Moreover, the studies themselves consistently contradicted each other. One might find an excess of lung cancer but not of Hodgkin's disease. Another would find an excess of Hodgkin's disease but not of lung cancer. Ignoring such inconvenient facts, the IOM well aware that it was working under political parameters and not scientific ones seized on the slightest excuses to indict the herbicides even when the evidence weighed heavily on the other side. For example, their 1993 report listed 28 studies which looked for prostate cancer among persons exposed to herbicide.
Herbicides cause prostate cancer.
Agent Orange is an herbicide. I think one of the major costs of something like this is that all the scientists, government and nongovernment, who have done their best to understand and explain the health of veterans are now discredited. Thus, he says, it also bodes ill for getting the truth out on Gulf War Syndrome, another alleged disease phenomenon that has more to do with politics than science. Ultimately, it is the vets themselves who will lose the most. Yes, some will get money, if they contract the right diseases.