and diseases.

    All those who trained or lived at CFB Gagetown need to be made aware of this tragedy and the potential for disaster that it may have caused in their lives.
    More information is available at http://www.agentorangecanada.com/ and http://www.agentorangealert.com/

    Gail Radford-Ross

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