About the Book
Public Health Politics & Agent Orange
Mixing dry science with human experience involved being in the right place at the right time. The setting of a VA clinic for outpatient psychiatric services had a focus for Vietnam Vets primarily around Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The clinic offered individual psychotherapy and group therapy to accompany physician-led psychiatric, neurological and general medical treatments.
No “human subjects” were involved in any experimental design. Medical records’ reviews, anonymous interviews and in-depth literature reviews provided the material. Institutional Review Board approval wasn’t required, as long as the Veterans were aware of the author’s interest in direct patient care and collecting first person anecdotes for use in academic course work.
Initially, a dermatologic syndrome due to Agent Orange exposure, Chloracne, was a curious finding for a number of Vietnam Veterans. Then the Agent Orange Registry was opened by Congressional pressure on the VA to look into claims of unusual conditions and illnesses. Following that came the deluge of claims and the serendipitous accumulation of Veterans care and industrial rejections of responsibility for any disease or disability consequences following exposure to Agent Orange.
PHP&AO represents two years of work in the mid 1980’s and a year of writing. The Doctor of Public Health degree was conferred by the University of Pittsburgh in 1986.