Health and Medicine Division

Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice

Committee to Review the Health Effects in Vietnam Veterans of Exposure to Herbicides 

(Eleventh Biennial Update)

 

 

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Originating from a request by Congress in P.L. 102-4 and extended in P.L. 107-103, this new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine returns to the biennial examination of the links between the complaints of Vietnam veterans about their own health and that of their children combined with emerging toxicologic evidence of adverse effects of phenoxy herbicides and 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD).

 

This latest report reviews the evidence of health problems that may be linked to exposure to Agent Orange and other herbicides used during the Vietnam War and evidence of an association for hypertension and monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS). In addition, it focuses on three other health outcomes: possible generational health effects that may be the result of herbicide exposure among male Vietnam veterans, myeloproliferative neoplasms, and glioblastoma multiforme.  The committee that carried out the study and wrote this report focused on the scientific literature published between Sept. 30, 2014, and Dec. 31, 2017.

 

These briefings were for members of Congress and congressional staff only. The report was publicly released on Thursday, November 15, 2018 and can be found, in its entirety, on the Web site of the National Academies Press.