4 ms·

>dioxins, used as an ingredient in Agent Orange, which the US sprayed during the Vietnam war. Dioxins were not used as an ingredient. Small quantities of dioxi

by mrob 7y ago

>dioxins, used as an ingredient in Agent Orange, which the US sprayed during the Vietnam war. Dioxins were not used as an ingredient. Small quantities of dioxins were unintentionally formed as side-products during synthesis.

ptaipale 7y ago
Guardian often has little "errors" like this.
- dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
  To be honest, it doesn't change the argument much.
  - hinkley 7y ago
    It's like explaining things to a five year old. It doesn't matter if you 'meant to' kick your sister. You're kicking her and you need to 1) stop, and 2) apologize.
  - mrob 7y ago
    I believe this "fact" is included with the deliberate intention of making people angry. If people are angry because they think the US deliberately poisoned Vietnamese people then that anger might transfer over to modern safety regulations. The false information has propaganda value. I support European-style regulations, but I think this is a short-sighted way to argue. Dioxins in cosmetics are bad because of their objective toxicity, not because of emotional associations. Playing up the emotional angle with false information only makes the rest of your arguments look suspicious.
    - pjc50 7y ago
      > the US deliberately poisoned Vietnamese people The US recklessly poisoned people; the Vietnam campaign had a disregard for Vietnamese life. The herbicide campaign, initially intended to clear forest cover, spread to deliberate use against crops to starve the population. The use of napalm was similar in its widespread civilian casualties. https://www.news.com.au/world/asia/vietnams-horrific-legacy-the-children-of-agent-orange/news-story/c008ff36ee3e840b005405a55e21a3e1 https://www.news.com.au/world/asia/vietnams-horrific-legacy-... "Nearly 4.8 million Vietnamese people have been exposed, causing 400,000 deaths; the associated illnesses include cancers, birth defects, skin disorders, auto-immune diseases, liver disorders, psychosocial effects, neurological defects and gastrointestinal diseases." "According to the Red Cross of Vietnam, up to one million people are currently disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange, 100,000 of which are children." If any of the Nazis had ordered this they would rightly have been put up against a wall and shot.
      - GordonS 7y ago
        Another example was the cluster bombing along the borders of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos - hundreds of millions of bomblets were dropped, which still kill and maim to this day. This bombing campaign was reckless in the extreme, and with complete disregard for human life - if anyone other than the US had done this, they would have been ostracised and declared war criminals. Some more info on cluster munitions[0], which the US continued to use in more recent times in Iraq and Afghanistan, and AFAIK they still refuse to sign the anti-cluster bomb CCM treaty that around 100 nations have signed. [0] https://fpif.org/the_curse_of_cluster_bombs/ https://fpif.org/the_curse_of_cluster_bombs/
cobalt 7y ago
iirc, thats the same thing w/ agent orange. Agent orange (in particular) was a combination of a herbicide and a fungicide. The manufacturing of one or both of those created dioxins as a side product. They did not refine them further to remove the dioxins.
- Pxtl 7y ago
  And afaik, it was the dioxins that were the cause of the health problems with agent orange, not the herbicide and fungicide. So "toxic dioxins created as byproduct and not properly removed creating a health hazard" sounds like a fair comparison, since they share that.
- cobalt 7y ago
  also as an aside, Dow Chem/whoever dumped the dioxin they had removed in the middle of the Oregon desert
Pxtl 7y ago
The article seems to be about chemicals that are present, intentionally or otherwise, in the cosmetics. The fact that the dioxins arrive as a byproduct of synthesis instead of being deliberately added as an ingredient does not seem to change the truthfulness of the article.

by mrob 7y ago

ptaipale 7y ago

Guardian often has little "errors" like this.

dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
To be honest, it doesn't change the argument much.
- hinkley 7y ago
  It's like explaining things to a five year old. It doesn't matter if you 'meant to' kick your sister. You're kicking her and you need to 1) stop, and 2) apologize.
- mrob 7y ago
  I believe this "fact" is included with the deliberate intention of making people angry. If people are angry because they think the US deliberately poisoned Vietnamese people then that anger might transfer over to modern safety regulations. The false information has propaganda value. I support European-style regulations, but I think this is a short-sighted way to argue. Dioxins in cosmetics are bad because of their objective toxicity, not because of emotional associations. Playing up the emotional angle with false information only makes the rest of your arguments look suspicious.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    > the US deliberately poisoned Vietnamese people The US recklessly poisoned people; the Vietnam campaign had a disregard for Vietnamese life. The herbicide campaign, initially intended to clear forest cover, spread to deliberate use against crops to starve the population. The use of napalm was similar in its widespread civilian casualties. https://www.news.com.au/world/asia/vietnams-horrific-legacy-the-children-of-agent-orange/news-story/c008ff36ee3e840b005405a55e21a3e1 https://www.news.com.au/world/asia/vietnams-horrific-legacy-... "Nearly 4.8 million Vietnamese people have been exposed, causing 400,000 deaths; the associated illnesses include cancers, birth defects, skin disorders, auto-immune diseases, liver disorders, psychosocial effects, neurological defects and gastrointestinal diseases." "According to the Red Cross of Vietnam, up to one million people are currently disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange, 100,000 of which are children." If any of the Nazis had ordered this they would rightly have been put up against a wall and shot.
    - GordonS 7y ago
      Another example was the cluster bombing along the borders of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos - hundreds of millions of bomblets were dropped, which still kill and maim to this day. This bombing campaign was reckless in the extreme, and with complete disregard for human life - if anyone other than the US had done this, they would have been ostracised and declared war criminals. Some more info on cluster munitions[0], which the US continued to use in more recent times in Iraq and Afghanistan, and AFAIK they still refuse to sign the anti-cluster bomb CCM treaty that around 100 nations have signed. [0] https://fpif.org/the_curse_of_cluster_bombs/ https://fpif.org/the_curse_of_cluster_bombs/

cobalt 7y ago

iirc, thats the same thing w/ agent orange. Agent orange (in particular) was a combination of a herbicide and a fungicide. The manufacturing of one or both of those created dioxins as a side product. They did not refine them further to remove the dioxins.

Pxtl 7y ago
And afaik, it was the dioxins that were the cause of the health problems with agent orange, not the herbicide and fungicide. So "toxic dioxins created as byproduct and not properly removed creating a health hazard" sounds like a fair comparison, since they share that.
cobalt 7y ago
also as an aside, Dow Chem/whoever dumped the dioxin they had removed in the middle of the Oregon desert

Pxtl 7y ago

The article seems to be about chemicals that are present, intentionally or otherwise, in the cosmetics. The fact that the dioxins arrive as a byproduct of synthesis instead of being deliberately added as an ingredient does not seem to change the truthfulness of the article.