The story of 2,4,5-t: A case study of science and societal concerns

In 1969, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) asked Professor Matthew Meselson of Harvard University to develop a study of the use of herbicides in Vietnam. From this evolved the Herbicides Assessments Commission (HAC) led by Arthur Westing of Windham College [5], with a budget of $80,000, an absurdly small amount for a definitive study. HAC focused on maternity records in South Vietnam, but also included crop destruction, food chain, tropical forests and other topics. The Commission's results were widely reported in the popular press, especially the potentially negative effects on human reproduction and forest devastation, and created widespread fears about the irreversible damage to both humans and the ecosystem. Their findings did not appear in the scientific literature, as far as we know.