NationStates Jolt Archive

KINGSTON, Ont. -- Forty years after the American military was allowed to test-bomb a New Brunswick army base with deadly "Agent Orange" herbicide, the Canadian government is finally admitting that veterans are dying as a result of being poisoned.

The Department of National Defence has confirmed that in 1966, U.S. forces doused forested areas of the Gagetown base with the infamous chemical defoliant, testing it for clearing jungle during the Vietnam War.

Since then, Agent Orange has been linked to a horrifying array of cancers, diabetes, respiratory diseases and blindness among U.S. veterans -- not to mention two generations of sick Vietnamese -- and even birth defects in children of vets.

But for decades, the Canadian military has refused to acknowledge the Gagetown horror ever happened, much less any connection between Agent Orange and sick vets.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/CalgarySun/News/2005/05/15/1040364-sun.html

That was a real misleading title...took me awhile to figure out why it's titled like that.

Wow. This goes up there with giving the black farmers syphilis to find out what would happen, and whatever it was they gave the mentally handicapped children to test around the same time.

Whooops! Wrong Allies.

We also gave LSD to Canadian mental patients. Maybe that was our way of saying sorry?

We also gave LSD to Canadian mental patients.
yeah...that was in Montreal

Why did the Canadian government ever agree to that?

In a lesser known test, America bombers dropped "Agent Pink" on a Vancouver base. Although local vegetation was unaffected some Canadian servicemen reported incidences of feeling "fabulous".

In a lesser known test, America bombers dropped "Agent Pink" on a Vancouver base. Although local vegetation was unaffected some Canadian servicemen reported incidences of feeling "fabulous".

So, how was your vacation to Vancouver? Was it fabulous?

Doesn't matter what's being used or who it's being used on, chemical warfare is wrong.

In a lesser known test, America bombers dropped "Agent Pink" on a Vancouver base. Although local vegetation was unaffected some Canadian servicemen reported incidences of feeling "fabulous".

You mean...they got Gay? I TOLD them it was airborne! When will they learn...

You mean...they got Gay? I TOLD them it was airborne! When will they learn...

Was that a rhetorical question?

Erm...anyway...

KINGSTON, Ont. -- Forty years after the American military was allowed to test-bomb a New Brunswick army base with deadly "Agent Orange" herbicide, the Canadian government is finally admitting that veterans are dying as a result of being poisoned.

The Department of National Defence has confirmed that in 1966, U.S. forces doused forested areas of the Gagetown base with the infamous chemical defoliant, testing it for clearing jungle during the Vietnam War.

Since then, Agent Orange has been linked to a horrifying array of cancers, diabetes, respiratory diseases and blindness among U.S. veterans -- not to mention two generations of sick Vietnamese -- and even birth defects in children of vets.

But for decades, the Canadian military has refused to acknowledge the Gagetown horror ever happened, much less any connection between Agent Orange and sick vets.


You must be joking, comrade. Governments of the People, by the People, for the People, don't do things like that.

By the way, this is also a friendly reminder for you to pay your taxes. Or else Moose here's gonna break youse bones.

You must be joking, comrade. Governments of the People, by the People, for the People, don't do things like that.

By the way, this is also a friendly reminder for you to pay your taxes. Or else Moose here's gonna break youse bones.

Sucks how most western democracies are corrupt in the center huh?

Sucks how most western democracies are corrupt in the center huh?

Meh. I'd say most any macrogovernment is corrupt. And not just the gooey center, but the crisp chocolate shell too! Corruption, good for governments, good eatin'

It is just typical for the American Government to test on others' soil, so that "lesser" people perish because of pure American stupidity.

Why did the Canadian government ever agree to that?
It was a joint intelligence exercise between the Mounties and CIA. They were testing the properties of LSD as a brain washing experiment. This was shortly after the Manson Family killed Sharon Tate et. al.

When these actions came to light, the Canadian gov't forced the Mounties to spin off their intelligence and security service to form the appropriately named Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS).

Sounds great, eh? Seperate the powers of a national police force and a national intelligence service. Problem is, the RCMP and CSIS share the same headquarters in Ottawa, the same databases and intelligence sources and finally, many of the senior staff of CSIS were originally Mounties. In the last few years, a revolving door has been set up between the two services between mid-level and senior staff. [Edit] Meaning that staff moves frequently between the two agencies further blurring the line between them[Edit]

Why did the Canadian government ever agree to that?
I'm pretty sure that our Govt was unaware of the CIA tests, and as yet clueless about the long term effects of Agent Orange. The Mounties and CIA circumvented both the Canadian and US government. They felt they din't neeed permission.

One of my mothers childhood friends was a victim of the CIA Acid Test in Montreal. She'd gone in to get treatment for her Insomnia. She was only supposed to be there for a 2 week stay, but in the end she spent most of the remaining years of her life in Mental Hospitals. Her husband was a very wealthy career diplomat and, ironicly enough, an American. If it hadn't been for his influence and righteous indignation its quite possible the CIA would've been able to keep the experiments a secret.

I'm sure there are more cases like the Agent Orange testing and LSD dosing, but the coverups for them have so far, been successful. Its not just the US thats done this kind of thing. The UK and Russia have a track record of similar things.

Ocean Drive,

do you actually have a link to the story?

In a lesser known test, America bombers dropped "Agent Pink" on a Vancouver base. Although local vegetation was unaffected some Canadian servicemen reported incidences of feeling "fabulous".

But I don't want to be Agent Pink!

;)

Ocean Drive,

do you actually have a link to the story?You are not a n00b...you should know that I never bluff/fake/or make-up thing.

uhmp here it is..

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/CalgarySun/News/2005/05/15/1040364-sun.html

BTW...thankyou for asking.

You are not a n00b...you should know that I never bluff/fake/or make thing out.

Most of the time though, you always get your story wrong. I'll look at the link!

I'll look at the link!thanks

It's a bit like Australia getting nuked to further Britains nuclear research.

The misleading title got my attention. American military personnel sprayed a forested area. They did not bomb Canadian troops. Knee jerk reactionary accusation of human testing on foreigners.

However obviously the Canadian vets are suffering from the deadly debilitating toxins of Agent Orange (Dioxin is a byproduct) as are tens of thousands of American Vietnam vets who were contaminated in test sprays at Fort Detrick, Maryland, Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, and Camp Drum in New York and use in combat in South Vietnam.

Vietnam era vets in Korea were also exposed to Agent Orange in South Korea from South Korea's spraying of the DMZ for two years in 1968-69.

These Canadian vets from this base are suffering and I feel for them. What happened was terrible but not intentional as you portayed it in the title. Should we have kept all the testing in the US? yes. Was it a bad choice? yes Did we bomb Canadian troops we Agent Orange? no, they walked through areas of the base that had been sprayed.

The soldiers contaminated should be tested and paid for suffering incurred from the event as US soldiers are.

We also gave LSD to Canadian mental patients. Maybe that was our way of saying sorry?
That's a heck of a way! :D LSD is nice if you mellow it with a spliff.

The misleading title got my attention. American military personnel sprayed a forested area. They did not bomb Canadian troops. Knee jerk reactionary accusation of human testing on foreigners.

However obviously the Canadian vets are suffering from the deadly debilitating toxins of Agent Orange (Dioxin is a byproduct) as are tens of thousands of American Vietnam vets who were contaminated in test sprays at Fort Detrick, Maryland, Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, and Camp Drum in New York and use in combat in South Vietnam.

Vietnam era vets in Korea were also exposed to Agent Orange in South Korea from South Korea's spraying of the DMZ for two years in 1968-69.

These Canadian vets from this base are suffering and I feel for them. What happened was terrible but not intentional as you portayed it in the title. Should we have kept all the testing in the US? yes. Was it a bad choice? yes Did we bomb Canadian troops we Agent Orange? no, they walked through areas of the base that had been sprayed.

The soldiers contaminated should be tested and paid for suffering incurred from the event as US soldiers are.

The trouble is they are not American, so getting any compensation for non-Americans is going to be a fight. That's American democracy!

The Vietnamese tried to get compensation, but failed.

The misleading title got my attention.the exact term the Newspaper uses is test-Bomb

The title is misleading, as is the concept that we "tested" a toxic substance on allies in full knowledge that it would cause long-term environmental harm.

Agent orange, 2,4,5-T (containing dioxin), was in wide use in the U.S. and Canada as a brush and weed killer in the 1960's. It had been in use for years on millions of acres of farmland and was sold in hardware stores for any citizen to use. It was widely "tested" and believed to be safe enough for your grandmother to use in the garden.

It was the equivalent of the herbicide RoundUp (tm) which is seeing similar use today. You may have seen the advertisements for it on TV.

Agent orange was applied as a mist in a carrier of diesel fuel or kerosene and considerable testing of aerial delivery was necessary, i.e. nozzle size, air speed, altitude, concentration of herbicide.

In no way am I defending the substance nor the use of a chemical (dioxin) that has caused significant human and environmental harm. The real error is the lack of long-term study of chemicals placed into the environment. My concern is that we have not learned from past experience.

In this case I would suggest that The USA did not knowingly expose their allies to harm the health of Canadian soldiers since it was considered safe for home and agricultural use.

The Vietnamese tried to get compensation, but failed.

Despite all the rhetoric Canada and the US remain very tight. We share a common language and culture. As an EVIL CONSERVATIVE, I support these soldiers receiving compensation from the American taxpayer because of their pain caused unintentionally by our government.

The Vietnamese did not recieve compensation because they were enemy combatants. Those that weren't were civilians trapped in a Communist dictatorship who lived under Communist oppression that exterminated a minimum of 80,000 political dissedents in South Vietnam or the 2 million Vietnamese who fled to boats (brutalized or killed when caught) thus would not have seen any of the compensation.

believed to be safe enough for your grandmother to use in the garden.

It was the equivalent of the herbicide RoundUp (tm) which is seeing similar use today. You may have seen the advertisements for it on TV.maybe your Granmma...not mine.

http://adbusters.org/blogs/images/stories/the_front/gulf02b.jpg
http://adbusters.org/blogs/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=47
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange

maybe your Ganma...not mine.

http://adbusters.org/blogs/images/stories/the_front/gulf02b.jpg
http://adbusters.org/blogs/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=47
I think the key here is that it was "believed to be safe." The lack of long term testing is one of the key reasons that these mistakes were made.

My late father, who, as a reservist in New Brunswick in the 1950s, worked with a team of men along one of the railroads one summer, cutting back and defoliating aggressive vegetation.

They had a brand-new tool, something they were assured was supposedly so safe to use that a number of the men actually used it to rinse their hands, hair and faces. See, it also kept the biting bugs off like no-one's business. That stuff was agent orange.

I heard about this from my mother, about ten years after my father passed away. She had come to feel that my father's health problems and untimely death (in his mid-50s) had a connection to that summer job in the reserves oh-so long ago.

There's no proof, however. Our father's remains were cremated, as per his wishes, so there's no body to exhume, no tests to run that could possibly link the two. There is of course, no end to speculation.

How did this stuff get in the hands of reservists working on trimming back tree-branches along a railroad in the backwoods of New Brunswick? I dunno, I'm not a detective. I'm not an activist. I'm not an historian. Why were some of the men on that job tipping buckets of it over their heads thinking it was safe to do so? I dunno, it apparently kept the bugs off. I don't think anyone really knew what exposure to this stuff would mean to human beings...and though I think it was an incredibly stupid thing to do, I'm not about to get upset with anyone for it.

Y'know, sometimes bad things happen. Other times, incredibly stupid and monstrously bad things happen. Turn the page.

yeah...that was in Montreal
McGill University, under the auspices of that great Canadian, Dr. Ewen Cameron, did research into the effects of LSD. He also led the research into most of the current modern methods of sensory overload and sensory deprivation as a method of inducing compliance with interrogation.

He came and marketed himself to the CIA - it was most certainly not the other way around. He wanted to make a name for himself, and they were only too willing to give him the money to do so.

Eventually, he was complicit in actually killing CIA "volunteers" by accident, and at that time, even the CIA thought he was going "too far". So they canceled his remaining contracts.

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/06/10/canada/shock_award040610
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewan_Cameron_%28MKULTRA%29

McGill University, under the auspices of that great Canadian, Dr. Ewen Cameron, did research into the effects of LSD. He also led the research into most of the current modern methods of sensory overload and sensory deprivation as a method of inducing compliance with interrogation.

He came and marketed himself to the CIA - it was most certainly not the other way around.Donald Ewan Cameron (1901-1967) was a Scottish-born psychiatrist. he graduated from Glasgow University in 1924.

Cameron lived and worked in Albany, New York, and was involved in experiments in Canada for MKULTRA, a United States based CIA-directed "mind control" program.
...
After being recruited by the CIA, he commuted to Montreal every week to work at the Allan Memorial Institute, and was paid $69,000 from 1957 to 1964 to carry out MKULTRA experiments there. The CIA appears to have given him the potentially deadly experiments to carry out, as they would be tried on non-US citizens.

Dr. Ewan Cameron, who was director of the Allan Memorial Institute, conducted experiments using electroshock and drug-induced sleep. The research was funded from 1950 to 1965 by the CIA and by the Canadian government.

Dr. Ewan Cameron, who was director of the Allan Memorial Institute, conducted experiments using electroshock and drug-induced sleep. The research was funded from 1950 to 1965 by the CIA and by the Canadian government.
I encourage you to set the record straigh with Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ewan_Cameron_%28MKULTRA%29&action=edit

As Upper Dobbs Town said, "turn the page". Though not all past errors are committed with evil intent, lets smarten up and not repeat them in the future.

I encourage you to set the record straigh with Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ewan_Cameron_%28MKULTRA%29&action=edit

Your CBC link is where I got the information about Canadian funding.

As an aside, I used to work with a woman who in her youth was one of Cameron's nurses. She works at Liberty Mutual as a utilization review nurse, but in the younger days, he literally called her "dearie".

The Canadian government apparently has done a better job of compensating his victims than the CIA. At the time, the Canadian government was apparently as enthralled with the idea of mind control as the US was.

I also know one of Cameron's students, a Dr. Kornbluth, who still practices in the DC area.

I encourage you to set the record straigh with Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ewan_Cameron_%28MKULTRA%29&action=edit

That is why I don't trust everything that is printed.

As Upper Dobbs Town said, "turn the page". Though not all past errors are committed with evil intent, lets smarten up and not repeat them in the future.I sorry about what happened to his Dad...

if he chooses to turn the page... then...peace be with him.

but this is not only about his late Dad.
Dobbs cannot talk in the name of all the other victims...

Your CBC link is where I got the information about Canadian funding.The Canadian Gov did fund every single reseach done at the Allan Memorial Institute...and at most research done at MacGill...

But it is very unlikely the Canadian gov would knowingly fund that kind of mind research

The Canadian Gov did fund every single reseach done at the Allan Memorial Institute...and at most research done at MacGill...

But it is very unlikely the Canadian gov would knowingly fund that kind of mind research

There are several excellent books on the subject, which highlight in detail the Canadian government's knowledge and complicity in the CIA research.

"In the Sleep Room: The Story of the CIA Brainwashing Experiments in Canada," by Anne Collins, details some of the stories of Dr. Cameron's patients and how, more recently, they sued the CIA because it partially funded his work. Cameron's work in "psychic driving" (the term he used to call his process) caught the interest of the CIA and it secretly funded the program for a few years. However, Cameron continued his work after this funding stopped. Because it was the CIA that provided some of the money for these experiments, it caused a stir in Canada, regardless of the fact that the Canadian government funded Cameron before, during, and after the CIA chipped in.

You are not a n00b...you should know that I never bluff/fake/or make-up thing.Regardless, it is still a good idea to post a link to a source in your opening post when you post the topic.

--The Modified Democratic States of Cogitation
NationStates Game Moderator

Regardless, it is still a good idea to post a link to a source in your opening post when you post the topic.
True...

*adds the lynk*