Agent Orange: The Chemical Weapon That Left a Devastating Legacy

The basic chemistry of Agent Orange consisted of a fifty-fifty mixture of two synthetic herbicides, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid, which had been developed during the 1940s as part of agricultural research programs aimed at controlling weeds and increasing agricultural productivity. These compounds worked by mimicking natural plant hormones and causing rapid, uncontrolled growth that ultimately killed the targeted vegetation. When combined in the formulation that became known as Agent Orange, named for the orange stripe painted on storage containers, these chemicals created a powerful defoliant capable of stripping leaves from trees and destroying crops over vast areas.