People in Paritutu, New Plymouth, where for several decades the agrichemical company, Ivon Watkins Dow (IWD) made herbicides 245T and 24D, have long been convinced that their illnesses and those of their children were caused by exposure to dioxin. It's now clear that dioxin-laced Agent Orange was being made at IWD, and worst of all, it's still there.

Former Dow top official confesses Vietnam secret

In 2005 former New Zealand Transport Safety Minister and New Plymouth MP Harry Duynhoven created a sensation by claiming that the Dow plant in New Zealand had made and exported Agent Orange for use in the Vietnam War. Duynhoven told the Sunday News he had proof that the products used to make Agent Orange - 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D - were shipped from the Taranaki wharves in the 1960s to the American base at Subic Bay in the Philippines for use in the Vietnam War. This contradicted years of denials by Ivon Watkins Dow - now Dow AgroSciences - and confirmed the earlier confession of an anonymous Dow executive.

In 2000, a former top official at New Plymouth's lvon Watkins Dow chemical factory gave an anonymous interview to Investigate Magazine. 'There have been rumours circulating for some time, never proven, that IWD was supplying the defoliant Agent Orange to be used in the Vietnam War. The allegation is true. I was on the management committee of Ivon Watkins Dow, and I supported the plan to export Agent Orange. In fact, it went ahead on my casting vote.

'People who'd served in the armed forces made a strong case for the need to defoliate the jungle, because of the risk to servicemen from ambush or sniper fire from the undergrowth. So we began manufacturing this Agent Orange, but it didn't meet the international specifications and probably had an excess of 'nasties' in it. The problem was, we didn't consider the product was harmful to humans at the time.

"Our scientists relied on assurances and technical data provided to them by Dow Chemicals in the USA. We were led to believe it was safe. The whole reason I supported Agent Orange is because we thought we were giving our boys on the ground a hand. (Dow told the US military the same story, having known since 1965 that Agent Orange was lethal.)

"To avoid detection, we shipped the Agent Orange to South America - Mexico if I recall correctly - and it was onshipped to its final destination from there."

The official, who proved his identity and executive-ranking in documents provided to Investigate, also confirmed the worst fears of residents - part of the town may be sitting on a secret toxic waste dump containing the deadly Vietnam War defoliant Agent Orange. He says the company owned a large piece of land 'very close to the chemical plant, which we called "the Experimental Farm". We bulldozed big pits and dumped thousands of tonnes of chemicals there.'

And what did the chemical cocktail include? Dioxin.

"Let us spray": the poisonous legacy

In 2006, New Zealand's TV3 channel ran "Let Us Spray", a documentary by Investigative Reporter of the Year Melanie Reid. Reid's film examined the many reported cases of birth defects in New Plymouth and around the country and discovered a doubling of birth defects coincided with the country’s maximum exposure to the 245T dioxin.

Former midwife Hyacinth Henderson, aged 87, says she saw many birth defects when she worked at New Plymouth's Westown Maternity Hospital. Between 1965 and 1971 she recorded 167 birth defects out of 5,392 babies born there. She told the Herald that they had abnormalities she had never seen before and she had been in obstetrics for 40 years. "Some of them were horrific ... There were two anecephalics, which means there is no brain or the brain is sheared off above the eyebrows. There were a large number of bone deformities such as clubbed feet and things like that."

Thanks partly to citizen pressure, a blood study of 24 New Plymouth/Paritutu volunteers was begun by the Ministry of Health in March of 2004. The results, released on Sept. 9th of 2004, confirmed that Dow is one of the largest historical polluters in New Zealand. According to the study, the dioxin levels detected in Paritutu residents are up to fivefold New Zealand's nation-wide levels, which are themselves second only to South Vietnam.

In what has been described by residents as the "second Vietnam," Dow now faces massive future liabilities. "The time has come for the company to deal with the demons of its past" the New Zealand Herald writes in an editorial on the issue, labeling Dow's ethical standards as "lamentable". Andrew Gibbs of the Paritutu Dioxin Investigation Network put things a different way: "What we are dealing with is New Zealand's Chernobyl."

Greenpeace drapes a 30m banner opposite the Dow Ivor Watkins plant in Paritutu

"Half of my friends are dead or have brain tumours."

Ivon Watkins-Dow, now called Dow AgroSciences, produced the herbicide 2,4,5-T in Paritutu from 1962 to 1988. Long-term residents who lived near the plant in those years and former plant workers have elevated levels of the dioxin TCDD in their blood. Dioxins are linked to a range of cancers including leukaemia. There is evidence of links to prostate cancer, type 2 diabetes, spina bifida in the offspring of those exposed, and other diseases.

Children have been born blind, with brains, and with the kind of horrifying injuries seen in Vietnam.

Roy Drake lived close to the plant. In 1988 he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. He found it almost impossible to walk and was soon close to blind.

Talking about the situation in Parititu Roy said, "Here in New Plymouth, Down's Syndrome and Spina Bifida are going through the roof. If you look at any major chemical plant anywhere in the world you will find massive rates of the same sorts of diseases. Our local school has 1200 kids. They advertised for ten special needs teachers. I've found out in one kindergarten alone there are four kids with cancer.

"People of New Plymouth are very illiterate to it all. That's because there has been a huge cover up. Imagine the legal implications of this. The damages would run into billions. Half of my friends are dead or have brain tumours. Not many people live to a ripe old age round here. They all die five or ten years short of their time. I am very angry and cannot understand why this has been ignored for such a long time."

"Delay and deny until you die"

These Paritutu people, many of whom worked in and around the IWD plant or were exposed through spraying, want answers and they want help. Dow Chemical, predictably, refuses to accept any responsibility or offer any help. At the moment, as in Bhopal and in banana growing regions around the world, where thousands of ths company's victims are sick and in desperate need, the policy of the company and its allies in government is simply "delay and deny until you die."