U$ ecology dramatically altered by fertilizers and acid rain...

On a brighter side the USA has toughened the standards recently..
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a big win for environmentalists, a US appeals court on Tuesday rejected an attempt by business groups to overturn federal clean-air standards that would clamp down on pollution.


The decision would allow the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) to protect the public health by limiting pollution levels across the country for smog and fine, sooty particles--although other legal issues remain to be resolved.

A coalition of business groups, led by the American Trucking Associations, filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the EPA's 1997 pollution standards that would require ozone concentration levels not to exceed an average 0.08 part per million (PPM) during an eight-hour period and limit soot particles to 65 micrograms per 24-hour period.

The agency decided not to implement the clean air standards until the main legal disputes were settled by the courts.

The agency estimated the tough pollution standards would prevent 15,000 premature deaths, 350,000 cases of asthma and 1 million cases of decreased lung function in children.

However, business groups claimed that the standards were arbitrary and had no scientific basis.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected that argument, saying EPA "has no obligation either to identify an accurate 'safe level' of a pollutant or to quantify precisely the pollutant's risks."

The court added that "EPA must err on the side of caution" and set pollution standards at "whatever level it deems necessary and sufficient to protect the public health with an adequate margin of safety, taking into account both the available evidence and the inevitable scientific uncertainties."

Environmental groups welcomed the court's decision and called on the EPA to immediately begin determining which parts of the country were not complying with the pollution standards.

"For nearly five years, the legal wrangling by industry lawyers has delayed critical progress in delivering cleaner, healthier air to the millions of Americans that will be protected by these standards," said Vickie Patton, senior attorney for Environmental Defense.

Three states--Ohio, Michigan and West Virginia--joined the industry in fighting the tough pollution rules.

EPA must still resolve two issues surrounding the pollution standards. First, the Supreme Court has ordered the agency to reexamine its plan for implementing the standards. Second, the circuit court for the District of Columbia ordered the EPA to consider industry claims that smog is beneficial for human health because it screens out ultraviolet rays.

 

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Finally, we are getting closer to the truth --or an agreement on what seems to be the truth, as truth is highly relative... As you quite correctly say, <b>"The only debate that can be left is at what level it kills."</b> As I tried to show you with some of my links to scientific articles, the one in my website about <A HREF="http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/INGLES/Nat-vs-Synth.html">"Synthetics and Natural pesticides"</A> (that I would like very much if you read it) and <A HREF="http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/INGLES/ChemTox.html">"Chemical toxiticy"</A>, also highly recommende reading, you will get closer to the scientific facts regarding the levels at which "pollution kills".

Pollution kills, there is no doubt about it, let's find the levels and dose of chemicals that can kill. But let us doi in a scientific way, leaving aside emotions.

As a matter of fact I do eat legumes and vegetables sprayed with pesticides, because they are more healthy than "organic" ones. Don´t take my word for it; listen to what Dr. Bruce Ames has been telling the world about the toxicity of pesticides since the 1970s. There are lots of information on Bruce Ames --just search the internet under "Bruce Ames" and you'll be overwhelmed with information.

Worse yet, I follow the advice of Dr. Gordon Edwards, famous enthomologist at University of California in San Jose, an world renown expert on malaria, that opens his classes every year by ingesting in front of his students a spoonfull of DDT --just to show "how dangerous DDT can be". I had a sever case of prostate cancer six years ago, and underwent a radiation treatmen (particle accelerator technique, not Cobalt-60) that got rid of it. But the levels of "prostatic antigen" was starting to rise again, so I decided to prepare a solution of DDT and ingest a daily dose of 35 milligrams (mg) of DDT. My "prostatic antigen" went down from 2,5 to 0,1, and has been at that levels for the past four years.

Am I a suicidal type? Not at all. The first recorded anti-carcinogenic properties of DDT belong to the studies made by Dr. Charles Silinskas and Allan E. Okey, back in the seventies, on <b>"Inhibition of Leukemia by DDT"</b>, (Journal of the National Cancer Institute, vol. 55, (Sept.), pp. 633-657), and the works of Edward R. Laws, et al., (Archives of Environmental Health, Vol. 15, pp. 766-775 (1967) and vol. 23, pp. 181-184, (1971), showing that high doses of DDT in the food of rats had prevented the appearance of cancer on them, while the control group had a 100% mortality. His next experiment showed that rats that had cancer tumors transplanted to their brains, had a 30% recovery when fed high doses of DDT, while the control group died 100%.

Dr. Silinskas began to suspect there was something wrong with the Rachel Carson hysteria against DDT, when he studied the medical records of the workers at Montrose Chemical Co., producers of DDT in California (he was working at the US Public Service), and compiled a epidemiological statistic of 1200-year-man, the longest statistic ever made for any substance. He found that among the workers at Montrose <B>there was not a single case of cancer recorded!</b>. As he said: "This is a statistically impossible event". Why? Because in any human group you care to choose, there will always be about 25% of cancers. The total absence of cancer among this group showed there was something that prevented them to develop cancer --and it turned out to be DDT! One chemical included in the Dirty Dozen list!

Just keep believing in politicians (you seem to be quite a politically correct person, so I guess you´ll keep doing it). It is your choice. It has never been mine.

So, for ending this: <b>I thrive on pesticides.</b> DDT is keeping me alive, away from cancer. My motivation is not related to money paid by the "callous industry" (as I don´t get any), it is just linked to a survival in healthy conditions.

PS: To my posts linking you to accepted, peer-reviewed scientific studies and data, you keep answering with political reports and press releases. Thet way we are going nowhere.

 

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Well most of us eat veggies that have had chemicals processed on them but they are washed many times. I'm very open minded but if I read a report by a Doctor that says cancer is 300 times higher in his area and the EPA clearly shows his area is polluted I have to believe him. But for the record I have a long history of thinking our government policies are not in my best interest. This thread seems to be an exception. The problem with politics in the USA is the backers support the candidates for favours(many times it isn't talked about it but Enron is a great example as they donated a lot of money to Bush). Of course the larger the industry the more backers they have. Once my country wakes up and starts electing the guys who will cause trouble we will get somewhere. A good politician should make waves as our country has many major problems. Now having said that smiles... There is a lot of chemicals we could debate..I'm not educated in your field but am in the process of self educating. Lets take it one step at a time. I will read your links and we may as well start at DDT.

 

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Edufer, good links to the Ames article and the toxicity article. (Ames has also pointed out that evolution provided plants with toxins that give protection against animals. So "natural" foods may not be inherently safer.)

As you seem knowledgeable, what’s your take on DDT affects on wildlife? Seem to remember something about weakened eggshells threatening bird species.

Checked out the Magic Johnson HIV-AIDS “miracle”. His privacy may prevent his story being fully known. Here’s an excerpt from a recent MSNBC article:

“Now, he takes the AIDS cocktail — combinations of medications that have kept some people with the virus from developing acquired immune deficiency syndrome — allowing him to focus on his business, and not just the business of staying alive.
“The medicine has done its thing; I think I’ve done my part,” he said last week.”

http://www.msnbc.com/news/653700.asp

As HIV does attack the immune system (believe the science behind that fact has been established) and stress also lowers immune response it would seem natural that the effects would combine and acerbate progression to AIDS. However this hamster doubts there is a conspiracy among African leaders, UN health workers, and HIV medical researchers.

This hamster supports a science-based approach to environmental policy and appreciates your posts on this topic.

 

The DDT case

I don´t know if you read Spanish, (It is a pity if you don't), because there is a complete story on the subject in our website at the Argentine Foundation for Scientific Ecology, <A HREF=http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/Indice/Cap5-DDT.htm>Capitulo 5: DDT: Un mito Criminal</A>, (one of the 16 chapters in my book <b>"Ecology: Myths and Frauds"</b>, published in Argentina) where you could read all about it. However, I'll try to give you the basics of this criminal fraud.

<b>Thinning Eggshells</b>
The case of thinning eggshells is a phenomenon dating to years before the appearance of DDT. This has been known for decades before DDT was on the market. There are many causes for this: diets low on calcium or vitamin D, fear, high nocturnal temperatures, various toxic substances and diseases as the Newcastle disease. Experiments that tried to demonstrate any toxic effect by DDT ingestion failed, even when experimenters fed their birds (pheasants and quails) with doses 6,000 to 20,000 times higher than the 0,3 ppm (parts per million) normally found as residues in the food. Quails fed with 200 ppm of DDT in all their foods, through their entire reproductive lifespan, hatched 80% of their eggs, while the control group hatched 83,9%. There was no thinning of eggshells reported. When pheasants were given the same treatment, the birds fed with DDT had a haychong succes of 80,6%, against the 57,4% on the control group. (DeWitt, James, 1958, <i>"Effects of DDT on Reproduction of Quails and Pheasants"</i>, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry).

In the link to "Capitulo 5: DDT..." you can see the table taken from the work by DeWitt, and used by Rachel Carson in her book "Silent Spring", where she falsely claimed that <i>"...the quails and pheasants had hatched very few eggs".</i> Dosage given to pheasants was 100 ppm DDT on their foods, every day --almost 3,000 times more than the daily intake by human beings during the years of intensive DDT use. You don't have to translate the numbers to English; just replace the words "<b>Faisanes</b>" with "pheasants", "<b>Perdiz</b>" with "quails", "<b>% supervivencia</b>" with "% survival", "<b>Huevos/ave (promed)</b> with "Eggs/bird (average), "<b>Incubacion</b>" with "hatching".", "<b>semanas</b> with "weeks", and that's it.

You can also see in the same webpage the table published by the Audubon Society, regarding its <i>Annual Christmas Birds Count</i>, comparing the counts in 1941 (before DDT usage) and 1960, (after 20 years of heavy DDT usage). There you can see that the count of Robins by observer in 1941 was 8,41, while in 1960 it was 104,01, an increase of 12,37 times! By 1962 Rachel Carson falsely claimed that the Robin <b>was on the verge of extinction</b>. The same applies to almost every bird in the USA, the exception being the Pelican, (0,62 times), Crows (0.35), Pheasants (0,75), Swans (0,48), Geese (0,99), Ducks (0,33), Chickadee (0,68), Titmouse (0,95) Nuthatch (0,83) and Bluebird (0,48). As you see, these are mainly game birds that had been hunted during the big increase in the numbers of hunters after World War 2 --all those veterans "trigger happy".

On the other hand, you can see increases on the rest of the birds, especially the Grackle, 131,59 times more, this is, they spotted a total of 24,937 (10,7 per observer) in 1941, and 12,570,458 in 1960 (1,407,98 by observer). The Blackbird increased 39,02 times, the Cowbird 21,44 times, the Starling 10,69 times, etc.

Why the increase in bird population? They were supposed to be in danger of extinction due to the eggshell thinning... The truth is that DDT ingested by these seed and worm eating birds was the substance that metabolized the Aflatoxin B1 in their liver by the process of hydroxilation and converted it into non-toxic metabolites. The same goes with the Bald Eagle, the Peregrine Hawk and other predator birds. According to the records kept at the <b>Hawk Mountain Sanctuary</b> (see the table in the webpage), there was not a decrease of these birds during the usage of DDT, <b>but on the contrary, they increased steadily!</b>

We have just scratched the surface of the DDT issue. There is a good link to Junkscience.com website on <A HREF=http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.htm#16>FAQs about DDT</A>. Give it a try. Also try articles in our website:

<A HREF=http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/INGLES/CaseDDT.html>The Case of DDT</A>

and a funny (but serious parody of Friends of the Earth website) page in:

<A HREF=http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/INGLES/SupportMalaria.html>We Support Malaria!</A>

The page <A HREF=http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/English.html>"English Version"</A> of our website has articles and many links that you may find interesting.

I hope this has served as a brief introduction to the subject, and the time spent reading it was not a waste of time...

 

The Magic Johnson case...

Hamster, in the article you posted, Johnson said: <i>“The medicine has done its thing; I think I’ve done my part,”</i> he said last week. <i>“And God has done his part. It’s mind over matter, too. <b>I’ve never felt I would be sick or get sick.</b> I thought I would be here.”</i>

Now there some things to consider here:

1) If Magic Johnson ever had the HIV virus in him (I will return to this point later), the secret of his non developing AIDS most probably was his not suffering deep anguish that set him under a big stress --a well known factor of inmunosupression. He didn´t care, he didn´t have stress, he kept his inmune system in OK condition, thus he didn´t developed AIDS.

2) Talking last night with an American nephew of mine, presently living with us at our home in Argentina (an avid basketball fan and player), about Magic Johnson and his HIV infection, he said that there was a rumor in the US about Magic being in 1991 under a bad contract with his team, so he invented the HIV story to break the contract without being sued. After some time afterwards he made a comeback saying <i>"I´m cured, I no longer have HIV"</i>, but with a contract on much better economic conditions. Could this be real? It does not sound farfetched.

 

The EPA case...

I would read the full report about the claim of 300 times higher rates of cancer, and see if it has enough scientific basis to support the claim. But that cannot be done by someone that has not the scientific training and knowledge to do it. Many studies are beyond my hability and knowledge, so most of the times I have to rely on the peer-reviews or dissenting studies published by other scientists with the same (or higher) expertise in the field. Then I have to apply my judgment, based on what I understood of the whole matter. Not an easy task. Sometimes I am left in the dark.

<b>I wouldn´t trust anything coming from the EPA.</b> The EPA has a long tradition of non-science in their regulations, bans, and propaganda. I will only mention one example: the EPA has set the levels for Radon in the homes at 4 pC/litre (pico Curies/litre of air -- or liter in American English). Beyond that level, the EPA mandates "remediation actions". So, never in your live go the city of Bath, England, whose "miraculous waters" have a Radon content of 1,730 pC/litre). The radon levels in the natural gas in Bath is 33,650 pCi/litre. However, despite this murderous high levels of radon there, the Romans built there a temple and dedicated it to the Godess of Wisdom and Health. In 1742 the British built there the Royal National Hospital for rheumatic diseases. Flock of people go to Bath and thousand of other thermal baths and fountains worldwide (waters highly radioactive) to get cured from their illness, and not to die from radon and/or radioactivity!

In a very candid article published in the March 1984 issue of the Washington Monthly, signed by Jim Sibbinson, former press agent for the EPA, he says <b>"...how easy was to use those gullible journalists for spreading fritghtening messages."</b> Sibbinson had entered the EPA in 1979 and worked there until 1981.

<i>"In those days"</i> -writes Sibbinson- <i>"the idea was to make the press help transform the EPA in a repressor that could frighten polluters" ... "We had the routine of writing frightening stories about the risks imposed by chemical products using words as 'cancer', and 'birth defects' in order to sprinkle some cold water into the face of journalists" ... "Our press releases were more or less real, the air and water were really dirty and we were decided to make them cleaner" ... "However, very few press releases can be completely honest, and ours were not the exception." ... "The deceit was in what <b>we didn't write"</b>. "The main thing was we tended to omit the fact that we were not able to anything about the problems we were protesting against." ... <B>"We had set our task to whip the public in order to drive them into a frenzy of fear about the environment."</B> </i>

And the EPA keeps doing this until this very day.

 

I have studied DDT and I am going to start with quotes from the very links you gave me regarding DDT.



We have been taught that science produces certainty. As a result, the public is impatient with scientists who express uncertainty, and tend to believe scientists who express their views without reservations. In toxicology, the certainty most of us seek is that a particular chemical is safe. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as an absolutely safe chemical: all chemicals can cause toxic effects in large enough amounts.

Well all can cause toxic effects has to include DDT.

Human individuals vary tremendously in their responses to their environment, including the chemicals in it, so what is "safe" for one person may not be "safe" for another.

The practice of smoking cigs bring this sentance home as many die of lung cancer from smoking and some live to a ripe old age and die of natural causes. The fact that some live and others die does not mean that smoking cigs is safe.

The poor health of people who worked at certain trades was noted by early Greek and Roman physicians. The first monograph on occupational diseases was published in 1567, 26 years after the death of its author, the Swiss physician Paracelsus. He set forth one of the basic tenets of modern toxicology when he wrote: "What is it that is not poison? All things are poison and nothing is without poison. It is the dose only that makes a thing not a poison

Using all things is a poisen as an excuse to allow a poisen into the environment is really lame.

No matter how large the experiment or how great the margin of safety, one can never prove that a chemical–or any other factor in the environment, for that matter–is totally harmless. We can only offer probabilities that there will, in fact, be no harm. Absolute safety is the complete absence of harm... and it's a goal we can never achieve.

Once again an argument based on everything is bad so why worry. Once again I find that prejudice. While I did omit quotes from this site that did dispute the lab test showing DDT lethal, I found no mention of a safe level but an admission that it is lethal.

your next link started with this statement...(Bruce Ames)

"The effort to eliminate synthetic pesticides because of unsubstantiated fears about residues in food will make fruits and vegetables more expensive, decrease consumption, and thus increase cancer rates. The levels of synthetic pesticide residues are trivial in comparison to natural chemicals, and thus their potential for cancer causation is extremely low."

He is stating that by banning the use of DDT we will increase the cost of veggies and fruits which will result in more people not having fruits and veggies in their diet. I think we all agree veggies and fruit are high in Vit's A and C that we know can lower the risk of cancer.

Bruce Ames says that it isnt that we neednt worry about man-made chemicals causing cancer, but that natural carcinogens are far more common, and the consensus is that we shouldnt worry about them at all. Why the difference?

Here is saying that eating Poisen in veggies and fruits tha the poisen is offset by Vit A and Vit C . But of course he adds we should worry about DDT .

"There is no risk-free world and resources are limited; therefore, society must distinguish between significant and insignificant risks in order to save the most lives. Putting resources into minimizing minuscule exposures to synthetic substances, such as pesticide residues, while ignoring the natural world, can also harm human health by having adverse side effects, which create more risk. For example, adequate consumption of fruits and vegetables plays a major role in lowering dise-ase rates; therefore if banning pesticides because of tiny hypothetical hazards of residues increases costs (organic food is very expensive), it harms public health. "

drives home his message well,eat veggies and fruits as we know they help prevent cancer. But using an argument that lack of using DDT will increase the cost of them and we should ignore the risk because everything is a risk.. WEll yeah just crawling out of bed is a risk but I don't feel that is a good argument to use poisens.

And, now he is suspicious of a lot of the activists because he thinks they are not good problem sol-vers. "If you push in the wrong direction, then youre counterproductive."

The absence of a good solution does not make a bad decision good..sorry that is almost laughable...

Now for some facts I found about DDT

If you are not familiar with biology, nerve impulse tell the muscles when to contract and relax. Thus, when an organism is poisoned with DDT, it dies by either convulsions (random, uncontrolled contraction of the muscles) or paralysis (complete loss of muscle control).


In the early to mid 1950s, DDT became one of the most widely used pesticides. This was when we thought it was completely harmless to human beings. When we originally used it to control lice, people were unaffected even though they were in direct contact with the pesticides.


One of the reasons why the DDT did not affect people is because it is difficult for DDT to be absorbed through human skin.


Eventually, we realized that some DDT was staying in our bodies. DDT was being used in the environment, on agricultural products, and on livestock. In the 1960's, concern arose about the widespread use of DDT and it's effects on humans.


A study in 1968 showed that Americans were consuming an average of 0.025 milligrams of DDT per day!


When DDT gets into our bodies, it is stored primarily in such fatty organs as the adrenals, testes, and thyroid. DDT is also stored in smaller concentrations in the liver and kidneys.


DDT concentrations are especially high in human milk. Milk production depends heavily on the use of stored body fat, and this is where DDT tends to stay in our bodies.


So exactly how much DDT can my body tolerate before I should really start worrying? That depends on how much you weigh. At concentration above 236 mg DDT per kg of body weight, you'll die. Concentration of 6-10 mg/kg leads to such symptons as headache, nausea, vomiting, confusion, and tremors.

source Duke Univeristy which is a well respected Univeristy in the United States.

http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/pest/effects.html#human

I thought we had agreed that chmicals kill and we were to debate at what level they kill. The links you directed to me did not deny they killed but offered theory's that is not accepted by most Scientist and Physicians.. Show me a link disputing the level at which it kills as like I said "that can be the only debate as I have proven it can kill".

 

Here is the cold reality and I am sorry that your country is faced with such a hard decison. But Argentina will suffer as a country without the use of DDT's. It will mean many of your people will not have veggies and fruits to eat. It will mean many of your farmers will starve to death. It will also reduce your overall trade among other nations. That is a reality and I am sorry but the demands of Argentina is not a good argument that the use of DDT is safe as it's only a decison fueled by economics and not medical facts. It is a acceptable risk in your country but it isn't in the United States.

 

Sooner or later a lot of the topics come back up in sciforums. While not the same info, a lot of the data pertaining to ddt was listed, both pro and con in another thread sometime back. I would suggest that it would be easy to find through a search for ddt.

One of the things we have discovered is that fat acts as a storage place for other things besides unused food, lead, mercury, and ddt amoung them; if I remember right. There is no telling what else is stored in fat in the body. I don't know if we even have developed the tests to show all that is there. I mean, we can do spectroscopy of the material and determine the elements, we can test for what we know, but what we are not aware of we have no tests for. Who knows what esle is stored there we have not yet discovered.

There was the suspected link between ddt and the thinning of the eagle's egg shells. We have stopped using ddt, the eagles are making a good comeback but were they cause and effect? Or was it something else? The releasing of young eagles into the wild, I am sure had something to do with the comeback. I do not think that conclusive evidence was presented that ddt was the sole villian in the decline. Just as much is the enroachment of people into the eagles habitat.

I thought I would throw these thoughts into the discussion as this could become quite lively a thread.

 

We are coming closer to the truth.

Yes, DDT given in very, very high doses, is toxic. That is, given at doses above the MTD (Maximum Tolerated Dose), it will kill living matter in matter of minutes or hours. As it would happen whit any other substance found on Earth. But there has been determined the safe levels of DDT intake: the daily DDT intake by humans in the USA during the 1940-1972 period was about 0,065 mg, found in food residues, water, etc. In order to investigate its effects on humans, groups of volunteers were fed daily DDT doses of 35 mg, during periods of 21 to 27 months, whitout observing deleterous or harmful effects, either then and after more than 30 years (Hayes, Wayland J., 1956, <b>"Effects of Known Repeated Oral Doses of DDT in Man"</b>, <i>Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 162, pp. 890-897)</i>. DDT is metabolized in byproducts that are excreted in urine, and there is no "significant biological magnification" upwards in the food chain, has was theorized at the beginning.

During the years of major usage of DDT, the American citizen was ingesting an average of 13 mg a year; DDT was so safe that canned baby food was allowed to contain up to 5 ppm of DDT. This is a very small concentration: 5 ppm is equivalent to five 1 cent coins in a pile of $ 10,000. Dr. Bruce Ames tell us that every day in our lives we ingest hundreds or thousand of parts per million of natural carcinogenics with our regular diets. If people is worried about the infinitesimal amounts of pesticides found on food, they should know that a cup of coffee contains 10,000 more carcinogenics.

This is science at its best. I don´t know if this was taken from my links, or if it is your own opinion. Either way it is sound reasoning. As stated by Paracelsus, there is not a single substance in Earth that is ABSOLUTELY SAFE. Even water, pure clean water, can be deadly if taken in great amounts, as it would cause an hydrostatic imbalance in the organism leading to death. So we arrive at the core of the matter: <font color="red"><b>"The dose is the poison"</b></font>. Everyday substances, as table salt, aspirin, sugar, foods (you name it), if taken in higher than "safe" doses, will be harmful for our health. So we are, to this point, agreeing on safety and toxicity of substances, chemical products, and foods.

No, as you see he said: "The effort to <b>eliminate synthetic pesticides...</b>", not only DDT. The ban of DDT, although it had a high impact on agricultural costs (for some years there was no insectices able to control many pests, until new and much harmful insecticides were used as Dieldrin, and the horrendous family of organophospates, that BTW, were the insecticides recommended by the NRDC and environmentalists to replace DDT).

Because even natural carcinogenics found in most foods, are in levels still safe for humans, and the carcinogenicity of these natural pesticides is countered by the anti-carcinogens found in vegetables and fruits. What he insists upon is that <b>the levels of synthetic pesticide residues are smaller and less potent than the natural ones.</b> So, if because of an increase of costs imposed by a ban on pesticides (not just DDT), the less afluent people will be eating less veggies and fruits, losing the benefits of anticarcinogenics found on them. As usual, the thread breaks at its weakest point. The poor people is always paying for the party and broken dishes of the richer.

But the real crime of the DDT ban is related to the death toll taken by malaria every year since its ban in 1972. As presently deaths by malaria (and other insect borne diseases as yellow fever, dengue, Chagas-Maza, etc) is in the range of 3 million people a year, we cn make a simple math operation and see: 2002 - 1972 = 30 years x 3 million = <b>90 Million unnecesary and underserved deaths!</b> And we are still horrified by Hitler's Holocaust!

Absolutely! There is no doubt about it. We had agreed on that already. But it seems you keep forgetting that these effects <b>are related to high doses --toxic and sublethal doses, not found in the environment during the years of DDT usage.</b>

I showed you the study that proved that humans in the USA where having a daily intake of <b>0,065 mg, not 0,025 mg.</b> But even 0,065 mg was not harmful. The Montrose DDT factory workers had developed an accumulation of <b>100 to 650 ppm of DDT in their fatty tissues</b>, while the regular American citizen had an average <b>of about 5 ppm</b>. Then we see that Americans kept dying of cancer as usual, <b>but Montrose workers did not!</b> Not one of them had cancer! Was the buildup of DDT in their organism harmful? Far from that: <b>DDT kept them free from cancer!</b>

You are still mentioning lethal, sub-lethal, and highly toxic doses. As I said (and I can prove it) I have been ingesting a DDT solution of 25 mg every day for the past four years, in order to keep my prostate cancer at bay. It has worked, I am in perfect physical conditions (even I do smoke cuban cigars sometimes), and all my tomographies, blood analysis and electrocardiograms show I have the health condition of a 30 years old man (I am 64 now). That is why I am able to make long trips through the Amazon jungle, were younger people that came with me returned in critical conditions. By the way, as you seem to like my weblinks, take a look at at page in our website where you'll find some beautiful pictures about the guarayo indian village of Urubicha, where there is an old (but recycled) Jesuitic Mission. This is the environment where I spent three years (1995-1997) and where I am returning soon, possibly in two months, to live until the economic situation in Argentina returns to normal --that is: never. I will be guiding eco-tourists into the jungle and staying away of Bin lLaden, the CIA (although not from the DEA), George Bush, Kissinger and the rest of crazy people cramming the world Go here:

<A HREF=http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/photo.html>Urubicha in the Amazon Jungle</A>

 

Hun...some of these test you are showing as proof I need something to link up to. I am not doubting you, but give me a link that supports that and not a study..see what I am saying??These case studies you are talking about it may be easy for you to get your hands on in your line of work but not sitting here in the little town where I live...Perhaps you can list the top three for me to review and I can try the local library to see if they can cross reference.>???Surely you see my point

 

Bald Eagles are growing hair...

You are right, wanderer1. The Bald Eagles and Peregrine Flacons are well and happy. The falcon was endangered, but not because of DDT. It was endangered by a reward given for their heads. Let me post a re-translation from Spanish into English by Dr. J. Gordon Edwards, emerit professor of entomolgy at State University of San Jose, Cal., where he has been teaching biology and entomology for more than 50 years. He is a long standing member of the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society, and member of the California Academy of Sciences. What you are about to read is a very small potion of his lecture at Dartmouth College, on April 11, 1999. In case you would like to read more, please tell me and I´ll try to find the original lecture in English and will send it to you by a private email through sci.forums service.

<b>The Bald Eagle</b>
In 1921, an article in <i>Ecology</i> was titled: "<i>Threat of Extinction of the Bald Eagle".</i> Until 1952 Alaska paid subsidies on 128,000 bald eagles. In 1930 --15 years before DDT-- ornithologists reported the existance of only 10 bald eagles nesting in Pennsylvania, 15 in the Washington, D.C. area, and none in most parts of New England. <i>Bird Lore</i> magazine wrote: <i>"This will give you the idea of how rare the bald eagle is in the Eastern US"</i>.
So the bald eagle was almost extinct long before DDT and other synthetic pesticides were discovered. Do the environmental extremists believe that the bald eagle <b>declined in anticipation of DDT</b>?

The <i>Hawk Mountain Sanctuary</i> reported that the number of bald eagles migrating through Pennsylvania had almost doubled during the first six years of intense use of DDT in the US Norhwest. Before DDT, the Annual Christmas Bird Counts by the Audubon Society recorded only 76 bald eagles in 1941, but after years of heavy DDT use, they recorded 891 bald eagles in 1961. In 1973, a biologist from the Everglades National park declared: <i>"I don´t know of any evidence that shows there was a higher number of bald eagles nesting ever".</i>

Between 1960-64, the Fish and Wildlife Service Center in Patuxent, Maryland, made the autopsies of 76 bald eagles found dead in the US, and reported that 71% of them had been killed violently (shot, electrocuted, or crashed against buildings and towers), and 4 died from diseases, <b>but none of them had been poisoned by pesticides.</b> They reached to the conclusion that <i>"the role of pesticides have been grossly exaggerated".</i> (Journal of Wildife Diseases, No. 6, 1970).

From 1964 until 1972, 190 bald eagle were analyzed. Most of them had been shot, and the majority of the rest also died violently. It was suspected that there were 19 cases of pesticide poisoning, but no one had DDT involvement. (Pesticied Monitoring Journal, 9:12-13, 1975).

During 112 days, the Fish and Wildlife Service fed high levels of DDT to a group of bald eagles in cages (up to 4,000 micrograms/kg) without observing harmful effects. <i>(Trans. 31st N.A. Wildlife Conference, 1966)</I> From 1974 until 1988, the USA spent millions of dollars in programs of raising bald eagles, and many more were spotted in most parts of the country. In 1983, New York state had only three bald eagle active nests, but later they imported 150 bald eagles from Alaska. Peter Nye wrote in <i>Natural History</i> magazine (May 1982) that in 1940 only existed a few couples <i>"...but DDT, frequently mentioned as the culprit, was not present until the 1950s, when the last eagles were already fighting for their survival."</i>

<b>Seagulls: to abundant to live</b>
In Trend Island, Massachussetts, seagulls increased during the years of DDT, from 2,000 couples up to 35,000 couples in 1971. William Drury, president of the Audubon Society in Massachussetss, decided to poison 30,000 of these birds, even though they were in the "endangered" and protected birds list. He had success and said: <i>"It is like weeding the garden".</I> AP, April 12th, 1971). It is quite remarkable that nobody had noticed that seagulls had increased by 28,000 during the years of heavy use of DDT!

<b>Peregrin Falcons</b>
Dr. William Hornady (head of the New York Zoological Society), commented on the Peregrine Falcons in his book of 1913 "Vanishing Wildlife". He wrote that the undesirable peregrine falcons <i>"deserve death, but they are so rare that we shouldn´t take them into account"</i>. He urged to people finding peregrine nests <i>"...to shoot on the parents and destroy the eggs or the offsprings."</i> (Peregrins were listed in most states as "plagues" before the environmentalists converted them into an environmental gold mine in the USA). ...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
... "I liked to travel to Inuvik, in the Northwest Territory, were peregrins are common. Canadian biologists reported that the nesting success <i>"was so high as never before recorded for the species (an average of 2,4 offsprings for every active nest)</i> Frank Beebe, the Canadian highest authority in predators, wrote in his book <i>"The Myth of the Vanishing Peregrines"</i> that <i>it seems that Canadian peregrines, ignorant of how gravely ill they are, continue to reproduce in a blissful unconcern about their desperate condition".</i>

"What effects had DDT in birds that ingested it? The researcher Hickney testified during the hearings held by the EPA, that he could not kill his caged robins feeding them DDT overdoses, simply because the product passed through the digestive tract and was eliminated in the feces" ... "

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

These are just briefs excerpts from the lecture by Prof. J. Gordon Edwards. Anyone interested in the full article? (14 pages in Word 97 format).

Dr. J. Gordon Edwards has written many excellent articles on the DDT issue in the "politically incorrect" scientific magazine <A HREF="http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com">21st Century Science & Technology</A>, where you can read fine articles as "Malaria: The Killer That Could Have Conquered", "The Lies of Rachel Carson", and many, many more.

--------------------------------

 

Absolutely. Most of my references are taken form books and scientific magazines (and where possible I give the reference, but it is not easy to get the books or articles published in scientific magazines in the seventies or earlier. Most magazines don´t have a databse accesible from the web. At least it is not as easy as an internet link).

But I will do my best and will try to find all references on the subject that will do the job.

PS: did you see the pictures of Urubicha in the Amazon?

 

Thanks smiles..and give it some thought on DDT and which case studies I should try at the library... PS: did you see the pictures of Urubicha in the Amazon?
No, did I overlook that link??which link was it?

 

Edufer,

There is prejudice against people with HIV in the US. Strongly doubt getting out of a contract would be adequate compensation for the negative impact Johnson’s announcement had on his social life. Would guess that his disclosure represents admirable character.

As there are animal models for similar diseases, this hamster doubts that reduced stress by itself prevents HIV from progressing to AIDS. (A commercial vaccine for a feline form of HIV has recently been announced. Apparently the virus is weaker in cats.)

Appreciate your discussion and links. This hamster agrees that organizations such as the EPA do engage in spin. As do corporations. Also feel that the EPA attracts dedicated people who are strongly committed to certain beliefs that flavor their actions. Wouldn’t go so far as to “never trust anything coming from the EPA”. The EPA (as well as the Food and Drug Administration) follows a conservative do no harm philosophy. All decisions have consequences. Playing it “safe” may cause harm in other ways, as your Malaria link shows. Also economic consequence isn’t trivial.


Justagirl, thanks for the Duke University link.

 

Link to pictures of Urubicha village

justagirl, the link is way up in this same page, but I will repeat it for you:

<A HREF="http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/photo.html">The village of Urubicha in the Amazon</A>

I hope you like the pictures (the captions are in Spanish, but there are worse things in life).

 

And we come to the End...

To put an end to this discussion on DDT, please let me send this last post. Although we have not touched the political reasons behind the ban of DDT, I think this would take a long time and it is beyond the scientific side of the matter. After all, this is a science formum, isn't it? Let us leave politics out of science, even though politics will never let us go free...

<font color="red"><B>What is DDT?</B></font>
DDT is the abbreviation for IUPAC 1,1,-trichloro-2,2-bis(p-chloro-phenyl) ethane, whose chemical formula is C₁₄H₉Cl₅. It is a chlorinated hydrocarbon, produced from a combination of chloral and chlorobenzene. It is a contact insecticide, penetrating the external body surface (the cuticule) of the insect to act as a nerve poison. It is so effective in malaria erradication programs because of its residual effects.

The most important metabolical product is DDE, short for Dichloro-Diphenyl-Ethane, (UIPAC 1,1-dichloro-2,2-bis (p-chloro-phenyl-ethylene). DDE is produced as DDT is dehydrochlorinated in insects, microorganisms, birds, fish, mammals, and dead organic matter. DDE is the most persistent and widespread DDT residue because it is relatively inert. Most DDT "experiments" actually measure quantities of DDE, since DDT has such a short halflife, from hours to days in most species.

DDT controls more than 20 serious human diseases, including bubonic plague, yellow fever, trypanosomiasis, elephantiasis, leishmaniasis, and encephalitis. It greatly increases production of food crops by killing insect pests. In underveloped countries as much as 40 percent of each crop is lost to insects. In the US, cotton, peanuts, and potatoes increased 60 to 119 percent when DDT was used, and the production of alfalfa seed increased from 300 to 600 percent.

<font color="red"><b>How Dangerous is DDT to Humans?</b></font>
In 1969, when DDT was being on trial by the EPA, intending to ban it, the director of the World Health Organization (WHO) declared:

<blockquote><i>"It is so safe that no symptoms have been observed among the 130,000 spraymen or the 535 million inhabitants of sprayed houses. No toxicity was observed in the wildlife of the countries participating in the malaria campaign. Therefore WHO has no grounds to abandon this chemical which has saved millions of lives, the discontinuation of which would result in millions of deaths and hundreds of millions of illnesses. It has served at least 2 billion people in the world without costing a single human life by poisoning from DDT. The discontinuation of the use of DDT would be a disaster to world health"</i>. Prophetic words.</blockquote>

DDT is metabolized into breakdown products that are excreted in the urine, and there is no significant "biological magnification" up food chains, as once hypothesized. To appreciate the nontoxicity of DDT to human beings, consider the following: Tests by Dr. Wayland Hayes for the U.S. Public Service involved feeding human volunteers tremendous quantities of DDT to see if any adverse effects developed. The men ingested up to 35 mg of DDT in their food, <b>every day for 18 months</b>, and had no resultant difficulties either at the time or within the following 6 to 10 years while they remained under observation. (Hayes, Weyland, 1956. <b><i>Effect of Known Repeated Oral Doses of DDT in Man"</b>, Journal of the American medical Association, Vol. 162, pp. 890-897)</I>. During the years of greatest DDT use, the average US citizen was ingesting less than 13 mg <b>per year</b>, and DDT was so safe that canned baby food was permitted to contain 5 parts per million of DDT.

<font color="red"><b>The Montrose Workers Case</B></font>
The workers at the Montrose Chemical Company, which produced DDT, used no gloves or protective clothing of any kind and they were inhaling the DDT dust all day. Dr. Edward Laws of the U.S. Public Health Service examined the Montrose workers and found that they had accumulated <b<38 to 647 ppm</b> (parts per million) of DDT and its isomers in their fat tissue, but experienced no ill effects. At that time, the level of DDT in the fat tissue of the general population was only 5 to 6 ppm. Laws stated in a publication of the American Medical Association: <i>"It is noteworthy that (after 10 to 20 years on the job) <font color="red"><b>no cases of cancer developed among these workers, in some 1,300 man-years of exposure, a statistically improbable event"</b></font></i>. (Edward R. Laws, Jr., et al. <i>Archives of Environmental Health, </i>Vol. 15, pp. 766-775 (1967) and Vol. 23, pp. 181-184 (1971).

Laws later performed experiments feeding rodents DDT at 10,000 times the proportion ingested by humans and then transplanting malignant tumors directly into their brains. Without the DDT there was 100 percent mortality, but the cancer <b<dissappeared</b> from the brains of 22 of the 60 mice that had been on the DDT diet for six months. A 30 percent cure from cancer is a rate deserving further studies. Why did not the authorities keep doing this research? It was not politically correct.

Other scientists reported similar results. Drs. Charles Silinskas and Allan E. Okey found that DDT in the diet inhibited chemically induced mammary cancer and leukemia in rats. (Charles Silinskas and Allan E. Okey, 1975, <b>"Inhibition of Leukemia by DDT"</b>, <i>Journal of the National Cancer Institute,<(i> Vol. 55 (Sept.), pp. 653-657.)

Writing in <i>The British Medical Bulletin</I> in 1969, Dr. A.E. McLean, aq prominent pathologist and his coauthors cited the increased induction of enzymes by the liver of animals that have ingested DDT. The acute toxicity of Aflatoxin (a powerful carcinogen produced by common molds in grain and other seeds) was greatly enhanced in protein-deficient rats, they wrote, <i>"but the effect was reversed if they had previously eaten moderate amounts of DDT..."</i> The authors concluded: <i>"It appears likely that aflatoxin B1 and perhaps other aflatoxins , which are among the most carcinogenic substances known, are converted to non-toxic metabolites in the liver by the hydroxylation system".</i> (A.E.M. McLean, and E.K. McLean, 1969. <b>"Diet and Toxicity"</b>, </i>British Medical Bulletin</I>, Vol. 25, pp. 278-281.)

The web address of Dr. Bruce Ames is <A HREF="http://mcb.berkeley.edu/faculty/BMB/amesb.html">Bruce Ames</A> and also: <A HREF="http://socrates.berkeley.edu/mutagen/center.amesbn.html">More Bruce Ames</A>, and <A HREF="http://www.ideachannel.com/Ames.htm">The Best of All Links on Bruce Ames</A> where there are many scientific papers by him and Dr. Louise Gold for downloading. If you want to contact him regarding any doubt you have on DDT and other pesticeds, please reach him at: his email: <A HREF="mailto:bnames@uclink4.berkeley.edu">bnames@uclink4.berkeley.edu</A>

I hope this has been useful to you all.

 

Corn strains in Bolivia

Banshee, your claim that GN corn has made virtually impossible growing old strains of corn without specialized techniques, made me email a friend of mine in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, (an Agronomer) to see if he could give the strian of corn presently being used in Bolivia. He got in touch with the databases in the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Economy and found these results:

<center><b>Strains of Corn Presently Grown in the Republic of Bolivia </b>
(year 2001 data)</center>
<dir><dir><dir><dir><dir>
<b>--- Name: ----------------- Altitude at which it grows</b>
.
Confite pune&ntilde;o -------------- (2160-3990 m)
Altiplano ----------------------- (1900-3800 m)
Patillo -------------------------- (2600-3275 m)
Kcello -------------------------- (2000-3650 m)
Kulli ----------------------------- (2000-3650 m)
Huilcaparu -------------------- (1300-3600 m)
Chake-sara ------------------- (1900-2400 m)
Aysuma ------------------------ (2000-3560 m)
Patillo grande ---------------- (2300-2650 m)
Cchecchi ---------------------- (2160-2750 m)
Paru ---------------------------- (2800 m)
Chuspilla ---------------------- (1100-3600 m)
Cuzco boliviano ------------- (200-2720 m)
Cuzco huilcaparu ----------- (no altitude given)
Pisankalla -------------------- (900-3560 m)
Uchuquilla -------------------- (1150-3420 m)
Karapampa ------------------ (1800-2160 m)
Argentino --------------------- (500-2720 m)
Ni&ntilde;uelo ------------------------ (1880-2000 m)
Camba ------------------------ (360-560 m)
Cateto ------------------------- (140-2000 m)
Porro -------------------------- (330 m)
Coroico blanco -------------- (150 m)
Coroico amarillo ------------ (80-1000 m)
Coroico ----------------------- (100-1390 m)
Enano ------------------------- (170-220 m)
</dir></dir></dir></dir></dir>

Now tell your sources that they are utterly ignorant (or great misinformers). Either way, you gave us wrong information (that you took at face value, without checking if there was some truth supporting the serious claim that regular strains of corn can no longer be grown.) If you are interested in the subject of genetically modified crops, go to professor <A HREF="http://www.probiotech.fsnet.co.uk"> Philip Stott's website</A>. He teaches biology at the London University, Great Britain.

 

Duke University website: what a laugh!

justagirl: I took a look at the Duke University link you provided. It is comprised mainly by the same data and misinformation, dressed with pseudo scientific clothes, provided by Rachel Carson in "Silent Spring" and Paul Ehrlich in "The Population Bomb" and subsequent books. This page seems directed to primary school kids <b>whose criterion for judging scientific information is null. </b>There is of course, some scientific and technical data, but it is only about mechanisms of the skin (DDT is not absorbed through the skin), and the chemical formula along with the real name of DDT --the same information I provided in my last post, before I had the chance to search the Duke University link.

<b>There is something wrong there.</b> They say: <i>"DDT is water insoluble and lipid (fat) soluble. This means that DDT will not dissolved in water, but it will in the fats of organisms."</i>

Unfortunately, the solution of DDT I take everyday (25 mg) as a cancer preventive, is diluted in water. Another example: As recalled by Dr. J. Gordon Edwards, <i>"Another serious pest in northern Africa and in Central America is the little blackfly (<b>Simulium</b>) that transmits the parasitic roundworms causing "river blindness" (<b>onchocerciasis</b>) in human beings. Before DDT. More than 20,000 Africans were blind, including more than 30 percent of the population in some villages. The fly larvae live in swift streams and for many decades were impossible to control. A happy accident brought DDT into the battle against the disease-carrying blackfly. A mule carrying DDT to a malaria spraying project in the Volta River basin in the 1950s slipped while fording a stream and spilled its load of DDT powder into the water. Blackfly larvae were killed for a mile downstream, but other aquatic life was not adversely affected. Soon, many rivers were being sprayed with DDT from airplanes and there was a great reduction in the number of afflicted people."</i> So, DDT kills larvae with direct contact without being diluted? No way!

And how do you explain this blatant contradiction in the same Duke University page?: They say without blushing: <i>"Even small amounts of DDT can affect small microorganisms. This is especially true for microorganisms <b>that live in the water</b> (i.e. algae, and plankton), because the aquatic environment can bring more DDT in contact with these organisms. As an example of this high sensitivity, <b>water that contains only 0.1 (g (micrograms) of DDT per liter</b> can slow down growth and photosynthesis in green algae."</i>

If DDT was insoluble in water, then it would sink to the bottom of rivers, lakes, oceans, etc., without affecting microorganisms and algae!.

The Duke University page didn't tell us the origin of their claims on microorganisms in water and algae. So I will do it for you: During the hearings held by EPA for banning DDT, one accusation was DDT would bring "death to the oceans". It was based on a 1968 note published by a founder of the <i>Environmental Defense Fund</i> (EDF, that later made a fortune with the DDT ban), Charles F. Wurster, in <i>Science</i> magazine. (Charles F- Wurster, 1968, "<b>DDT Reduces Photosynthesis by Marine Phytoplankton,"</b> <i>Science</i> magazine. (March 29), Vol. 168, pp. 1474-1475.), Let me quote what late renown scientist Dr. Thomas H. Jukes, a biochemist at the Space Science Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley said about this in an article published in <i>21st Century Science & Technology</i> (Fall 1994), Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 46-54):

<blockquote>
<i>"This note described the addition of graded amounts of an alcohol solution of DDT to cultures of marine algae in seawater, followed by estimating photosynthesis from radiolabeled carbon dioxide (¹⁴CO₂) uptake. The addition of DDT ranged up to concentrations of 500 ppb (parts per billion) in the cultures, using the alcohol to force solution to the saturation point. The ¹⁴CO₂ uptake was depressed at the higher concentrations, presumably because of the phytotoxicity of DDT."

"The maximum natural solubility of DDT is 1.2 ppb in seawater </i> <b>(Note:</b>which demonstrates the falsehood of Duke University site claim about insolubility of DDT) <i> and above this level it would be precipitated and adhere to the algae. No depression (on average) of photosynthesis was found at levels of 1 to 2 ppb. It is surprising that <b>Science</b>, the weekly magazine of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, permitted publication of such an ill-contrived experiment. Nevertheless, the publication was seized upon by biologist Paul Ehrlich, who used to predict the <b>'death of the oceans'</b> in the following terms:"
<dir>
"The end of the ocean came late in the summer of 1979, and it came even more rapidly than the biologists had expected. There had been signs for more than a decade, commencing with the discovery of 1968 that DDT slows down photosynthesis in marine plant life. It was announced in a short paper in the technical journal, Science, but to ecologists it smacked of doomsday. They knew that all life in the sea depends on photosynthesis, the chemical process by which green plants bind the Sun's energy and make it available to living things. And they knew that DDT and similar chlorinated hydrocarbons had polluted the entire surface of the Earth, including the sea." </> (Paul Ehrlich, 1969, <b>"Eco-Catastrophe!"</b>, <i>Ramparts</i> (Septemeber 1969, p. 25. Ehrlich is best known for his <i>The Population Bomb</i>, (New York, Ballantine Books, 1986), which incorrectly predicted that the world would completely run out of food in the 1970s)"
</dir>
"Ehrlich's declamation were echoed by U Thant in his capacity of head of the United Nations. Fears were expressed that DDT would bring an end to the world's supply of oxygen by ending photosynthesis, when actually there are 60,000 mols of oxygen per square meter of the Earth surface, compared to 8 mols per square meters produced annually by photosynthesis.
Also, saturation of the oceans with DDT would require 1.2 x 10¹⁰ kilos of DDT --an amount equal to more than 9,000 years of pre-Carson DDT production levels! And, as noted above, <b>saturation would have no effect on photosynthesis by marine algae."

"This is an example of the "science" used in the campaign to ban DDT. "</i>
</blockquote>
<font color="red">And also the "science" used by the Duke University web page on DDT... </font> LOL! Lots of LOL!</b> Let's go further in this funny science:

Then they keep saying: "(For a <b>possible</b> explanation to eggshell thinning, click here.)"</i> So they really don´t know. They can only suggest a "possible" explanation! They have not get the news that there never was eggshell thinning! They never knew the experiments "showing eggshell thinning" were flawed and faked, and when peer-revied, no one was able to reproduce the results claimed by the "eggshell thinners". When conducted in a proper and scientific manner, the eggshells got thicker or didn't show any difference with non DDT-fed birds. You'll find all the information on the causes of eggshell thinning in the work by Fish and Wildlife Service scientists, Tucker y Haegele (Bulletin of Environmental Contamination & Toxicology, 5:19, 1971).

M.L. Scott, J.R. Zimmerman, Susan Marinsky, P.A. Mulenhoff, G.L. Rumsley y R.W. Rice spent many years at Cornell University testing different chemical products in the diets of birds in order to determine the cases of eggshell thinning. They reported that DDT, DDE, and DDD in the diet <b>resulted in thicker eggshells</b>, instead of thinner! (Tucker et al, <i>Utah Science</i>, June 1971).

So, after I clicked on the "click here", I found this "possible explanation": <i>"DDT can change into many different forms that are only slightly different from the original. We call these new forms metabolites. <b>We think</b> that one of these metabolites, abbreviated DDE, interferes with certain reproductive enzymes in birds."</i> So they THINK, they GUESS, they SUSPECT, they <B>DON'T HAVE THE SLIGHTEST IDEA!</B> This is not science. This the kind of science-by-press-releases that has driven real science out of schools --and governmental offices.

PS: you wanted to know which dose of DDT is not lethal or harmful? I know by personal experience that 25 mg a day is not harmful. On the contrary, it is quite safe and healthy. So, don´t worry if you get the daily 0,065 mg the American citizen used to ingest every day.

Throw away any neurosis the green propaganda might have given you. Live happy! Enjoy life! DDT won't kill you, it might keep you away from cancer. It worked for me.