Arthur Galston

Arthur Galston was a botanist and bioethicist who, as a graduate student at the University of Illinois, discovered the defoliant properties of the chemical that was studied by the United States Army for the development of Agent Orange. Galston taught as an associate professor at the California Institute of Technology early on in his career, before moving to Yale University where he taught from 1955 until his retirement as a professor emeritus in 1990.

His thesis research at the University of Illinois was focused on finding a chemical means to make soybeans flower and fruit earlier. He discovered both that 2,3,5-triiodobenzoic acid (TIBA) would speed up the flowering of soybeans and that in higher concentrations it would defoliate the soybeans. In 1951 biological warfare scientists at Fort Detrick, Maryland began investigating defoliants based upon Galston's discoveries with TIBA, eventually producing the toxic defoliant Agent Orange used by the U. S. Air Force for defoliation in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.

Galston and U. S. geneticist Matthew S. Meselson appealed to the U. S. Department of Defense to investigate the human toxicology of Agent Orange. The research conducted by the Department of Defense led to the discovery that Agent Orange caused birth defects in laboratory rats. In 1971 this information led to U. S. President Richard M. Nixon banning the use of the substance.