Agent Orange

While a grad student, botanist Arthur Galston discovered the use of an acid to encourage the flowering of soybeans, noting that high levels had a defoliant effect. The military later developed this acid into Agent Orange. In 1966 and 1967, soldiers testing Agent Orange in Canada were told the chemical was completely safe and sprayed it on each other to cool off. One of the main usages of Agent Orange in Vietnam was to destroy crops in friendly territory to force people to move to cities. US military sprayed more than 19 million gallons of Agent Orange in Vietnam during the Vietnam war to eliminate forest and crops, which caused serious health issues like tumors, birth defects, and cancer among returning U.S. servicemen, their families, and the Vietnamese population. As many as 1 million Vietnamese people are now disabled or have health problems as a result of the use of Agent Orange by the USA. Agent orange is still legal in warfare, due to a loophole.