Derby, Australia
The state of Western Australia admitted last week that its weed-killing program killed or sickened dozens of Aborigines in the 1970s and 1980s. The state initiated the program as a way to provide employment for the poverty-stricken Aborigines, as well as to get rid of invasive species of weeds in the wilderness region. But the herbicide the workers used contained one of the main ingredients of Agent Orange, the toxic substance the U.S. Army used to clear forests in Vietnam. “It’s pretty horrifying,” Western Australian Agriculture Minister Kim Chance told the London Observer. “They were getting bathed in this crap all day.” At least 24 of the workers, many in their 20s and 30s, died of herbicide-related illnesses. The weeds grew back in a few years.
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