(Nick Maclaren) wrote in message ...
In article ,
martin writes:
| On 31 Jul 2003 08:47:26 GMT, (Nick Maclaren) wrote:
| In article ,
| martin writes:
| |
| | http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/mom/ddt/ddt.html
| |
| | "The use of DDT was banned in the United States in 1973, although it
| | is still in use in some other parts of the world. The buildup of DDT
| | in natural waters is a reverisble process: the EPA reported a 90%
| | reduction of DDT in Lake Michigan fish by 1978 as a result of the
| | ban."
| |
| | and
| | http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,55843,00.html
|
| If I recall correctly, it was still INCREASING in some Arctic animals
| well into the 1990s. While the process is reversible, the timescale
| is very long.
|
| Do you know how many million people die of malaria every year?

About 60, I think. However, the human race is in no great danger
of becoming extinct - at least from that cause. Furthermore, do
you know how many strains of mosquito were/are developing resistance
to DDT?

And in any case, to get back to "the instructions on the tin", we have
a right to take a very conservative attitude to agro-chemicals: I
can't think of an example of a newly-introduced chemical compound (as
opposed to one in the presence of which mammals have evolved, though
some of them turn out nasty, too) which hasn't progressively had its
safe level reduced as we found out more about it. There must be some
examples, I imagine; but I can't think of them.

People don't always follow the instructions, even if they can read the
language on the tin, and that's if they can read at all. I remember
being sprayed, like everybody else in a room full of university
graduates, with old-fashioned Flit in the Middle East: I was the only
person in there who knew it was a bad idea. God knows what was in the
flea-powder people used sometimes to put in their beds. I've seen
spray-drift from British operations often enough, too.

All I ask is caution: as near organic as you can reasonably get in
your particular circumstances. Irrelevant arguments about drinking
pee, and the harmful effects of next-door's oak-leaves, strike me as
an attempt to avoid the issue.

Mike.