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President Richard M. Nixon. stopped the use of herbicides in Vietnam.
Episode 2962 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature Part 2 of the latest report by the Merry Band of Retirees titled: Review and Analysis: Environmental and Human Health Impacts of Herbicide Use Studies Conducted during the Vietnam War and Historical Lessons. It is about the use of herbicides by the U.S. in the American Vietnam War. The report was authored by Kenneth R. Olson, Larry Cihacek and David R. Speidel.
Olson is with the College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois. Cihacek is with the School of Natural Resource Sciences, North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota, USA.And Speidel is with the Natural Resource, Conservation Service and Foreign Agricultural Service, Benton, Missouri, USA.
During times of war, it is rare to find a government willing and able to require the military to fund and support environmental impact studies. In the 1960s, many United States scientists expressed concerns about the use of herbicides during the Vietnam War.
This protest was led by Dr. Arthur Galston and eventually included scientists with the National Academy of Science. By 1970, the Department of Defense (DoD) was ordered to permit the scientists to visit South Vietnam during the war to document these impacts. In all 1500 scientist days were spent in South Vietnam. In addition, the US government and military funded research studies on the impact of herbicides on animals.
The primary objective of this research study is to describe how it is possible for a country to fund and carry out scientific studies during the conduct of a war rather than decades later. The environmental impact study findings often lack boots on the ground validation and can be inaccurate or misleading in some situations.
Listen to Episode 2962 and discover more about the latest report on the use of herbicides in the Vietnam War by the US.
