Defoliants arsenic-containing

In September 1966 The New York Times published a report that cacodylic acid, an organic arsenic containing compound, was also being used in Vietnam.49 Cacodylic acid was a defoliant that was also toxic to man. According to the Merck Index, cacodylic acid was a dimethylarsenic acid containing 54.29 per cent arsenic, and was extremely poisonous.50 Seventy grams would kill the average 150-lb man if administered subcutaneously. 

Shorebirds (seven species) wintering in the Corpus Christi, Texas, area contained an average of 0.3 mg As/kg FW in livers (maximum of 1.5 mg/kg), despite the presence of smelters and the heavy use of arsenical herbicides and defoliants these values probably reflect normal background concentrations. Similar arsenic levels were reported in livers of brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) collected from South Carolina. Bone arsenic concentrations in 23 species of birds collected in southwestern Russia during 1993-95 ranged from 0.1 to 1.7 mg As/kg DW arsenic concentrations were similar for terrestrial and aquatic... 

---