Australian Army's secret 'Agent Orange' tests explain high cancer rates

The rate of cancer deaths in a north Queensland town in Australia where their army tested chemical weapons at the start of the Vietnam War are 10 times the state average. Australian military scientists sprayed the toxic defoliant Agent Orange on rainforest in the water catchment area of Innisfail in 1966, Fairfax reported. The sprayed site, where jungle has never re-grown, lies on a ridge about 100 meters above the Johnstone River, which supplies water for the town in the state's far north. Figures from the Queensland Health Department show 76 people died from cancer in the town of almost 12,000 in 2005, 10 times the state's average and four times the national average. Researcher Jean Williams, who has been awarded the Order of Australia Medal for her work on the effects of chemicals on Vietnam War veterans, found details of the secret tests at Innisfail in Australian War Memorial archives. "These test carried out between 1964 and 1966 were the first tests of Agent Orange and they were carried out at Gregory Falls near Innisfail,'' she told Fairfax. "I was told there is a high rate of cancer there but no one can understand why. "Perhaps now they will understand.'' Williams found three boxes of files in the archives, with one file, marked "considered sensitive',' showing the chemicals 2,4-D, Diquat, Tordon and diemthyl sulphoxide (DMSO) were sprayed on the rainforest. "It was considered sensitive because they were mixing together all the bad chemicals, which just made them worse,'' she said. "They cause all the cancers.'' Williams said another file which could indicate more testing as part of a project known as Operation Desert had gone missing, a fact confirmed by Australian War Memorial director Steve Gower. The contents of the missing file were marked "too disturbing to ever be released,'' Fairfax reports. "The poor people of Innisfail have been kept in the dark about this,'' she said. "But these chemicals cause cancer and deformities that are passed on for generations.'' Innisfail RSL president Reg Hamann, who suffers cancer after being exposed to Agent Orange while fighting in Vietnam, said his children had been born with health issues. "I believe it must have something to do with the high cancer rates in Innisfail,'' he told Fairfax. "The amount of young people in this area who die of leukemia and similar cancers to what I got from Agent Orange is scary. "The authorities are scared of digging into it as there would be lots of lawsuits.''