Abstract

In 1995, the Air Force Health Study (AFHS) reported analyses of reproductive outcomes for male Air Force veterans of the Vietnam War using a preliminary subset of AFHS data. They concluded that those data did not support the conclusion of adverse paternal dioxin exposure effects on reproductive outcomes. More recently, analyses of reproductive outcomes for AFHS participants were reported in several articles using a more extensive subset of the AFHS data. These articles reached the opposite conclusion for a variety of reproductive outcomes. In this article, an overview is provided of the results for these studies, initially focusing on the occurrence of major birth defects. Results for other reproductive outcomes are also addressed as well as descriptions of the methods used to conduct the analyses.