Talk:Defoliant

  This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jputrasahan. Peer reviewers: Arimeris3.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:13, 16 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

Does anyone know the difference between a defoliant and a herbicide?

Yes: a defoliant is a chemical sprayed or dusted on plants to cause the leaves to fall off, and an herbicide is a chemical substance used to destroy or inhibit the growth of plants, especially weeds. Before you pointed out the problem, the main defoliant stub contained the incorrect definition, which I fixed. – ClockworkSoul 14:29, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I removed the following from the article:

"Defoliants also suffer terribly from syphilis from time to time. 1 in 1,000 of latent, untreated syphilis cases in defoliants develop paresis (figure from BSTYR)."

I'm not sure that this makes any sense. Does it mean to imply that people exposed to defoliants develop syphillis? If i'm just stupid and missing the point completly then someone may feel free to revert it. In the meantime however it doesn't seem to make any sense. Bigbrisco 17:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hi, I'm a student assigned to evaluating and working on this article to make it better! Here is what I see from the current state:

The current article is pretty bare; there is a very brief lead paragraph, history section, and use section. All of these sections can be expanded upon in defining defoliants more thoroughly, describing different types of defoliants, and describing the historical uses and more current uses of defoliants. There are some grammatical errors that are somewhat distracting as well, and these can be easily edited. Another topic that might be interesting to add, if there is information on this particular area, would be to look into various public opinions on the use of defoliants for specific uses. Also the short-term and long-term effects of defoliant uses would be good topics to add to the article. The article has a handful of links to other related Wikipedia articles, and this should grow as the article grows. --Jputrasahan (talk) 20:32, 30 August 2018 (UTC)Reply

Shusterman, Dennis (1992). Critical Review: The Health Significance of Environmental Odor Pollution. Archives of Environmental Health. 47(1): 76-87. DOI: 10.1080/00039896.1992.9935948. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00039896.1992.9935948?journalCode=vzeh20

Zierler, David (2011). Invention of Ecocide. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. ISBN: 9786613110404. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n5dg

Tyas, Suzanne; Manfreda, Jure; Strain, Laurel; Montgomery, Patrick (2001). Risk factors for Alzheimer's Disease: A Population-based, Longitudinal Study in Manitoba, Canada. International Journal of Epidemiology. 30(3): 590–597. DOI: 10.1093/ije/30.3.590. https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/30/3/590/736936

Kang, H. K.; Dalager, N. A.; Needham, L. L.; Patterson, D. G.; Lees, P. S.; Yates, K.; Matanoski, G. M. (2006). Health Status of Army Chemical Corps Vietnam Veterans Who Sprayed Defoliant in Vietnam. American Journal of Industrial Medicine. 49(11): 875-884. DOI: 10.1002/ajim.20385. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajim.20385

Potter, T.; Marti, L.; Belflower, S.; Truman, C. (2000). Multiresidue Analysis of Cotton Defoliant, Herbicide, and Insecticide Residues in Water by Solid-Phase Extraction and GC−NPD, GC−MS, and HPLC−Diode Array Detection. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 48(9): 4103-4108. DOI: 10.1021/jf9909104. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf9909104

Snipes, Charles; Cathey, George (1992). Evaluation of Defoliant Mixtures in Cotton. Field Crops Research. 28(4): 327-334. DOI: 10.1016/0378-4290(92)90018-5. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0378429092900185 --Jputrasahan (talk) 20:06, 13 September 2018 (UTC)Reply

"defoliant" is a term that was specifically invented so western militaries could use chemical weapons on enemy populations without explicitly referring to them as "chemical weapons." The history of the production of chemical weapons is well known to be influenced by the development of pesticides, so there is absolutely no doubt the "experts" who called for the use of defoliants in Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos et al knew that it would also be detrimental to human and animal life. The use of the term "defoliant" was simply a way to obfuscate the (otherwise illegal) use of chemical weapons. 184.190.73.10 (talk) 15:34, 29 September 2024 (UTC)Reply